First CPS School Board elections on Tuesday
After a set of campaigns largely defined by opposing progressive and more conservative education movements, early election results Tuesday night gave neither the Chicago Teachers Union nor charter school advocates a major cause for celebration in the city’s first-ever school board elections.
Only one of the 10 races was called by the Associated Press early in the night as vote totals continued to trickle in — the West Side’s 5th District was won by a union-backed candidate who ran uncontested.
But two races remained neck-and-neck — the 1st District on the Northwest Side with a union hopeful with a slight lead, the other in the South Side’s 10th District with an independent candidate ahead. There were clear leaders in the other seven districts, but none had been called by the AP.
In all, the CTU’s endorsed hopefuls won or were leading in four districts in the early vote returns. Candidates who received anti-CTU, pro-charter school campaign cash were ahead in three races. And, in a surprise, independents unaffiliated with either movement held leads in the other three districts.
The results represented voters’ first chance to have a direct say in the direction of Chicago Public Schools after a decades-long fight to create an elected school board.
The election was 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. For now, the mayor will continue to appoint 11 members, including the president, until the board becomes fully elected in 2027.
The first-of-its-kind race attracted a diverse group of 31 candidates, from a long-time activist who fought for the elected board, to former principals and a Grammy Award-winning rapper. There also were some parents frustrated with their kids’ experiences, and some private school parents who said they wanted to make sure CPS families get to choose whether their children go to the neighborhood school or charters or some other type.
The voting districts are large, with about 275,000 residents apiece, running through several different neighborhoods.
But the races were near the bottom of the ballot, so lower down-ballot turnout was a concern. It wasn’t immediately clear how that played out. Candidates and community groups struggled with a lack of awareness that these elections were happening for the first time.
Nonetheless, Tuesday’s results will begin to shape the new makeup of the Board of Education as it moves to 21 members.
The CTU endorsed and financially backed candidates in each of the 10 districts. One, longtime activist Aaron “Jitu” Brown, was immediately declared the winner by the AP as he was the only name left on the ballot in District 5, which covers the West Side. He had two write-in opponents.
After polls closed, the song “Celebration” blared from speakers at Brown’s election night party on the West Side.
Brown led a 34-day strike to reopen Dyett High School in 2015. He also fought for years to create an elected school board. Brown swore off going to Board of Education meetings a decade ago because he said the board didn’t listen to parents. Now he’ll sit on that same governing body.
“We are going to reimagine education on the West Side of Chicago,” Brown said to the crowd as they chanted his name. “Y’all ain’t following me nowhere. We ride together. You got to dream with me.
“There were days I didn’t believe. There were days ... I’m sitting in a jail cell, you know what I mean, and I’m nervous because I’m African American, and as a Black man, I’m dealing with the police,” he said of his encounters as an activist. “So they were difficult times, but this has taught me to stay the course.”
The CTU, through its political action committee and several others it financed, spent $1.6 million to promote its candidates — which included several CPS mothers, a teacher and a pastor — and attack its 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 school choice advocates who oppose the CTU thought it was their moment to put a dent in the union’s power and for them to prove the union had lost popularity.
The battle between those two movements played out in several races, and most aggressively 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.
Candidates who received financial support from anti-CTU corners led in the 3rd, 4th and 8th Districts — Carlos Rivas Jr., Ellen Rosenfeld and Angel Gutierrez, respectively.
CTU-backed Yesenia Lopez was ahead in the 8th District. Independent Che “Rhymefest” Smith was up by a tiny margin over charter-supported Karin Norington-Reaves in the 10th District.
Rosenfeld had a sizable lead over CTU-backed Karen Zaccor. Rosenfeld had gotten money from anti-CTU groups but said she never solicited their support.
“I’m independent of the mayor. I'm independent of any special interest groups. I have the kids, they are my clients,” said Rosenfeld, a former third grade teacher and current CPS central office employee, told supporters at her election party. “Those are the ones that I'm working for.”
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 — thrust the school board race into the spotlight.
The Illinois Network of Charter Schools and Urban Center Action were among the groups hoping to capitalize. They 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 warned would be controlled by the mayor and union.
“Mayor Johnson’s Political Agenda is Causing Chaos In Our Public Schools,” read a flyer sent in many districts by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ super PAC.
Urban Center said it was happy with the early returns that would see non-CTU candidates win a majority of seats, even if the group didn’t back all the current leaders.
“Although the CTU and their front groups that funded the CTU candidates resorted to lies about the independent reform candidates and their supporters, voters saw through the CTU smokescreen and were determined to have a school board that is truly independent from Brandon Johnson,” the group said in a statement.
The majority of board members will still be appointed by the mayor, but INCS President Andrew Broy said he would be happy to capture 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 said it was supporting hopefuls with realistic chances.
“We’re here to win races, not just to spend resources,” Broy said.
The union and progressive groups 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 were 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 were also independent candidates that were not allied with any group. While they were being outspent, some say voters seemed to be looking for people not attached to either the teachers union or their opponents. In addition to Smith in the 10th District, independent Jessica Biggs was ahead in the 6th District and Theresa Boyle led in the 9th District.
Contributing: Elvia Malagón, Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco and Anna Savchenko