We begin the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for the 2024 general election with our choices for Chicago Board of Education which — improbably — looks like the hottest local race we’ll see.
Chicago is making history by allowing voters to begin choosing members of the Board of Education for the first time ever. The precedent-setting aspect of that vote is noteworthy, but more important are the stakes attached to these selections.
The Chicago Teachers Union’s current dominance of the city’s levers of power, mainly through its capture of the mayor’s office with the 2023 election of former CTU lobbyist Brandon Johnson, has made bringing some balance to the debate over the future of Chicago Public Schools more critical than ever. November marks the beginning of a two-step transition to a fully elected, 21-person School Board. Johnson will get to appoint 11 members of the new board, who will take their seats in January, while voters are choosing 10.
Two years from now, voters will select another 11, including the president, and the mayor no longer will enjoy nominal control over Chicago’s public schools.
For now, Chicagoans who are unhappy with Johnson’s fealty to CTU — judging by polls, they constitute a substantial majority — won’t be able to wrest control of the schools from him with this one election. But they can elect board members who can make their independent voices heard and call out the taxpayer-unfriendly actions Johnson and CTU have supported.
Voters are forgiven if they’ve struggled to determine for whom to vote, given that there are 34 candidates, mostly unfamiliar names even to residents who closely follow local politics. There are 10 School Board districts throughout the city. In some as many as six candidates are running for the single seat. One, unfortunately, has just a single CTU-endorsed candidate running without opposition. Many voters don’t know what district they’re in, much less who’s running. There are a little over three weeks left to get educated. One important consideration is the danger of splitting the vote for the non-CTU-endorsed candidates. It may behoove strategic voters turned off by CTU’s outsized influence to rally behind a single candidate. Our Board of Education endorsements follow.
District 1:
This district covers the northwest corner of the city and includes neighborhoods like Jefferson Park, Norwood Park and Portage Park. There are two candidates running: CTU-endorsed Jennifer Custer, a former grade-school teacher in suburban Itasca, and Michelle Pierre, former schools chief at LEARN charter school network and a board member at Chicago High School for the Arts.
Both these candidates have the background to be effective board members. For someone endorsed by CTU, Custer holds some positions counter to the union’s. She opposes Johnson’s effort to remove Pedro Martinez as CPS CEO, for example, and also Johnson’s desire for a $300 million loan to address current budget shortfalls.
Both Custer and Pierre support allowing Chicago police officers to help in schools if supported by local school councils — counter to the action CPS took at Johnson’s urging earlier this year. Both are supportive of preserving selective-enrollment schools, which have become a bone of contention as Johnson and CTU strive to bolster faltering neighborhood schools and potentially loosen admission standards at selective-enrollment schools.
Custer opposes the consolidation of schools to help address the budget crisis at CPS despite the fact that more than a third of city schools are enrolled at half capacity or lower. Pierre says consolidation should be a last resort and that creative use of existing CPS buildings is a better option.
There’s not a lot of daylight between these two candidates in terms of their positions, likely due to the unpopularity of Johnson and CTU in these neighborhoods. In the interest of a counterweight to CTU’s influence with City Hall, our endorsement goes to the independent, Michelle Pierre.
District 2:
The 2nd District covers much of the North Side up to the Evanston border, including neighborhoods like Rogers Park, Edgewater and Lincoln Square. There are four candidates running. The CTU-endorsed hopeful is Ebony DeBerry, 47, program manager for educational initiatives for activist group ONE Northside. Her positions largely mirror the union’s. She supports major changes to selective enrollment, she is opposed to needed school consolidations, and even supports housing assistance to CTU members as part of CPS’ budget.
Of the three alternatives, the best choice by far is Bruce Leon, 62, founder of human-resources firm Tandem HR and Democratic committeeman for the 50th Ward. He is a supporter of selective-enrollment schools, understands that school consolidation must be on the table in solving CPS’ massive fiscal problems and is a supporter of keeping Martinez as CPS CEO.
Leon would be a fiercely independent voice on the Board of Education — one with badly needed financial acumen to boot.
Bruce Leon is endorsed.
District 3:
This district covers a portion of the North Side including Humboldt Park and Logan Square. Just two are running. Endorsed by CTU is Jason Dones, 36, chief of people and operations for Beyond100K, a nonprofit seeking to address the national shortage of science and math teachers. His opponent is Carlos Rivas, 35, public affairs director for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Rivas is a former teacher, beginning as a substitute at Lowell Elementary, which he attended as a child, and then teaching and counseling at UIC College Prep, a Noble school. He supports preserving selective-enrollment options and is harshly critical of Johnson and CTU, describing their efforts to get Martinez fired as CPS CEO in the middle of the union’s contract negotiation as a “smear campaign.”
Dones, a former CPS teacher, is vice chair of the local school council at Moos Elementary, which his son attends. He is adamantly opposed to any school closings and is intent on lobbying the state for more financial support. He believes the current selective-enrollment arrangement amounts to a “broken” system. And, while he doesn’t openly call for Martinez’s removal, he believes “the greater responsibility lies in ensuring the leadership of CPS is in sync with the goals of equity and the will of the people.”
In short, Dones supports the CTU’s agenda without apparent exception.
Carlos Rivas is the clearly better choice and has our endorsement.
District 4:
Covering some of the most affluent neighborhoods on the North Side, this district includes Lakeview and Lincoln Park. It also has the most crowded field, with six running for the seat.
The CTU-endorsed candidate is Karen Zaccor, 68, a CPS teacher until this past June, when she retired. Of the five rivals to her, standing out to us is Ellen Rosenfeld, 57, who works in the CPS central office as a family and community engagement specialist.
Zaccor’s views align closely with CTU’s, and it’s clear from her responses to our questionnaire that she believes the main, if not only, answer to CPS’ problems is more money from the state.
Rosenfeld has wide-ranging experience within CPS, having been a teacher as well as an administrator and a parent of kids attending Chicago Public Schools. She is a firm supporter of selective-enrollment and magnet schools and doesn’t believe they should be de-emphasized to better support neighborhood schools. She is opposed to the firing of Martinez while Zaccor is tacitly in favor of his removal.
Rosenfeld views school consolidation as the wrong move other than as a “last resort.” But she agrees there’s “bloat” in CPS and that both cutbacks and additional revenue need to be part of the answer for improving the system.
Ellen Rosenfeld has our endorsement.
District 5:
Covering most of the West Side, this district won’t offer voters a choice. The only candidate left on the ballot is CTU-endorsed Aaron “Jitu” Brown, 58. We make no endorsement.
District 6:
This district covers part of the Loop and a large chunk of the South Side, from the South Loop to Englewood. There are three candidates on the ballot. The CTU-endorsed candidate is Anusha Thotakura, 26, executive director of Citizen Action Illinois. Andre Smith, 57, a frequent candidate for various offices in this area, is running. And there’s Jessica Biggs, 41, a former CPS principal and currently organizer with the Southwest Organizing Project, which links neighborhood schools with mental-health and other services in their communities.
Thotakura generally believes more funding is needed to support neighborhood schools, but she doesn’t support changes to selective-enrollment schools or firing Martinez and taking on more high-cost debt. That’s to her credit, given she’s CTU-endorsed.
Biggs is our choice, though, in no small part due to her extensive experience within CPS and her thoughtful approach to improving public education in Chicago. She doesn’t line up with all of the policy stances of this board, but she is clear-eyed about the district’s financial challenges and she describes Martinez’s resistance to the mayor’s reckless financial approach this way: “Pedro Martinez is doing current CPS students, future CPS students and Chicago’s taxpayers a profound service in standing up to the mayor.”
We endorse Jessica Biggs.
District 7:
This is predominantly a Latino district, running through a swath of the Southwest Side that includes neighborhoods like Pilsen, Little Village and Brighton Park. Yesenia Lopez, 36, executive assistant to the chief of staff for Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, is running with CTU’s endorsement. She faces two opponents.
Lopez’s positions largely mirror CTU’s priorities, and she doesn’t support retaining Martinez, something that’s a prerequisite for our support.
Of the two alternatives, we favor Eva Villalobos, 39, a former accountant and now a stay-at-home mom to four children. Per her accounting background, she supports a detailed audit of the district’s finances. She’s a firm supporter of continuing to give parents choices through selective-enrollment, magnet and charter schools.
Villalobos is opposed to closing schools, but tells the Chicago Sun-Times she is “thinking through this challenge with an open heart and open mind.” That’s a refreshing openness to alternative viewpoints.
Eva Villalobos has our endorsement.
District 8:
This oddly shaped district runs southwest from the western edge of the Loop through Back of the Yards and on to the neighborhoods surrounding Midway Airport. There are two candidates running.
CTU has endorsed Felix Ponce, 30, who is a music teacher in Community High School District 218, based in southwest suburban Oak Lawn. Opposing him is Angel Gutierrez, 52, a self-described nonprofit consultant.
Ponce’s positions are staunchly in line with CTU’s, and he agrees with the union that Martinez should be fired. Those are nonstarter views for us.
Gutierrez is in favor of more School Board transparency around their decisions, allocating more resources to schools that are performing well on behalf of students, and providing parents with more school choices, not fewer. Given Ponce’s positions, Gutierrez is the better choice.
Angel Gutierrez is endorsed.
District 9:
The 9th District covers an expansive chunk of the South and Southwest sides, from just north of Englewood and West Englewood south to West Pullman and Mount Greenwood. It’s a racially and philosophically diverse district, unusually so, with wards that overwhelmingly supported Johnson as mayor and those vehemently opposed to him.
There are four candidates. CTU’s endorsement is with Lanetta Thomas, 32, an assistant at Governors State University and a former field organizer for Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders. Of the three others, the one who we strongly prefer is Therese Boyle, 65, a CTU member and retired CPS psychologist.
Thomas’ views are in line with CTU’s, with a major emphasis on the need for more state funding for the system, but in her responses to our questionnaire she sounded some pragmatic notes, which we found encouraging. However, she didn’t oppose the ongoing attempt to fire Martinez (she called herself “neutral), so that doesn’t sit well with us.
Boyle long has been a critic within CTU of its current leadership and has helped lead opposition slates in past union elections to the militant faction that has controlled the union for years now. Still, she calls herself a “union person” and worked within most of District 9’s schools as a school psychologist before retiring in 2019.
She believes CPS needs more funding. But she is pragmatic about the large number of substantially underenrolled schools. Still, she says, if there are consolidations in the future, they need to be managed better than the 50 closures under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. We agree.
Boyle would be a most welcome addition to the Board of Education — someone who’s “seen it all” after 35 years working within CPS and is familiar first-hand with CTU politics and the various challenges of schools within a wide variety of neighborhoods and socio-economic conditions.
We endorse Therese Boyle.
District 10:
The final district covers a large part of the South Side, running from just north of 31st Street to South Shore and covering neighborhoods like Hyde Park, Kenwood and Woodlawn. The CTU-endorsed candidate is Robert Jones, 65, who is pastor of Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church. Three other candidates round out this crowded field, including the only rapper running for the School Board, Che “Rhymefest” Smith, 47. Of the three, the clear standout is Karin Norington-Reaves, 55, CEO of I.C. Stars, a nonprofit that trains adults from challenged backgrounds for jobs in the tech industry and former executive director of Teach for America.
In his responses to our questionnaire Jones allows that he’s had little direct experience with CPS. His positions on issues largely correspond with CTU’s demands for more resources, and he doesn’t support retaining Martinez as CEO.
Norington-Reaves has extensive CPS experience, placing more than 200 CPS teachers when she was at Teach for America and serving currently as LSC chair at Otis Elementary School. Her positions on the challenges confronting CPS are nuanced and thoughtful, but she doesn’t close off difficult decisions like school consolidation. She describes that option as a last resort.
On the subject of firing Martinez and adding hundreds of millions more in high-cost debt, we wholeheartedly agree with her when she says, “Leadership has repeatedly shown they are willing to play poker with the future of our kids, and it has to stop!”
Karin Northington-Reaves is endorsed.
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