Over the objections of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Democrats in the Illinois Senate voted Tuesday night to transition Chicago’s mayoral appointed school board to a fully-elected, 21-member body by 2027. The Senate voted 36-15 to approve the long-discussed, politically volatile issue, which still requires approval in the House and the signature of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has voiced his support for an .
We think most legislators, even those who voted for it, know a 21-member school board would be a joke. It almost certainly would be dominated by the Chicago Teachers Union,
For the judicial ballot, I look to the various Bar associations for a relatively unbiased recommendation process, which I follow in order to cast a more informed ballot. Where do I look for a roughly equivalent review of choices here?
The idea that CPS needs to have separate taxing ability from the city is always kind of nuts to me. I have never gotten a good explanation that I’m happy with as to why Illinois has so many independent taxing agencies. It seems like just a great way to hide graft and waste, and create opportunities for every random administrator to pay for pet projects.
Anthony Vazquez, Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
An elected Chicago Public Schools board is “supposed to be about democracy, but what happened in Springfield had nothing to do with democracy,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday.
One day after the Illinois Senate overwhelmingly voted to phase in what the mayor has long viewed as an “unwieldy” 21-member elected school board, Lightfoot said that vote her latest in a string of legislative defeats was only temporary.
“We’re gonna keep our fight where it should be: making sure that our children are heard. That their educational futures are secured. That parents have a seat at the table. Why that sense of urgency around those core values is something that some folks in Springfield don’t get, I don’t know. But there has to be accountability for ignoring the people,” she said.