Dive Brief:

• The Chicago Teachers Union has rejected a contract offer, calling Chicago Public Schools' new plans to cut $100 million in spending and staff an "attempt to bully," the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
• Current contract negotiations have continued for a total of 14 months, and 1,000 teaching jobs are on the line. 
• At the same time, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner says he’s now preparing for a state takeover of the district, telling the state Board of Education to begin a job hunt for an interim superintendent.

Dive Insight:

Chicago Public Schools is going through a kind of whiplash. At first, 200 teaching jobs were supposedly at stake. An additional 180 vacant positions were said to be facing closure, and both moves combined were expected to save the district $45.1 million annually. That's in an attempt to reduce a $1.1 billion budget deficit. Now, a reported 1,000 teaching jobs might get axed.

Just days ago, the latest teacher's contract offer was expected to move forward.

The state takeover might not result in improvement. Similar moves, such as Michigan's Education Achievement Authority district in Detroit and New Jersey's takeover of Newark, largely failed to achieve promised school turnarounds. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democrats in the state's legislature are strongly opposed to the plan.  

CPS is also grappling with the guilty plea of former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett to receiving kickbacks on multimillion-dollar no-bid contracts.