Hundreds of Chicago public school teachers will skip work on Wednesday and head to the Illinois state capital to lobby for billions of dollars that could be used to fund a lengthy list of “politically charged” union demands, as students in the district face troubling absenteeism rates, violent crime, and poor test scores. 

The district says the money would go toward pensions and represents the district’s “fair share” of state funding, but it could also be used “to shore up funds” for union demands that include enormous pay hikes, teacher autonomy over sensitive subjects, and millions of dollars in home-buying and rental assistance for teachers, the senior director of labor policy at Illinois Policy Institute, Mailee Smith, tells the Sun.