Chicago school board election is about the fight for public education

Chicago is on the verge of its first election for school board members, making a historic shift from an appointed board to an elected one for its public schools.

This transition follows years of activism seeking more accountability from a board that governs a school district serving more than 325,000 students. Yet the broader conversation in the lead-up to this election has been about the influence of special interests, shifting away from prioritizing students and their needs.

The truth is, this election is about much more than the dollars funneled into the race by special interests. That analysis is important, but ultimately reductive, focused on shorter-term outcomes such as how it will impact the next labor contract or the cementing of “school choice” policies.

The true question is: Will we reaffirm our commitment to public education as a public good to serve all of our children? Access to quality education should not be a privilege for those who can afford it or win it through a competitive system, but a fundamental right. The school board election is an opportunity to choose candidates who will protect public education, rather than funnel public dollars into privatized models under the guise of “school choice.”

“School choice” policies are market-based models, such as charter schools and voucher programs, that rest on the premise of competition, assuming that schools “competing” to attract students will drive improvement, thereby benefiting students.

The reality, however, is that markets shift, resources fluctuate, and in the process, children’s lives are significantly impacted. Charter schools are funded by public tax dollars, but largely accountable to private boards, and their survival is heavily impacted by their ability to out-compete other schools in attracting new students and the priorities of their unelected board members.

The report "Broken Promises” by the Network for Public Education followed charter schools from 1999 to 2017 and found “charter closure rates to be alarmingly high, rising to 50% by the 15th year.”

In fact, “between 1999 and 2017, over 867,000 students were displaced when their charter school closed,” placing the primary responsibility on parents to find a new school for their children, and ultimately impacting local public schools who take on the burden of accepting hundreds of new students mid-year without the appropriate planning and resources. These statistics should not strike us as unusual, but as the foreseeable results of educational models rooted in market-based values.

Chicago students and families are confronting these issues right now, as one of the most sizeable charter networks in the city, Acero, has recently announced a fundamental restructuring that proposes closing seven schools in a single year.

School choice models too often leave families vulnerable to these dynamics, while simultaneously contributing negatively to disinvestment in neighborhood public schools and widening resource gaps between schools. The impacts are almost always felt by communities that have been historically marginalized by racial, economic and political inequities. 

Courted by school choice

Racial justice is at the heart of this issue. For decades, Black and brown communities have been courted by school choice programs that simultaneously continue to entrench systemic inequities and ultimately leave historically marginalized communities more vulnerable.

Meaningful progress will require prioritizing and affirming public education opportunities available to all students to address inequities rather than relying on market-based models that often perpetuate the inequities we are trying to solve.

Relying on competitive models rather than making the investments necessary to provide excellent educational opportunities as a right and public good continuously causes instability and harm to communities of color and lower-wealth districts.

Our state is currently underfunding our public schools by $2.5 billion a year, leaving thousands of students, primarily Black and Brown students, attending under-resourced schools. This kind of gap and persistent underfunding is not something that can be resolved by relying on private interests to advance school choice programs that only serve a select few for a limited amount of time.

The future of our public schools is on the ballot — this election is our chance to affirm that education is, and must remain a public good. For the first time, Chicago voters have the opportunity to elect leaders who value public education and will protect that right for all our children.

We must build our schools on the unshakeable ground of public investment, ensuring that every child in Chicago, regardless of race, zip code, or economic status, has access to high-quality public education. The time is now to make our voices heard and build a more equitable future for our children.

Beatriz Diaz-Pollack is a public school parent, former educator and director of Education Equity at Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. Zindy Marquez, a product of public schools, is the director of communications at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. 

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