Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson鈥檚 hand-picked school board voted Friday to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez, taking a step their predecessors had resisted and capping a months-long campaign by the mayor and teachers union to oust the schools chief.

The board voted unanimously to fire Martinez without cause, which under the terms of his contract means he will stay on the job for six more months 鈥� through the end of the current school year 鈥� and then receive severance pay of about $130,000.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not right,鈥� an angry and emotional Martinez told reporters after the vote.

鈥淥bviously I鈥檓 disappointed by the board鈥檚 decision tonight,鈥� he said, adding that he would ensure a smooth transition for the next CEO. 鈥淟eading the system that shaped me has been an opportunity of a lifetime.鈥�

The firing was a dramatic culmination to months of turmoil that pitted the mayor and the teachers union 鈥� a close ally that catapulted him into office 鈥� against Martinez. The unprecedented development comes weeks before begins work. It also comes as the district enters a decisive phase in its high-stakes over a new contract.

Martinez made Friday to save his job before the vote. His attorneys filed motions seeking to block his potential firing, alleging board members were appointed 鈥渢o do the bidding鈥� of a mayor and teachers union that have 鈥渟capegoated鈥� Martinez.

According to a source close to the CEO, Martinez earlier turned down a settlement offer of more than $500,000 to depart, which would have amounted to salary and benefits owed to him for the remainder of his contract.

CTU issued a statement after the vote saying Martinez was stalling by not agreeing to a new union contract that 鈥済uarantees every CPS student a quality school day, protects recent academic gains, and provides classrooms with the resources our students and families deserve.鈥�

鈥淲e look forward to the road ahead for CPS, and we urge the board and the mayor to step into the leadership gap that the CEO has created and choose a future candidate who understands the assignment,鈥� the statement read.

Ahead of the vote, incoming elected school board members, education organizations, and former CPS CEOs Arne Duncan and Janice Jackson in support of letting the new board decide Martinez鈥檚 fate. That list grew Friday to include U.S. Rep. Chuy Garcia and Yesenia Lopez, an incoming elected school board member who was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union 鈥� which cast a vote of no-confidence in Martinez in the fall.

At the meeting, a group of principals expressed support for Martinez and raised concerns about CTU proposals that they feel will take away instructional time from children. The principals union has expressed similar concerns over the past several weeks. Meanwhile, Jackson Potter, vice president of the CTU, said the union has made more progress in negotiations this week and wants a swift deal.

More than a dozen elected officials also spoke 鈥� both in support of and against Martinez.

Tara Stamps, a Cook County commissioner, former teacher, and CTU staffer, blamed Martinez for schools on her home turf of the West Side that still have 鈥渃hronic underfunding鈥� and 鈥渃rumbling infrastructure.鈥�

鈥淧edro Martinez鈥檚 leadership have left these schools in a drought and our teachers and our students are paying the price for that,鈥� Stamps said.

Others called for the board to wait. Jennifer Custer, an incoming elected school board member who was backed by the CTU, asked the board to hold off on a decision. She also criticized the union鈥檚 contract proposal.

鈥淎re you going to condemn the first elected board to serve in a capacity where our sole job for the next two years is not to address student outcomes and making CPS a better place, but to figure out how to steady the ship in the wake of the chaos that is created by the decision to fire a CEO mid year and inevitably agree to a contract that we can鈥檛 afford, and while the district suffers financially already?鈥� Custer said.

After the public comment period, the board met in closed session. After 90 minutes, members emerged and voted Martinez out without comment. The board then left without taking any questions from reporters.

Tensions stem from district鈥檚 money woes

The conflict between Martinez and the mayor鈥檚 office reflects a fundamental rift over how the district should navigate a time when and major .

The union and Johnson have argued that the district should add more staff, reduce class size, and agree to a litany of other proposals. The mayor鈥檚 team suggested over the summer that 鈥� and then redouble its push to line up new revenue from the state or other sources. The Martinez administration countered that any prospects for new funding are uncertain, and the district should avoid adding to its significant debt burden.

The previous appointed board 鈥� under pressure to oust the CEO and take on the loan 鈥� in October. While that board with Martinez, it wasn鈥檛 prepared to fire him, sources previously told Chalkbeat.

Johnson . He four of them would continue to serve, while three will step down because they are not eligible based on where they live. The mayor announced six other appointments to the new board and has yet to name one more.

More recently, the fate of schools in one of the city鈥檚 largest charter networks has proven divisive.

The board and the mayor鈥檚 office criticized Martinez for not acting aggressively enough to find alternatives to planned school closings at Acero charter school network. On Friday, the Board of Education approved a resolution to cover Acero鈥檚 budget deficit to keep all seven schools open next school year. The board also directed CPS leadership to create a plan to transition five of the campuses into CPS schools for the 2026-27 school year.

Martinez oversaw pandemic rebound, new strategic plan

Martinez by Johnson鈥檚 predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot. He arrived at a turbulent time 鈥� as school buildings reopened for full-time in-person instruction after being shuttered during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak 鈥� and began the work of addressing the pandemic鈥檚 academic and social-emotional damage.

By some accounts, Martinez鈥檚 tenure has brought a measure of stability after COVID鈥檚 massive disruption. His administration has touted data showing the district鈥檚 students have than most other districts across the country.

During his roughly three years at the helm, Martinez presided over a significant expansion of the district鈥檚 workforce, using and support staff.

He also oversaw the adoption of a controversial plan to and an this spring that ; instead, the district now provides base staffing positions to all schools and factors in a school鈥檚 level of student needs in budgeting for additional positions and support.

Martinez was also at the helm when thousands of migrant children from Central and South American countries enrolled in the district鈥檚 schools, leading to for students at many schools, particularly those in low-income, Black communities.

On the day the previous school board passed a new 鈥� which focuses on Johnson鈥檚 priority of boosting resources for neighborhood schools 鈥� the mayor asked Martinez to resign.

When Lightfoot appointed Martinez, a Chicago native and former CPS chief financial officer, he was the superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District. Johnson chose to keep Martinez in the role after defeating Lightfoot in the 2023 mayoral election 鈥� which teachers union president Stacy Davis Gates said at the start of this school year she requested of the mayor. The union said at the time that the CEO appeared to be ushering in a new era of more collaboration and better rapport between the CTU and district officials.

But things changed this summer amid over an extensive, Martinez, along with the Johnson-appointed school board, balked at taking on the Johnson had urged the district to take out the loan to pay for the contract鈥檚 costs and cover a $175 million payment to a city pension fund that covers non-teaching staff.

The CTU had lambasted and argued the city should continue to cover it as it had in the past. The Johnson administration has in part blamed the city鈥檚 budget woes on that pension payment. On Monday, the Chicago City Council narrowly passed Johnson鈥檚 $17.1 billion budget plan after a bruising two month budget process during which even his progressive allies criticized his leadership.

Martinez said in September that , citing a need for stability in a district roiled by frequent leadership turnover in recent years.

In recent weeks, the teachers union intensified its criticism of Martinez, even as his administration in the coming years and benefit increases at no cost to teachers, among other concessions. Union leaders have said Martinez is resisting union staffing, class size, and other proposals that would transform a district historically plagued by inequities in the student experiences among campuses and neighborhoods. They also claimed Martinez didn鈥檛 lobby for more state funding aggressively enough or make a plan for the expiration of federal COVID relief money.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at . 

Mayor Brandon Johnson picked 10 of 11 people Monday to round out the city鈥檚 new half-elected, half-appointed school board 鈥� including some who ran unsuccessfully in this November.

The new board will be sworn in Jan. 15, 2025, and will include 10 people who won in November. State law required the mayor choose the other 11 people, including a board president, by Monday.

The shift to an elected school board in Chicago . The process set forth in state law is complicated. Though there were 10 school board races in November, each district was split into two subdistricts. State law limited who Johnson could pick 鈥� allowing him to only choose people who did not live in the same subdistrict as winners of the election.

Johnson announced the school board appointees late Monday, just hours before the deadline.

• Sean Harden, a South Side native and former CPS employee, will serve as president of the Board of Education and represent the city at large.
• Ed Bannon, who ran for alderman in 2023 and served on the Dever Elementary School Local School Council, will represent District 1a alongside Jennifer Custer in 1b.
• Debby Pope, a current appointed school board member and former CTU employee and retired teacher who filed campaign finance paperwork and considered running for an elected school board seat, will represent District 2b alongside Ebony DeBerry in 2a.
• Norma Rios-Sierra, an artist who also works as cultural events manager for nonprofit Palenque LSNA, will presumably represent District 3a alongside Carlos Rivas Jr. in 3b.
• Karen Zaccor, a retired teacher and active CTU member who finished second in a six-way race in November鈥檚 election, will represent District 4a alongside the winning candidate Ellen Rosenfeld in 4b.
• Michilla Blaise, a current school board member who withdrew as a candidate one month before Election Day, will represent District 5b alongside Jitu Brown in 5a.
• Anusha Thotakura, a former teacher who also lost her bid in November, will represent District 6a alongside Jessica Biggs in 6b.
• Emma Lozano, a Pilsen pastor and advocate for bilingual education and immigrant rights. It is not clear which district Lozano lives in, but it would presumably be either district 7b or 8b alongside either Yesenia Lopez in 7a or Angel Gutierrez in 8a.
• Frank Niles Thomas, a current board member appointed last month, will represent District 9a alongside Therese Boyle in 9b.
• Olga Bautista, a current board member appointed last month, will presumably represent District 10b alongside Che 鈥淩hymefest鈥� Smith in 10a.

It was not immediately clear why the mayor only announced 10 of 11 picks before the deadline. State law does not spell out any impacts for partially missing the deadline.

Johnson鈥檚 picks will make up a majority of the board, giving him significant influence over a governing body that for the past three decades was exclusively controlled by Chicago鈥檚 mayor.

The mayor鈥檚 appointees included most of the current board members as well as losing school board candidates who were endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, a close ally of the mayor鈥檚.

Johnson鈥檚 office announced the names after the mayor struggled to negotiate a deal with aldermen on his second city budget. Late Monday, after multiple amendments and Johnson tossing out his proposed property tax increase entirely, the City Council approved a $17.1 billion city budget by a vote of 27 to 23.

After that budget vote, as he called for more state revenue, Johnson told reporters he was looking for school board members 鈥渨ho understand the urgency of this moment, people who know that they have to organize and work collectively to fight for progressive revenue in the state.鈥�

鈥淏ut really the big characteristic that I鈥檓 proud that people demonstrated was a real care for the families who do the work as well,鈥� Johnson said, adding that he also searched for people who were not 鈥渄ismissive鈥� of teachers.

The mayor鈥檚 influence over the school board may extend beyond his own picks. Four of the election winners were backed by the union, which ideologically aligns with the mayor. That means 15 of the 21 members could often vote in alignment with his policy preferences, such as avoiding school closures and sending more money to neighborhood schools.

It also could mean the board could vote to borrow money in order to cover pension obligations and labor union costs, as Johnson pushed CPS to do in the spring and summer, helping to lead to the resignation of the entire previous board.

Before taking office, school board members are required to complete state-mandated training. Last week, newly elected board members were notified by the school district鈥檚 board office that would be postponed, per a request from the current board. Carlos Rivas, who was elected to represent District 3 on the West Side, said the Academy of Local Leadership at National Louis University, in light of the district鈥檚 cancellation, is now providing training this week. Rivas was part of .

鈥淎t the end of the day, what鈥檚 most important is that we are prepared to govern on day one,鈥� Rivas said.

Rivas said the school district鈥檚 board office said they still plan to hold five days of sessions with new board members from Jan. 6-10.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.  Sign up for their newsletters at . 

showed that candidates backed by the powerful Chicago Teachers Union won four seats, one of them unopposed. Meanwhile, pro-school choice candidates backed by wealthy donors won three seats, with three seats won by independent candidates.

The independents include a rapper who beat three opponents on the city鈥檚 South Side. said he ran to ensure that every school gets a registered nurse, a librarian, counselors, tutors, support staff and quality arts instruction.

The 10 new board members will join 11 others who will be appointed in coming weeks by Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer.

鈥淭here’s a lot going on here,鈥� said Hugo Jacobo of , a nonprofit that supports independent school board candidates.

Groups that advocate for charter schools spent about $3 million on the race, The Chicago Sun-Times , with the union spending about $1.6 million on its endorsed candidates through its own political action committees and at least eight other PACs. Other estimates show the union spending more than on the races.

The union鈥檚 preferred candidate came up empty in District 3, one of Chicago鈥檚 most politically progressive areas. A reform-oriented candidate, , beat union-endorsed candidate by 12 percentage points, despite a reported $300,000 in donations. The union painted a more positive picture Tuesday night, with President Stacy Davis Gates , 鈥淏illionaires spent a lot of money to get three out of 21,鈥� referring to the larger board that will eventually be seated. 鈥淚 keep telling you, it鈥檚 cumulative. It keeps getting bigger and it keeps growing. And we want more people for this group project.鈥�

Tuesday鈥檚 results push Chicago Public Schools, the fourth-largest school system in the United States, into a new phase, with observers saying a fully elected board could improve schools and make them more responsive to parents and taxpayers. 

But whether the shift will curb the system鈥檚 recent chaos is another matter. 

Last month, the entire seven-member board resigned after Mayor Brandon Johnson threatened to oust schools CEO Pedro Martinez. Johnson had appointed six of the seven members . 

He brought in a new board, but a week later the newly appointed president, the Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson, after news reports revealed he鈥檇 written antisemitic and sexist posts on social media and posted that he agreed with a theory that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were an 鈥渋nside job.鈥�

Tuesday鈥檚 split result, while offering what will likely be a variety of perspectives on finances, management and curriculum, is bound to be just the beginning of a new, and perhaps even more tumultuous era 鈥� for one thing, all 21 seats, including the 10 from Tuesday, will be on the ballot in 2026.

“This first cycle was really a warm-up for 2026, when all 21 seats are up for election and the stakes are real,鈥� said Peter Cunningham, a former head of communications for the district and founder of the nonprofit .

Cunningham, who also served as a spokesman for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, said Tuesday鈥檚 election 鈥渂ecame a referendum on Mayor Johnson and the teacher’s union because of the chaos at the board over the last few months. They did not get a clear mandate to pursue their more controversial policy proposals, but they will likely do it anyway because this is their last chance to control the board.”

The range of ideologies among fully elected board members could fuel further drama, said Meredith Paige, a mother of two high schoolers and leader of , an advocacy group.

鈥淭he chaos is going to continue,鈥� she said.

From appointed to elected board  

For nearly 30 years, Chicago鈥檚 mayors have enjoyed the right to appoint and dismiss board members, with the city standing for decades as one of just a handful with mayoral control 鈥� New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Detroit are among others where mayors still wield considerable power over school policy. 

Until now, Chicago Public Schools was also the school district in Illinois that didn鈥檛 have an elected board. But the state legislature in 2021 ordered the city to transition to a fully elected, 21-seat board. 

It may take a while for the changes to sink in with voters, said Paige, who canvassed in neighborhoods last week and met 鈥渁 lot of people who had no idea that there was a school board election.鈥� Others believed Chicago already had an elected school board. 鈥淪o that’s been a problem the whole time,鈥� she said. 鈥淓ven now, parents don’t understand how this is going to work.鈥�

Among the first business items the hybrid board will face in coming months: whether to terminate the contract of Martinez, the schools CEO, who has served since 2021. They must also decide whether to approve Johnson鈥檚 push to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to defray short-term expenses, including a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching employees.

The district faces a projected deficit of $505 million next fall, due partly to rising healthcare costs and the expiration of federal ESSER pandemic funds. Johnson鈥檚 predecessor, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, also shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in pension costs from City Hall, which had historically underwritten them, to the district.

And the city is also hemorrhaging students: enrollment has dropped by 20%, or more than 80,000 students, since 2010.

In July, Martinez and the school board proposed a $9.9 billion budget that aimed to close the deficit through staff cuts and freezes affecting nearly 250 jobs. The board authorized the budget as written, but relations between the mayor and the district soured. 

Johnson has proposed taking out a $300 million loan to fund teacher pay increases and pension contributions, and he in October for comparing his critics to confederates who opposed freeing slaves 鈥渂ecause it would be too expensive.”

Even if both sides agree on a new source of spending, the district and the union are also engaged in a contentious negotiation over the terms of the next teacher contract. One estimate said paying out an expected series of teacher raises and taking on more pension debt from the city could increase its deficit to nearly $1 billion. 

Despite Johnson鈥檚 bid to fire Martinez, the CEO remains popular, said Jacobo of Chicago Democrats for Education. 鈥淗e’s the only one really concerned about the financial situation of our city and our school district system, so people want someone responsible like him to stay.鈥�

Paige, the parent advocate, agreed. 鈥淭he mayor and CTU want to fire the CEO, who has brought a lot of stability to the district. So there’s a lot of frustration over that.鈥�

She said the bitter, two-week in 2019 is also having lingering effects: 鈥淭here’s still a lot of toxicity in the system over that 鈥� and just a general鈥� she hesitated, 鈥溾�榝rustration鈥� is the nicest word I can think of right now 鈥� that the mayor seems so disconnected from reality of the financials that he wants to put the district in peril to pay the teacher’s contract.鈥�

The state legislature has given Chicago until 2027 to transition to a fully elected board, and despite the challenges, Jacobo said the change will be welcome.

鈥淚’m very glad that there will be a number of these new school board elected members who honestly are just not beholden to anyone but the parents, the voters in their district,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd when they talk, when they speak, it’ll be with a perspective of what is best for their community. I think it’s one step forward, but a lot of work to go.鈥� 

Good debt is an investment in something that will grow in value over time. For an individual, taking out a mortgage to buy a house might be a good type of debt.

But it鈥檚 risky to live beyond your means and take on debt if you don鈥檛 have a way to pay back what you borrowed.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is urging his city鈥檚 school district to take on some very bad debt. Rather than balancing this year鈥檚 budget through , Johnson is urging the district to take out . Worse, the loan would only delay those decisions until next year, when the city鈥檚 budget shortfall is projected to grow again, to .

Johnson is sticking with the idea, though, and the political fallout has come fast and furious. Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez balked, leading Johnson to call for Martinez to resign. Martinez refused, so Johnson then escalated the battle to the school board. Not only did his hand-picked board members refuse to fire Martinez, they resigned 鈥� sowing chaos just a month before the city’s .

It’s still unclear whether Johnson will get his way, but the loan is a bad idea. As district officials noted in leaked to the press, Chicago is already 鈥渢he largest junk bond issuer in the United States.鈥� Johnson鈥檚 plan would make that worse. It’s not exactly clear what terms Chicago would get on its proposed loan, but as of Oct. 14 were at 6.89%, and Johnson鈥檚 team has proposed the district take on a 20-year loan. At current rates, that works out to total payments of around $540 million. That鈥檚 before any fees, and it means Chicago would pay as much in interest over time as it would spend patching over this year鈥檚 budget deficit.

Moreover, a short-term loan would solve none of the district鈥檚 real budget problems. There are five big ones: high salaries and ongoing contract negotiations, overinflated staffing, declining enrollment, rising pension costs and the expiration of federal emergency COVID funding.

Let鈥檚 start with salaries. In 2019, the Chicago teachers union went out on an 11-day strike. Though its educators were already the , the district agreed to what then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot called a “” contract that raised teacher salaries 16% over five years and immediately raised the pay of teaching assistants, clerks and other workers by 40%. Amid the current budget fiasco, the union is now seeking for the next four years. The district won鈥檛 be able to afford those without substantial new investments from the state. 

The next factor is staffing levels. The 2019 union contract promised every school would have certain types of employees, regardless of the school鈥檚 size or enrollment. This has proven particularly costly. The district says it has 7,000 school-based staff members since 2019:  more teachers, special education classroom assistants, nurses, counselors and social workers. 

At the same time, the district has suffered large declines in student enrollments. Despite a small  uptick last year, the city has lost 38,000 public school students over the last five years, a decline of 10.5%. And yet, the political leaders in Chicago have stated they will not even consider closing underenrolled schools until .

Budgeting decisions like these would be anathema in any other industry, where leaders normally try to match up the number of employees with customer demand. When business at a restaurant is slow, it needs fewer workers; If a hospital has fewer patients, it needs fewer doctors and nurses.

Chicago Public Schools is doing the opposite. Its latest boasts that it will, 鈥渃omplete its transition away from a budget model that primarily relied on enrollment鈥� to prevent schools from going into death spirals, where fewer students leads to fewer staff which leads to further disenrollment. That may be admirable or even smart in some situations, but it鈥檚 also contributing to the current budget crisis.

Bubbling in the background is what in 2023 I dubbed “America鈥檚 Worst Teacher Pension Mess.” Chicago has two major pension problems. One is that it has to pay for its own pension costs, unlike other districts in Illinois, which are covered by the state. The district now pays more than $1 billion a year toward its teacher pension plan, and that鈥檚 still to meaningfully cover its unfunded liabilities.

But even more pressing is what to do about the pension costs for district employees who are not teachers and who are covered by a separate, municipal retirement plan. This issue has been a political football in Chicago for the last few years, with Lightfoot shifting the cost onto the district and the district now trying to shift it back. Those payments total $175 million this year.

And on top this all is the expiration of the federal ESSER funds. The district on directing 92% of the $2.8 billion it initially received toward schools and staffing. But another way to say that is that Chicago chose to invest 92% of its one-time relief funds in full-time school employees.

Now that the federal money is gone, Johnson is desperately trying to fill that gap. But taking on more loan debt won鈥檛 solve his city鈥檚 longer-term budget problems. For that, he鈥檒l need to come to terms with the pension challenges and address the staffing imbalance in Chicago schools. 

Johnson stood at the podium of the South Side鈥檚 Sweet Holy Spirit Church as he took questions about the abrupt resignation, just a few days prior, of all seven of his appointees to the local board of education. Flanked by a roster of supporters and aides, he introduced his choices to fill the departed members鈥� seats and once again pledged to bring progressive change to the fourth-largest school system in the United States.

It was a theme he鈥檇 sounded since nearly two years earlier, and one that helped transform him from a former educator and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union into in the country. For his allies, particularly the political powerhouse CTU, the consistency of the mayor鈥檚 messaging signaled his commitment to find more resources for Chicago Public Schools, even in the face of and vanishing pandemic relief funds.

But if the event was intended to calm the uproar that has swirled around the district鈥檚 leadership and finances since the beginning of the school year, it was destined to fall short. From its outset, the mayor was interrupted repeatedly by a group of hecklers protesting the replacement nominees. After some were removed, Johnson grew testy with reporters, objecting several times that their questions were 鈥渄isrespectful.鈥�

In , the mayor dismissed critics who have rejected his spending plans 鈥� including a proposal for the district to take out a $300 million loan to fund teacher pay increases and pension contributions 鈥� by comparing their arguments to those of Confederate leaders during the Civil War. 

Yet the number of those has only grown in the last few months. They now include the district鈥檚 CEO, Pedro Martinez, who of a short-term loan over the summer; the seven departed board members, who gave up their titles after Johnson to fire Martinez; and no fewer than 41 of Chicago鈥檚 50 aldermen, who signed sternly counseling against further borrowing and voicing concern about the sudden empowerment of 鈥渓ame-duck appointees鈥� over the remainder of the board鈥檚 term. Public opinion is no sunnier, with revealing that 60 percent of Johnson鈥檚 constituents disapprove of his leadership.

At the heart of the conflict rests an elemental question: Who will govern Chicago鈥檚 schools? Mayors have enjoyed the right to appoint and dismiss members of the school board for nearly three decades, and Johnson鈥檚 slate of replacements will be able to approve his agenda once they are seated. But the Illinois legislature recently mayoral control over the district, charging the city with establishing a popularly elected, 21-seat board by 2027. In November, voters will choose the first 10 elected members, with Johnson appointing 11, to a hybrid body that will preside over the transition.

The district will spend that interregnum attempting to balance its accounts, while also negotiating new contracts for teachers and principals and deciding the fate of scores of under-enrolled schools. Local K鈥�12 leaders foresee increasingly bitter disputes arising over the reach of the CTU, which now appears to hold most of the leverage over critical decisions. At the same time, their opponents increasingly question the legitimacy of a process that has seen one iteration of the school board precipitously leave office, and another be appointed in its place, just weeks before the election of a third set of candidates.  

Neither the mayor鈥檚 office nor the CTU responded to requests for comment from 社区黑料.

Arne Duncan, who served as Chicago Public Schools CEO from 2001 to 2009 and, later, as the U.S. secretary of education, said he hoped both sides could compromise around the most pressing dilemmas facing students and educators. Now helping to lead in dangerous neighborhoods, he observed that the tension around K鈥�12 education could benefit from the type of de-escalation he often sees practiced between feuding gangs.

鈥淕uys who have shot at each other still find ways to put that aside and make peace for themselves and their kids,鈥� Duncan said. 鈥淚f they can do that every day, I hope our elected leaders can find the courage to, metaphorically, put down the gun and do the right thing.”

But Meredith Paige, the mother of two high schoolers and a leader of the advocacy group CPS Family Dyslexia Collaborative, said that to everyday Chicagoans, the feeling was one of 鈥渃haos.鈥�

“We might not see the impact on children for a couple of years, but on the ground, parents are saying, ‘What the [hell] is happening? The schools are falling apart, get me out of here.’鈥�

鈥楢 crisis of leadership鈥�

Families have an immediate opportunity to make their feelings known in November, when Chicago will hold its school board elections. 

The power to appoint members, who wield authority over the major policy choices in a district serving more than 320,000 students, has rested solely with the mayor since 1995. Throughout 2019, long-serving Mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel happily used that prerogative to overhaul the school system, lifting academic standards and opening over 150 new schools. Academic achievement flourished in the aftermath, with showing that students in Chicago Public Schools made more academic progress than those in virtually any other district in the United States.

But the public came to sour on the fast pace of change, especially after Emanuel successfully pushed for the closure of 49 schools in 2013. Public polling, along with a series of held throughout the city, favored direct elections over the political appointment process. The Illinois legislature acknowledged that reality in 2021 by passing legislation to establish an elected board.

have filed to run for seats in the city鈥檚 10 newly created school board districts, with many grouping into two blocs: one backed largely by the Chicago Teachers Union and left-leaning community groups, the other favored by donors inclined toward education reform, including charter school supporters. Campaign donations across the 10 races $2.5 million, with charter-friendly groups for the bulk of spending thus far.

Against that messy backdrop, Mayor Johnson , who are expected to be seated later this month, to preside over the district until newly elected members take office in January. In the new year, they may be either re-appointed or again replaced by a new group of Johnson appointees. 

But in the meantime, they will be left with the critical decisions of whether to terminate the contract of CEO Martinez, who has served since 2021, and approve the mayor鈥檚 push to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to defray short-term expenses, including a $175 million pension payment for non-teaching employees of Chicago Public Schools.

Byron Sigcho-Lopez, one of the nine alderman who did not sign the open letter criticizing the previous board鈥檚 mass resignation, said he was untroubled by the move, noting that the school board鈥檚 current term has nearly expired and that its members had not chosen to run for any of the elected seats. 

“I don’t see any problem with the board leaving,鈥� Sigcho-Lopez said. 鈥淭his board had one more session left. I think they’re doing the responsible thing, and I thank them for their service.鈥�

But most other local office holders have objected strenuously both to the substance of Johnson鈥檚 plans and the lurching shifts in CPS governance. Democratic State Rep. Ann Williams 鈥� who that established a two-year interval of hybrid governance 鈥� said she was disturbed by the board鈥檚 unplanned turnover just weeks before Election Day. She added that she had been 鈥渋nundated鈥� with calls from worried constituents in her North Side district about what it might mean.

鈥淭his really flies in the face of what I was trying to do as sponsor of this bill in Springfield, which was to bring democracy to Chicago Public Schools,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 happened is a crisis of CPS leadership, and that’s how it’s being perceived by Chicagoans.鈥�

Daniel Anello is the CEO of , a nonprofit that receives support from Chicago鈥檚 business and philanthropic communities and advocates for more parental voice in education policy. He argued that the developments of the last few weeks more closely resembled Emanuel鈥檚 鈥渢op-down鈥� management style than the participatory democracy that voters hoped for in 2021.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e just saying, ‘Here’s the replacement board’ and claiming that it was a smooth transition going as intended,鈥� Anello said. 鈥淏ut then, why wasn’t the former board at the press conference? They just disappeared. It’s just not the inclusive promise of community engagement that this mayor ran on.鈥�

Showdown over pensions, debt

The district projects that it will of $505 million in the coming school year, stemming from a combination of normal operating expenses, increasing healthcare costs, and of federal ESSER funds that helped states weather pandemic-related shortfalls in revenue. The long-term picture has been further clouded by steadily decreasing student enrollment, by more than 80,000 students 鈥� or roughly one-fifth 鈥� since 2010.

The administration of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Johnson鈥檚 immediate predecessor, also transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in pension costs to CPS that had historically been underwritten by City Hall 鈥� a reflection, they argued, of the district鈥檚 new independence from mayoral control, which Lightfoot had opposed in 2021. While Martinez in May alongside CTU leaders to ask lawmakers for additional funding, the resulting increase to what had been requested. 

A source close to the district, who asked not to be named in order to speak freely about political matters, said the unsuccessful pitch to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other Illinois Democrats served as a wake-up call that the district would not be spared from retrenchment in the coming years.

鈥淚 think that the union thought, once Brandon got elected, that they’d be able to walk into Springfield and get whatever they wanted,鈥� the source said. 鈥淏ut there’s no money, especially after ESSER funds have expired.鈥�

In July, Martinez and the school board that aimed to close the deficit through a mixture of staff cuts and freezes to almost 250 jobs. In an unusual response, the mayor the fiscal direction laid out by his own hand-picked board, counter-offering that $300 million to cover its costs. Instead, the budget was authorized as written.

After that, the source remarked, the relationship between the mayor and district leadership 鈥渨ent south very quickly.鈥� The CTU, Johnson鈥檚 attack on the proposed cuts, of planning to close more schools. By mid-August, the mayor was widely thought to be preparing to fire his schools chief. 

In a statement, Martinez expressed optimism that some breathing room might be gained from the city鈥檚 special 鈥渢ax increment financing鈥� districts, which are funds designed to attract developers and employers. Using those resources, he argued, 鈥渨e can address these looming costs without cuts, without taking on expensive short-term debt, and without waiting for additional funding to materialize from the state.鈥�

But even if both sides can agree on a new source of spending, the district and the union are simultaneously engaged in a contentious negotiation over the terms of the next teacher contract. The , a non-partisan research group, has estimated that once the district pays out an expected series of teacher raises and assumes more pension debt from the city, its deficit . 

Karin Norington-Reaves for the elected seat in the city鈥檚 10th school board district. A critic of Mayor Johnson, she has pledged from the CTU. She warned that if Johnson鈥檚 newly appointed board resorted to accepting a 鈥減ayday loan,鈥� it would only bring more financing costs and could lead to the district鈥檚 bonds being downgraded. 

鈥淎nybody with any level of financial acumen understands that when you have debt, and you borrow, you create further debt,鈥� Norington-Reaves said. 鈥淚f you were an individual, that would tank your credit worthiness, and it’s no different for the school district.”

But Sigcho-Lopez, the alderman, countered that Chicago students鈥� learning needs were too great to countenance staffing reductions, especially given the still-significant trauma of COVID.

“To cut staffing in a time when these kids just survived a pandemic? We’ve got kids who are orphans, who need extra social workers,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 don’t think teachers and social workers and librarians are where we should focus our energy.”

Tough decisions ahead for new board

The priorities of Johnson鈥檚 newly selected board members remain unclear for now. Any action taken against Martinez is likely to prove explosive to politicians and educators alike; in August, when his termination was first rumored, and assistant principals signed a letter opposing the idea.

Though Johnson retains the power to appoint more than half of the incoming members of the hybrid board, November鈥檚 election outcomes will also help determine the course taken over much of the remainder of his first term. If the CTU鈥檚 preferred candidates prevail in their contests, they will likely take it as an endorsement of the positions shared by both the union and the mayor. 

The expense and pugnacity of the campaigns have already proven discouraging to some who had welcomed the arrival of an elected board. Parent Meredith Paige said that a friend and fellow activist had explored a run, but she was quickly discouraged by the demands of the process 鈥� the number of signatures required to run was raised from a proposed 250 to 1,000, more than twice that required to run for the Chicago City Council 鈥� and abandoned the notion.

鈥淚t just came out how much the charter schools are pouring into these races, and how much CTU has spent,鈥� she lamented. 鈥淚t鈥檚 exactly how people worried it was going to go.”

Norington-Reaves, a longtime nonprofit director and former congressional candidate, sounded confident in her ability to win the support of voters but argued that the stakes for the election seem higher than they should be. A Chicago native, she said she and others had long resisted the temptation to decamp to higher-performing suburban districts, but that her daughter鈥檚 learning needs were ill-served in her hometown.

鈥淚 don’t want to have to leave my city, but I will, if that’s what I have to do for my child.鈥� Norington-Reaves concluded. 鈥淚 am tired of fighting what feels like an uphill battle for investment, for economic development, and for good education just to have it be undermined. It feels like [the mayor] is willing to give it all to CTU.”

Duncan, a former high-level college basketball player, drew a comparison between the district鈥檚 situation and that of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls. , he said, that team dissolved not due to failures on the court, but rather to personality conflicts among the franchise鈥檚 leadership and players.

Like the Bulls, Duncan said, Chicago Public Schools had a record to be proud of 鈥� and protected.

“No one beat the Bulls, they just imploded because they didn’t realize that the whole was bigger than the sum of their parts. Twenty-five years later, Chicago’s never had a championship basketball team. You don’t recover from these kinds of things.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation and the Joyce Foundation provide financial support to Kids First Chicago and 社区黑料.

That鈥檚 the day Brandon Johnson, a former organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, will lay down the mantle of progressive insurgent and take the oath of office as mayor. Last month, in the city鈥檚 closest mayoral race in 40 years, Johnson prevailed by just 26,000 votes over former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, a technocrat who ran on a record of support for education reform. 

The win represented a generational breakthrough for Johnson and his union, which has waged a decade-long struggle against a regime of school choice and accountability that stretches back to Vallas鈥檚 tenure. That ambitious complex of policy and regulation was carefully installed over decades, including a lengthy interval during which Chicago saw some of the fastest academic growth of any major school district in the United States 鈥� but also a steadily building resistance from educators and community members over controversial policies like school closures.

The lessons of the long reform era are detailed in a new book, , released in April by Harvard Education Press. In five chapters, the text chronicles the genesis of Chicago Public Schools鈥� transformation 鈥� beginning with a 1988 state law initiating an unprecedented decentralization of autonomy from the district office to local school communities 鈥� and the adoption of stringent accountability measures that in some ways anticipated the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The book鈥檚 lead author, Anthony Bryk, offers a rare perspective on the city. A veteran researcher and former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Bryk previously served as a professor of urban education at the University of Chicago. In 1990, he helped found the , a data hub that has generated a host of influential studies on America鈥檚 fourth-largest district.

Bryk believes the evolution of CPS under leaders like future U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and long-serving Mayor Richard M. Daley helped spur a leap forward in student performance by engaging CPS families, improving the selection and development of teachers, and allowing administrators more latitude in running their schools. The results were revealed in by Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon, which found that Chicago elementary and middle schoolers gained six years of academic benefits from just five years in school.

But he has reservations about the future of the city鈥檚 schools, and particularly the gradual establishment of an elected board that will oversee them. In an interview with 社区黑料鈥檚 Kevin Mahnken, Bryk offered his views on what worked during Chicago鈥檚 turnaround; the warning signs ahead, including dramatically falling enrollment numbers and mounting debt; and the union鈥檚 overnight move from one of the district鈥檚 biggest critics to perhaps its most important actor.

鈥淭his might be as radical a reform in governance as one could envision,鈥� Bryk said.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

社区黑料: Your book depicts a long journey toward school improvement in Chicago during the 1990s and 2000s. But the years since have been marked by a great deal of tumult, obviously including the pandemic. How far has the district come, and where is it headed?

Anthony Bryk: I think about Chicago Public Schools within the broader context of major American school systems at the moment. We are clearly in an unprecedented time with respect to post-pandemic trauma and learning loss, which have been especially pervasive for those students who are most dependent on strong civic institutions. Of course, we’re also living through a period of racial reckoning as we come to better understand the vestiges of systemic racism that operate in big urban school districts. 

Then you bring in the Chicago-specific context of a new mayor and, perhaps even more important, the shift to a 21-person elected school board over the coming years. Most people don’t realize that Chicago has never had an elected board, and a 21-person board is just a huge change. Over the last number of years, there’s also been renewed conflict between labor and management in schools, and 鈥� like a number of other places, but maybe more so in Chicago 鈥� the district is experiencing a new round of budget shortfalls.

Together, these factors pose extraordinary challenges. Although the array is quite different, it appears to me in some ways like what Chicago felt like in the 1980s, at the beginning of the work to turn around local schools. [Then-Education Secretary] Bill Bennett visited Chicago and public school system in America. I doubt if it was the absolute worst, but it was clearly one of the most troubled public school systems in the country. And while the specific challenges that had to be confronted were different at that time, their scope certainly strikes me as comparable to what the city is facing now.

The big difference, as we write about in the book, is that there is now a civic architecture that grew up over the past several decades. It’s an interesting kind of architecture in that the politics of urban districts typically tend to focus on shaping what happens at the system’s center; but a lot of the energy in Chicago’s reform push was focused on making ideas work out in schools and finding new ways of developing teachers and school-based leadership. A lot of social learning emerged around the work of school improvement, and there was space for new ideas. The district, over the period of [Arne] Duncan, was open to partnerships with the business community, foundations and lots of new organizations. It generally kept things stabilized even through the period of 2010鈥�2017, when we saw a lot of financial issues and . 

That’s what leads me to think that Chicago is still positioned well to take on these new problems. The improvement work in Chicago 鈥� keeping kids on-track through high school and onto college, developing a framework of essential supports and regularly reporting evidence 鈥� has created coherence among an incredibly diverse array of actors, and those will be resources in the years ahead. Having said all that, it’s really hard for me to discern how this shift to an elected board will unfold. In my mind, that’s the real wild card.

Can you be more specific about the steps that led to academic improvement over the last few decades?

We describe decentralization as the DNA of reform. Over the decades, there’s been a lot of attention paid to governance as a key lever for reform. What’s important to take from the Chicago story is what governance change did and the mechanisms it opened up. One of the things it did was to recognize schools as the principal unit for change: How do we get schools to get better at their core work?

The [the Chicago School Reform Act, which formed local school committees that gained authority over hiring and budgetary practices in individual campuses] made that critical. It helped reform the relationships between and within schools and local communities, and it brought a horizontal dimension to relationships where, traditionally, educators looked vertically up to bureaucratic actors to tell them what to do. And by virtue of the fact that there were real resources made available to schools, there were opportunities for innovation to occur; , but some very positive things emerged and eventually spread across the system. 

One of the key initiatives was all the attention to how principals were selected, supported and evaluated. Again, when you see schools as the prime mover for change, you focus carefully on the quality of leadership at school sites. Chicago is a huge district, but there are only about 600 people who do this work, and maybe 100 get replaced each year. That makes the task of identifying and developing school leaders a manageable one, and it did become a priority in CPS.

There were efforts to create more aligned instructional systems: curricular materials, professional development, assessment data to judge the progress of students and feedback systems to support teachers in their own improvement. In the past, it had been the task of central administrations to make all these pieces run and work together because it’s so hard to put them together in individual schools. Not impossible, but hard.

That’s where some tension plays out. It’ll play out, for instance, around that CPS has heavily invested in. From what I know of the design principles behind Skyline [an online compendium of learning resources that the district spent $135 million to develop], it’s an attempt to create a coordination environment across various systems and generate good, formative information to support improvement. But that’s a huge undertaking, and it runs the risk of the central office defining what’s to be taught, how it’s to be taught and what evidence should be used.

The tension lies in the fact that you need lots of capacity to build an integrated instructional system that has the promise of actually delivering more ambitious academic outcomes, both reliably and at scale. But then you confront this political issue that democratic localism was intended to solve, i.e., “We want to push these problems into local school communities to decide what they think is best for their own children.” So to some extent, we’re shifting back now to more centralized control.

You’re describing these organizational dynamics and players in a very different way than I’m used to hearing about them, which is always through the prism of reformers vs. unions. Do you think that debates over K鈥�12 politics are cast too simplistically, both by the press and the combatants themselves? 

I do. When the second major reform act , it turned over control of the system to the mayor of Chicago, who appointed the board and the CEO. Since the mayor at that time [Richard M. Daley] also basically controlled the City Council, 49-1, you essentially had unitary politics in Chicago for a 15-year span. You just don’t see that in big, urban districts. And there from 1995 to around 2011.

There were a few things that established that peace. One was that in 1994. We had a Republican governor and a Republican legislature, which had been very rare, and downstate Illinois was intent on taking a sledgehammer to the Chicago Teachers Union by stripping out a lot of provisions around collective bargaining. But when the mayor took over, his office chose not to use a lot of the power it had been given. They didn’t bludgeon the union; Paul Vallas actually figured out how to negotiate a multi-year contract with decent wages for CTU members. In the early 2000s, there was an element within the union that emphasized professionalizing teaching, and the system sent some resources in that direction as well. 

At that time, there wasn’t a traditional labor-management conflict. In some regards, it looked more like a European system, where they’ve got than you tend to see in American cities. But it broke down after 2010, largely because enrollments were declining, and we had financial issues affecting both the city and the state. Those are what led to the closure of all those schools. The conflict is quite active again in Chicago, but there was a period of time when these forces were working together in a more productive fashion.

Those long-term declines in enrollment, combined with big deficits of academic and social-emotional skills following the pandemic, seem to pose the biggest problems to Chicago schools right now.

The situation is extraordinarily challenging. In big districts like Chicago, where revenues are predicated on a per-pupil basis, it’s all fine as long as the student margins are growing. But when you start subtracting, which is what the city has been doing for years, the fixed costs don’t go down with every person who walks out of the building. They closed a lot of schools, but they’ve still got a lot of schools that are already under-utilized and will probably become more so. The way we financially support school systems doesn’t really take that into account.

It’s going to be interesting to see a mayor coming out of the teachers’ union. With the move to an elected board, I would expect the teachers’ union to organize and have a significant voice within that new board. If you get this kind of progressive alignment 鈥� the union and the mayor and school board and the governor in Springfield 鈥� I’m curious to see whether these people can actually solve these challenges. It’s one thing to go around criticizing what others do, but they’ll now be in a position to do something. What would better look like, and how would they get to it?

Would you agree that, whatever the political configuration moving forward, the urgent question is whether the district can shrink its footprint to match the roughly 100,000 fewer students it now educates compared with 20 years ago?

From a purely financial point of view, CPS has got more buildings operating than it surely needs. But one of the results of that is that the typical school, particularly at the high school level, has gotten smaller. Of course, more personalized relationships to form between faculty and students and parents. Going back to the ’90s, we did see that smaller schools were more likely to engage in reform in productive ways. You tended to see stronger reports about relational trust in that students felt that adults knew and cared about them more. No one intended this, but in shrinking the size and population of schools, they actually created resources for improvement by making them less bureaucratic places. 

That certainly contributed to improved high school graduation outcomes: Reduced size has enabled more intimate relationships to form between adults and students which have, in turn, allowed more students to graduate. At the same time, you do have this financial squeeze that will almost certainly force the district to close more buildings.

Do you think that’s feasible, that school closures spawned during Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration? The shrinkage that you’re describing as almost inevitable is also a politically explosive scenario.

Without question, one of the most contentious issues in Chicago politics is that of closing schools. Emanuel closed 50 of them all at once, and there had been an initial threat of something like 130 candidates for closure. It fractured political alliances, and it was a key component of as a political force. 

If you go back to 1987, the union was broadly vilified across Chicago by parents and community leaders. In the opening pages of our book, we reproduce a very critical Chicago Tribune cartoon of the CPS from that era. If you fast forward to 2015 and the aftermath of the school closings, it was the union that organized parents and community members against the system. It was a fundamental realignment 鈥� but having said that, there was another shift of some dimension during the pandemic. The union was largely responsible for closed for a very long time, which didn’t necessarily work to the benefit of all parents and children. 

Another equally important factor is this period of racial reckoning. Race has always been a big issue in Chicago, but it’s gotten really heightened attention over these last four or five years. That has made it much more challenging to form the community relationships that supported improvement for several decades.

Is the CTU now the most important single actor in Chicago Public Schools?

In all likelihood, yes.

This is brand-new territory. Teachers’ unions have organized in other cities to get members elected to boards of education, but when a teachers’ union is recognized as being responsible for how a system operates, that’s really new. The elected board is structured to phase in over the next four years, such that half the seats are appointed 鈥� but they’re appointed by the mayor. In that sense, this is positioned to be as novel a governance reform as we saw in 1987, which was the most radical decentralization of public education that had ever been tried in the United States. Chicago is positioned to have a public school system run by its teachers’ union. 

As an aside, something on the horizon that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention is . Whether that actually comes into play is an open question, but if principals organize, it’s not clear to me that their union will be on the same side as the CTU on all issues.

At the same time, is it fair to say that some of the measurements of school performance in the district 鈥� , which have relied to one degree or another on student test scores 鈥� are due to be refocused on different metrics?

I totally agree that these things are all being challenged. But they’re essentially written into regulations, and some of them are federally mandated by things like Title I and the Every Student Succeeds Act. While the existing assessments and their use will be challenged, they’re going to have to be replaced by something; I can’t imagine us going to nothing, no measures of achievement and school quality.

The question is, what are they going to replace it with? Over the last couple of decades, there’s been so much focus on being evidence-based in how researchers and policymakers do our work; but of course, that is predicated on evidence. So if you don’t like the evidence we’ve been using, what’s going to take its place? It might be hard to arrive at suitable replacements, especially in a heavily choice-based district like Chicago. In a choice district, parents have to have evidence to make their choices about where to send their kids to school 鈥� what are they going to use? 

Again, that’s the difference between being in a critic’s role, where you challenge the status quo, and being in the governance role, where you say, “Here’s what we’re going to do instead.” Right now, it’s not clear that there is an “instead.”

If you were designing a district from scratch, would you create a school board of 21 elected members?

No, I’d have to say I would not. 

Chicago Public Schools is something like a $9 billion operation. It’s a huge enterprise that has to be managed. A 21-member elected board managing a $9 billion enterprise 鈥� like I said earlier, this might be as radical a reform in governance as one could envision. There’s just no way to predict how it plays out. 

Could I imagine a scenario where this really works well? Yeah. I could imagine one where labor and management begin to come together because labor really has a stake in the success of the system. In the old days, they might have said, “Well, that’s management’s responsibility, not ours.” Now it’s all “ours.” So yes, this could evolve in a productive fashion. But would you want to be a superintendent accountable to a 21-member board? It just opens up challenges for which we have no precedent to suggest that it will work well. 

The progressive Cook County commissioner was declared the winner over his moderate rival, former Chicago Public Schools CEO and school choice advocate Paul Vallas, with 91 percent of ballots counted on Election Night. The six-week runoff campaign, pitting a charismatic K鈥�12 activist against a veteran education reformer, highlighted critical challenges facing the nation鈥檚 fourth-largest school district.

It also appears to have been the city鈥檚 closest election in living memory. Local officials will spend the coming days tallying mail-in ballots that are expected to pad Johnson鈥檚 victory margin, but the candidates were separated by just 2.8 percent of the vote on Wednesday afternoon; by comparison, incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot enjoyed a nearly 50-point lead in her 2019 win.

Flanked by Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates, the mayor-elect addressed a crowd of ecstatic supporters after Vallas鈥檚 concession.

鈥淢ake no mistake about it: Chicago is a union town,鈥� Johnson announced.

The results delivered an unmistakable triumph to a teachers鈥� union movement that spent much of the last decade marshaling its influence within both the American education policy debate and the institutional levers of the Democratic Party. Even while absorbing setbacks in statehouses and the courts 鈥� most notably the Supreme Court鈥檚 2018 Janus v. AFSCME decision, which effectively ended public sector unions鈥� powers to raise funds from non-members 鈥� educators have led successful drives to increase school funding and improve working conditions. 

Brad Marianno, a professor of educational policy and leadership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, wrote in an email that Johnson鈥檚 election was a 鈥渃apstone victory鈥� for the movement and added that other teachers鈥� unions around the country were likely 鈥渢aking notes鈥� on the successes achieved in Chicago.

鈥淐TU has been writing the progressive union playbook for a while and now has completed a new chapter on how to expand the reach of progressive teachers’ unionism into the highest elected office in one of America’s largest cities,鈥� he observed.

The race to become the city鈥檚 next mayor was reset after a February primary that shockingly eliminated Lightfoot, whose popularity had dwindled after four years of often-truculent relations with the CTU and other local heavyweights. With no candidate finishing over 50 percent, Johnson and Vallas advanced to an ideologically supercharged second round.

While Johnson emerged from near-anonymity after Gates declined to make a run herself, Vallas has played a marquee role in Chicago鈥檚 three-decade municipal drama over school governance. He was appointed to lead CPS in 1995, following years of chronic underperformance and a controversial district takeover spearheaded by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley. His tenure was marked by new academic offerings, tough accountability initiatives, and slowly climbing test scores.

While Vallas followed his six-year stint with similar postings in Philadelphia and New Orleans, Chicago Public Schools kept on the reform track under his successor, future U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The following decade-plus saw even greater academic gains, but also top-down decisions 鈥� including dozens of school closures in 2013 鈥� that alienated families and provoked a teacher-led revolt.

Johnson, a former social studies teacher, became a protegee of then-CTU President Karen Lewis and eventually served as the organization鈥檚 political director. After a turbulent decade that saw bitter negotiations with city leaders and prolonged work stoppages in 2012, 2019 and 2022, the union has succeeded in placing one of their own in City Hall. 

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, in the race鈥檚 closing weeks, said in a statement that his election represented a 鈥渢ransformational moment鈥� in Chicago鈥檚 education politics.

鈥淥n education, the contrast was clear: Johnson wants to ensure parents have a say, teachers can teach and students can learn, without the intrusion of those who measure their success by closing schools rather than strengthening them,鈥� Weingarten wrote.

Ironically, however, Johnson will inherit a mayor鈥檚 office whose power over the district has begun to ebb as a result of the CTU鈥檚 own success. Nearly three years of mayoral control will come to an end beginning next year, when the city will begin electing members of a 21-seat school board that the union lobbied for in Springfield. By the end of Johnson鈥檚 first term, major decisions about school finance and policy will be substantially out of his hands.

Those decisions will be crucial to the future of Chicago Public Schools 鈥� particularly given an enrollment crisis that has seen the district shrink by more than 100,000 students since Vallas鈥檚 days as CEO. The resultant decline in state funding, along with significant costs associated with spiraling pension debts, will impose an unenviable fiscal crunch on the next administration.

In just a year, Johnson faces the prospect of negotiations with none other than the CTU after their current contract expires. Although some have projected that the new mayor鈥檚 close ties will ease future bargaining rounds 鈥� 鈥淲ho better to deliver bad news to friends, than a friend?鈥� 鈥� he will also be faced with tough calls like whether to further downsize the district鈥檚 under-enrolled school campuses.

Michael Hartney, a political scientist at Boston College and public administration, said that the CTU鈥檚 organizing muscle had given Johnson a 鈥渃lear advantage鈥� on Tuesday. Now, he added, 鈥渢he difficult work begins.鈥�

鈥淯ntil the city鈥檚 school system reverts to an elected school board, Johnson will need to decide whether to select a new school superintendent, and he may have to negotiate a contract with his former employer,鈥� Hartney said. 鈥淎nd while the mayor-elect is sure to be sympathetic to the union鈥檚 priorities, certain fiscal realities loom large for the city’s school system.鈥�

At a press conference for former teacher and union organizer Brandon Johnson, activists from multiple cities gathered to denounce the record of his rival, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas. But their jeers 鈥� focused on his aggressive posture toward transforming districts, including by closing schools 鈥� were loudly met by Vallas鈥檚 own backers, who defended his decades-long career as an educational improvement czar. The cacophony of chants and counter-claims seemed to end in confusion.

Both the spectacle and the larger campaign, which will be decided in an April 4 runoff vote, capture competing visions both for urban education and the Democratic Party, which presides over America鈥檚 biggest and most troubled school systems. A onetime celebrity of the education reform movement, promoting school choice and tough accountability measures in struggling districts, while the more progressive Johnson during the Chicago Teachers Union鈥檚 rise to national prominence. 

But for all the contrast between the two, the discussion around schools seems oddly flat. The reason is simple: Within a few years, the office of the mayor will have little authority to act in the K鈥�12 arena.

By 2027, governance of Chicago Public Schools will revert to (elections for half of its seats will be held next November), bringing an end to more than three decades of mayoral control over the district. That period saw massive improvement in school performance throughout the 2000s, followed by costly battles over teacher contracts and the fate of underperforming schools. More recently, scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that in math after spending much of the pandemic in remote instruction. 

As educators attempt to repair that damage in classrooms, the next mayor will have to contend with structural challenges that may not yield to either union-powered or reform-friendly solutions. Principal among these is a long-term slide in enrollment that has seen as the third-largest district in the country. The number of charter students , albeit more slowly, as African American families in disproportionate numbers. 

Less than a week before a winner is decided, the race appears to be the closest mayoral contest Chicago has seen in decades. Vallas and Johnson finished first and second, respectively, in a February primary (defeating, among others, unpopular incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot), but collectively received just over half of all votes cast. Vallas has in subsequent polling and collected the endorsement of local supporters like Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Johnson, meanwhile, has swept the support of progressive Democrats like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Beth Swanson, CEO of the venture philanthropy fund and former deputy chief of staff to former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, called the next four years a remarkable 鈥減olitical moment in time for public education.鈥�

“These are complex waters that the city leadership haven’t navigated before,” Swanson said.

The rise and fall of Chicago reform

When longtime Mayor Richard Daley sought and received broader authority over Chicago Public Schools in 1995, less than a decade after Education Secretary Bill Bennett , he tapped Vallas to spearhead that nudged and won national praise. A longtime budget specialist in both Chicago and Springfield, the new CEO spent billions to renovate facilities, open new afterschool and magnet programs and offer significant salary increases for teachers.

He also established an accountability regime that prefigured much of what would become national law in No Child Left Behind. Ending the phenomenon he derided as 鈥渟ocial promotion,鈥� that third-, sixth-, and eighth-graders who didn鈥檛 meet benchmark scores on standardized tests would have to attend summer school or even repeat a grade. That move earned a commendation from , which Vallas鈥檚 mayoral campaign has since recycled into an election ad. 

It is an how much credit Vallas deserves for the progress CPS made after he left in 2001, but the district鈥檚 momentum was startling and well-documented. carried over into the tenure of his successor as CEO, Duncan, who transformed Chicago鈥檚 K鈥�12 landscape by in less than a decade. And the markers of success continued to accumulate, with Duncan riding a wave of acclaim to an appointment as U.S. secretary of education.

Elaine Allensworth, director of the , said that 鈥渉uge improvements in high school graduation rates, in college-going rates, in the rigor of coursework, [and] in the quality of instruction鈥� belied commonly held narratives of dysfunction.

鈥淧eople look at Chicago in terms of what makes the papers, and a lot of the time, they think it’s鈥truggling,鈥� Allensworth said. 鈥淏ut what people don’t realize is that it’s actually a school system that made incredible progress over the last 15 years.鈥�

Chicago鈥檚 reputation as a reformer鈥檚 playground hit its apex in 2017, when research from Stanford sociologist Sean Reardon indicated that CPS students made the most academic progress , experiencing six years of growth in the five calendar years between 2009 and 2014. By that point, however, the city was being run by Emanuel, and the public had begun to reject nostrums of disruptive innovation.

As in other cities where reform ran out of steam in the 2010s, the shuttering of failing schools helped ignite a backlash. Citing chronically poor performance and under-enrollment, Emanuel鈥檚 administration targeted nearly 50 buildings for closure before the 2013鈥�14 school year, low-income and minority students on the city鈥檚 South and West sides. Both parents and educators expressed outrage, and a later study found that the chaos of the process hurt student achievement.

The gradual souring on charter schools, testing, and high-stakes accountability found its reflection in the itinerant career of Paul Vallas, who left Chicago for subsequent stints as a superintendent in and , and . In most of his stops, Vallas鈥檚 energetic management style yielded major changes and higher test scores; but he also tended to with local politicians and sometimes left in his wake.

Representatives for both campaigns ignored interview requests. But Thomas Bowen, a Chicago-based political consultant who recently advised Mayor Lightfoot鈥檚 reelection campaign, said that elements of Vallas鈥檚 technocratic history could prove a liability.

鈥淭he policy direction on this has pretty clearly moved away from the education reform model of the ’90s and 2000s,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o if you’re someone like Paul Vallas, who has a policy history as an education reformer, the smart thing to do is to not really run much on that.鈥� 

Union goes 鈥榖ig time鈥�

Bowen, who previously helped both Emanuel and Lightfoot claim the mayoralty, compared the attitudes of the electorate with the action of a rubber band. Overstretched by the likes of Vallas, Duncan and Emanuel for so many years, it eventually snapped in the other direction. 

Waiting there were the more than 20,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union, who had watched in frustration as CPS鈥檚 leadership embraced ambitious changes. In 2012, and tweaks to teacher tenure policies, the union went on its first strike in 25 years; nine days after that, they declared victory.

At least one poll showed that the strike among Chicagoans, who sympathized with the CTU鈥檚 complaints about poor working conditions and outdated school buildings. More importantly, to the national labor movement 鈥� on its heels for most of the the NCLB era 鈥� that they could take on reform administrations and win. Today, the 2012 Chicago strike is , including the 2018 #RedforEd wave.

Closer to home, CTU helped build a network of labor and advocacy groups , which it co-founded with other unions. Brandon Johnson, then serving as CTU鈥檚 deputy political director, said in with the socialist journal Jacobin that the necessity of such independent political organizations lay in the fact that elected Democrats were 鈥渘ot responding to the needs of the community.鈥�

鈥淭hey work with other progressive organizations in Chicago, some of which they are charter members and funders of,鈥� Bowen said. 鈥淭hat progressive coalition is very successful not just at the city level, but also at the state level.鈥�

But the prize of the mayoralty eluded them, even as CTU-endorsed challengers pushed Emanuel and Lightfoot to runoff elections in 2015 and 2019. Instead, successive clashes over contracts and school funding led to in 2016 and at the beginning of the 2019鈥�20 school year. 

The COVID era brought mixed signals about the union鈥檚 potency. Chicago students spent over a year in virtual or hybrid learning, only returning to full-time, in-person instruction . But within a few months, the district over union members鈥� demands for another period of remote instruction at the height of the Omicron wave. After enduring a public scolding from city officials, the employees five days later, having failed to secure their top safety priorities. 

If that spat didn鈥檛 achieve its intended result, however, the CTU could take solace in a string of legislative successes at the state capital, where Democratic lawmakers have spent the last half-decade delivering on the union鈥檚 top priorities. In 2019, newly elected Gov. J.B. Pritzker the Illinois Charter Commission, which previously acted as an authorizer of last resort if local school boards rejected new charter school applications. The governor also over matters like class size and the length of the school year, which had been disallowed in the 1990s with the move to mayoral control. 

As Chicago Public Schools charts its way forward from COVID, the city鈥檚 policy environment is significantly more antagonistic to the reform movement than it was a decade ago. The district鈥檚 school ratings system, which was suspended during the pandemic, with a less 鈥減unitive鈥� metric, and beginning next year, grade promotion 鈥� the hallmark of Vallas鈥檚 tenure as CEO 鈥� rather than test scores.

Peter Cunningham, a longtime Democratic staffer who worked alongside Vallas in Chicago and served as assistant secretary of education in the Obama administration, remarked that CTU had completed the long metamorphosis from a player that 鈥渄idn’t quite know how to compete in the political sphere鈥� into one that was comfortable winning and wielding power.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e graduated into the big-time,鈥� Cunningham said. 鈥淥ver the last 10 years, they’ve achieved enormous power in Chicago and in Springfield. And here they are, on the cusp of competing for the top job in the city.鈥�

Mayoral control experiment ends

Of the slew of union wins in the last half-decade, likely none was more significant than the state assembly鈥檚 2021 creation of . The 21-member board, established , will begin as a hybrid entity before switching to a fully elected body by 2027. 

However those campaigns develop 鈥� school board races in other major districts, such as Los Angeles, have sometimes grown into spending wars waged between reformers and union allies 鈥� CTU will undoubtedly cheer the end of Chicago鈥檚 mayoral control experiment. But if Johnson finally breaks through as teachers鈥� champion in City Hall, he will ironically take office just as power begins to drain from that building.

Aside from the initial elections for board seats, the key event during the mayor鈥檚 first term will be the negotiation of a new union contract when the existing one expires in 2024.

While Vallas generally presided over labor peace in his time as a district leader, Cunningham said, the CTU would inevitably take a more adversarial posture toward him than one of their own. The specter of another strike, echoing those launched in the early years of Emanuel鈥檚 and Lightfoot鈥檚 mayoralties, already hangs over the city鈥檚 politics.

鈥淭hey’re not just going to go away quietly,鈥� Cunningham noted. 鈥淚f they lose, I fully expect that they’ll come back even harder to maintain their position.鈥�

Another action item is the diminishing size of the districts. One provision of the school board law on all school closures until 2025, when the first elected members take office. At that time, Mayor Johnson or Vallas will be sorely tempted to sunset buildings operating drastically below capacity. Between the city鈥檚 shifting demographic patterns, declining fertility, and COVID flight, CPS enrollment in the past 20 years; that figure is easily the equivalent of 200-plus schools. 

The loss of those children has the amount of new funding the city receives from Springfield this year. Even more concerning, the arrival of an independent school board will sever CPS鈥檚 finances from the city鈥檚. In anticipation of that decoupling, the Lightfoot administration in pension costs to the district鈥檚 books, effectively saddling them with an unfunded mandate. 

Without a new source of local or state revenue, the new costs could explode the district deficit. Pension payments alone will eventually 鈥渢ake any new revenues we have 鈥� state or local,鈥� in a recent school board meeting. 

All those administrative challenges are layered atop a student population profoundly scarred by the experience of COVID and remote instruction. Compared with Illinois as a whole, which mostly saw modest drops in achievement during the pandemic, to levels last seen during the 2000s. Social and behavioral problems persist as well: Last school year, 45 percent of CPS students (and about half of its poor students) . 

Meredith Paige, the mother of two CPS students and a leader of the advocacy group CPS Family Dyslexia Collaborative, agreed that the demands of stabilizing and improving the system would likely overwhelm the educational designs of Lightfoot鈥檚 successor. But between the influence remaining in the office and the ideological separation between Johnson and Vallas, she added, the election鈥檚 two potential results would carry vastly different implications for education in Chicago.

“Either outcome dramatically changes education policy in Chicago because they have such different views,鈥� she said. 鈥淪chools are going to change regardless, either toward the CTU view of the world or the Vallas view of the world.”