After a decades-long fight to have a direct say in the direction of Chicago Public Schools, voters Tuesday will decide for the first time who will represent them on the city’s school board.
The election is an important moment for the many activists and parents who begged disinterested school board members to listen to them and gathered petitions to prove Chicago wanted this opportunity. After 30 years, Chicago’s public schools will no longer be controlled by the mayor.
Many hope it will usher in a new era in which the school district is more responsive to the parents and children it serves. But there are concerns the new board — set to grow from seven to 21 members — will be too big and unwieldy and too consumed by politics to lead to better outcomes.
The race has attracted a diverse group of candidates, from a long-time activist who fought for the elected board, to former principals and a Grammy Award-winning rapper. There also are some parents frustrated with their kids’ experiences, and some private school parents who say they want to make sure CPS families get to choose whether their children go to the neighborhood school or charters or some other type.
Thirty-one people are running to represent 10 geographic districts. The voting districts are large, with about 275,000 residents apiece, running through several different neighborhoods.
But the races are near the bottom of the city ballot, so lower down-ballot turnout is a concern. Candidates and community groups have struggled with a lack of awareness that these elections are happening for the first time, with many voters confusing them for Local School Council elections.
Nonetheless, Tuesday’s results will begin to shape the new makeup of the Board of Education as it moves to 21 members. The mayor will continue to appoint 11 members, including the president, until 2027 when the board becomes fully elected.
Election night will also help determine how many of the 10 elected members will be aligned with Mayor Brandon Johnson and his allies in the Chicago Teachers Union, how many will come from the movement that supports charter schools and other “school choice” options and staunchly opposes the union — or how many will be independent of both.
The CTU endorsed and financially backed candidates in each of the 10 districts. One of them, longtime activist Aaron “Jitu” Brown, is largely guaranteed a seat as he is the only name left on the ballot in District 5, which covers the West Side. He has two write-in opponents.
The CTU, through its political action committee and several others, spent $1.6 million to promote their candidates — which include several CPS mothers, a teacher and a pastor — and attack their opponents with negative ads tying them to the school privatization movement and former President Donald Trump. The powerful CTU had a natural campaign advantage with nearly 30,000 members, many of whom served as ground troops, knocking on doors to convince voters.
But more conservative school choice advocates who oppose the CTU think it’s their moment to put a dent in the union’s power and for them to prove the union has lost popularity.
The battle between those two movements has played out in several races, and most aggressively and prominently in the 3rd District on the Near Northwest Side, 4th District on the North Side, the 7th and 8th districts on the Southwest Side and the 10th District on the South Side.
The recent controversies — the mayor pushing an unpopular loan to deal with a budget shortfall that CPS CEO Pedro Martinez refused, the mayor laying the groundwork to fire him and then the entire Board of Education becoming disgruntled and resigning — has thrust the school board race into the spotlight.
The Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center Action are among the groups hoping to capitalize. They have spent more than $3 million to not only drum up support for their candidates, but also to run negative ads against CTU-endorsed hopefuls, who they warn would be controlled by the mayor and union.
“Mayor Johnson’s Political Agenda is Causing Chaos In Our Public Schools,” reads a flyer sent in many districts by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ super PAC.
The majority of board members will still be appointed by the mayor, but INCS President Andrew Broy said he would be happy to capture at least some seats. There’s a “major difference between having 19, 20 or 21 board members aligned in lock step with the mayor and with CTU versus having a ‘caucus’ of members with opposing policy ideas,” he said.
INCS doesn’t have a goal for how many candidates it can get on the board — it says it’s supporting hopefuls with realistic chances.
“We’re here to win races, not just to spend resources,” Broy said.
The union and progressive groups have criticized INCS and Urban Center Action for taking big money from millionaires and billionaires, some of whom don’t live in Illinois.
U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago), an ally of the CTU, said the school board elections are a “crossroads” for the future of the city’s public education.
“The very same people that did everything in their power to block an elected, representative school board in Springfield are at it again,” Ramirez said. “This time, what they’re doing is they’re trying to buy the election.”
In six districts, there are also independent candidates that are not allied with any group. While they are being outspent, some say voters seem to be looking for people not attached to either the teachers union or their opponents.