Grading Democracy: Chicago's First Lesson in School Board Elections

Analyzing the Chicago Public School Board’s composition relative to votes cast in the respective 2024 School Board election

January 30, 2025

Nicholas Fadanelli

Increased emphasis on educational politics in Chicago mimics trends across the nation

Since the Covid lockdowns management of education has been under particular political scrutiny. Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin surged to victory in November 2021 off a campaign particularly focused around education and increasing parental control after Covid 19 pandemic lockdowns, leading a wave of GOP governors to follow suit. In February 2022 San Francisco voters recalled three members of their school board over their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and focus on other priorities. President Donald Trump has discussed eliminating the Department of Education. During her presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris ran on expanding funding for public K-12 schools, universal pre-K, universal school meal programs, and affordable college.

On top of the presidential race November 2024 saw crucial school board and related races in San Francisco, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, and other cities. Providence, Rhode Island resumed having an elected school board for the first time in 60 years. Joining the elected school board club for the first time was Chicago.

Chicago serves as a unique microcosm to understand the developments at play in both urban and educational politics in America. The “city of neighborhoods” is a patchwork of urban and arguably suburban communities spanning multiple cultures, ethnicities, and socio-economic strata. Chicago and its people simultaneously have to grapple with the same major issues of America’s other big cities, whilst simultaneously feeling the pressures of industrial decline that have hit the rest of America’s Rust Belt.

A former bastion of machine politics, prior to the November 2024 elections the school board was entirely appointed by the mayor. Educational politics still came into play in mayoral races, but not to the same degree as was possible in a race dedicated solely to education. This was truly the first time that Chicagoans could express their priorities for their children’s education and opportunities.

The November 2024 Chicago School Board elections generally favored candidates who were not endorsed by the powerful progressive Chicago Teachers’ Union (CTU). These elections, the first for CPS, are only part of a transition to a future to a fully elected CPS board in 2026. Until then Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a strong ally of the CTU, will continue to appoint a majority of the board, including its president. The appointees the mayor has chosen thus far are primarily aligned with the CTU, raising some obvious questions:

Does the makeup of the board as a whole reflect the will of the voters of the city? Of each individual district? Each subdistrict?

Which board members face the most initial risk of losing their re-election races in 2026?

What do these trends signal about the will of Chicago voters since the initial election of Mayor Johnson in April 2023?

In the following investigation I will review the current issues at play leading up to the recent CPS board elections, the composition of the new CPS board, and review precinct-level voting data to answer these questions. This analysis leverages publicly available precinct level voting data obtained from the Chicago Board of Elections.

The future of Chicago Public Schools of particular interest during and since the 2023 mayoral race

The Chicago Public School District has suffered drastic enrollment declines since the 2008 Financial Crisis, with enrollment dropping ~18% from ~397,000 students in 2014 to only ~325,000 students today, falling from the 3rd to the 4th largest school district in the nation in 2022, being surpassed by Miami-Dade County.

In part stemming from falling enrollment, CPS is facing severe financial strains which are exacerbated as federal funding begins to dry up.

This, and the central role education plays in the lives of families in the city, has led education to take center stage in the 2023 Chicago mayoral race.

In the first round of the election then candidate and former CPS teacher and CTU activist Brandon Johnson secured the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) endorsement. More than just a feather in the cap of his progressive bonafides, the CTU endorsement opened up a massive warchest for his campaign. The CTU spent $2.5M in just the first round of the 2023 mayoral race to support Johnson.

Johnson, who secured 21.6% of the vote in the first round of the mayoral race, was able to make it to the second round against former CPS CEO Paul Vallas who secured 32.9% of the vote in the first round.

Leading up to the runoff vote, Johnson and Vallas adamantly debated the future of CPS. Vallas’ tenure as CPS CEO from 1995-2001 was a point of contention, as were Johnson’s close ties to the CTU. Johnson campaigned for more social workers, nurses, counselors, and programs to assist students outside the classroom. Johnson also advocated for free community college for all and funding schools on a “need” basis rather than a “per pupil” basis, but requested that the state of Illinois fund many of these programs. Vallas argued for leveraging schools as community centers throughout the city and keeping doors open longer for students after school hours. Vallas also argued for cutting waste in central CPS administration to send more money to individual schools.

Brandon Johnson won the runoff race to become mayor of Chicago. Instead of concluding educational policy, it was only the beginning of renewed engaged public discourse regarding the future direction of Chicago Public Schools and the communities it serves .

Aforementioned financial issues and contract negotiations with the CTU have been at the heart of the fight between Mayor Brandon Johnson and current CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.

In ongoing budget battles Mayor Johnson wants CPS, which administers its own budget and can increase taxes separate from the city, to take on a $175M pension payment obligation for non-teaching school staff. This obligation was shifted to CPS from the city by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2019. Alongside taking on this payment, Mayor Johnson wants CPS to budget for more than the current budgeted 4% increase in teachers’ pay. Beyond raising taxes Mayor Johnson has proposed CPS could take out a $300M high interest short term loan to cover the costs and give the district more room to negotiate with the CTU.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez refused to budge on these budget issues. In September, Mayor Johnson asked Martinez to resign. Martinez refused. Mayor Johnson’s handpicked seven member CPS board then resigned en-masse in early October rather than fire CEO Martinez. Later that month Mayor Johnson announced his picks for a new CPS board in a controversial press conference. Following the 2024 CPS elections the outgoing fully appointed CPS board then fired CEO Martinez prior to the new CPS board taking office.

Per Martinez’ contract, he will stay in office for the next 6 months until when?, during which time he is fighting to retain control of ongoing negotiations with the CTU, including issuing a restraining order on the CPS board from participating in the negotiations directly without his invitation.

Amidst this, the voters of Chicago voters went to the polls to elect 10 of 21 seats onto the newly expanded Chicago School Board.

A school board at the first stage of transition from mayoral appointment to direct election

Prior to the November 2024 election, all members of the Chicago School Board were appointed by the Mayor of Chicago. In 2021 the state of Illinois passed legislation mandating a transition from the current 7 member fully appointed board to a fully elected 21 person board by 2027. In March 2024 the state legislature passed additional legislation establishing a timetable for the transition and boundaries for each elected representative.

As part of the March legislation the city was divided into 10 districts each composed of 2 “subdistricts” for the 2024 election with each elected representative being elected from each of the districts.

First individuals are elected to the school board from each of the 10 aggregated districts. Then it is identified which of the 2 subdistricts in each district the winner resides in. The winner is then assigned to the seat for that particular subdistrict. The other 10 subdistrict seats are then appointed by the mayor.

In addition to these 10 subdistrict specific appointments, the mayor also appoints the president of the school board.

In the 2026 elections, each of the 20 subdistricts will become its own separate representative district, electing its own school board representative. The additional 10 elected positions here will replace the prior 10 mayoral subdistrict specific appointees. In 2026, the school board president will shift from a mayoral appointment to an elected position which shall be elected on a city wide ballot.

These subdistricts will in effect become their own “districts” - and their borders shall remain unchanged until after the 2030 census. At that point their borders may be reapportioned by the legislature of the state of Illinois during their decennial redistricting process of state and federal legislative district boundaries.

The strategic and symbolic significance of the school board election results cannot be understated

Although the 10 seats on the 2024 ballot represented less than a majority of the board, these races served to undeniably voice to City Hall the will of Chicago’s voters.

Leading up to these races, nearly $6M was raised by CPS board candidates and an untold amount of additional spending by Super PACs occurred. The CTU alone directly contributed $1.75M to individual candidates’ campaigns, and several pro-charter school PACs spent money in various races as well.

Election Day, however, resulted in a resounding defeat for CTU endorsed candidates, with CTU endorsed candidates only winning 3 of the 10 elected seats, with one of those wins being uncontested! Although non-CTU endorsed candidates won 7 of the 10 seats, the combined total of all non-endorsed CTU candidates was roughly 60%. Although part of this imbalance was due to the uncontested 5th District’s votes all going to a CTU endorsed candidate, non-CTU endorsed candidates also won thin margin races in districts 1 and 3.

Following these election results, Mayor Johnson has named 9 of his 10 subdistrict appointees and his pick for CPS School Board President Sean Harden.

With this in mind let's analyze the aforementioned questions:

Does the makeup of the board as a whole reflect the will of the voters of the city? Of each individual district? Each subdistrict?

Which board members face the most initial risk of re-election in 2026?

What does this signal about the will of Chicago voters since the initial election of Mayor Johnson in April 2023?

Assumptions made to facilitate this analysis

In this analysis, I make a series of assumptions to amplify the analysis and establish broader trends. This has the unintentional consequence of minimizing the many accomplishments, years of service, unique perspectives and specific stances individual candidates/board members bring to the table. For this I apologize - as many of the candidates (both backed by CTU, nominated by the Mayor, or who ran as Independents) have their own unique stances, views, and ways in which they’ve provided service to the Chicago community over time.

These assumptions include:

Narrowing incentives for voters in race to pro-CTU/Mayor Johnson or anti-CTU/Mayor Johnson. An underlying assumption behind this analysis, and the following assumptions, is that most voters approached who they voted for in this race as a choice between voting for CTU backed candidates or non-CTU candidates. Nuance in races with more than two (2) candidates is lost due to this. However, media coverage and advertising leading up to the race very heavily implied this correlation. Without additional data, such as exit or other voter surveys, it is impossible to ascertain other specific motives behind the way voters acted.

Correlation between CTU endorsed candidates and Mayor Brandon Johnson pre-election appointed school board members. Given Mayor Brandon Johnson’s close allegiance with the CTU I group these together as one political block. This allows for comparing results across district/subdistrict boundaries as well as comparing Mayor Johnson’s post election appointments to the election results.

Grouping all non-CTU endorsed candidate votes per precinct/subdistrict/district together. Similar to above, in any districts with more than 2 candidates I grouped all non-CTU endorsed candidates together as a block. Much of the advertising for particular candidates in the race emphasized endorsement by CTU if they had it, thus choosing a candidate who was not endorsed in itself was a choice, regardless of the specific nuances that candidate had from the views of the CTU or other non-CTU endorsed candidates. This assumption, in particular, has an impact on district 4 where the CTU candidate was a clear 2nd place finisher despite only getting ~30% of the total vote.

Assignment of split-precincts across subdistricts to anticipated subdistrict: Many voter precincts were split between school board districts and subdistricts. Although election data does make a distinction for each precinct which school board district those votes came from in each split-precinct, they did not for precincts that are split between subdistricts. This is entirely reasonable and related to how the subdistrict administration will change for the 2026 elections when all 20 members of the school board are elected from separate districts aligning to the current subdistricts. However, it did mean that for all precincts that were split inside a particular district, I had to manually review and group the whole precinct with one subdistrict or another based on perceived percentage of that precinct in each subdistrict. This inevitably means the subdistrict totals are slightly off; however, given the relatively low number of votes in each split precinct I am confident this does not change the overall directional accuracy of my subdistrict analyses.

At no level does the way the seats on the board were apportioned match the will of the voters

To answer the first question regarding if the makeup of the board as a whole reflects the will of the voters of the city, each district, and/or each subdistrict requires analyzing the alternatives. What should the board look like if it was based on the will of the voters at the city-wide, district, or subdistrict level.

As illustrated in Table 2 all but one of the methods of apportionment based on the results of the votes cast would have resulted in a final CPS Board with fewer CTU-endorsed members. The only methodology that would have resulted in more would have been if the mayor directly appointed all of them.

Table 2: Chicago School Board Seat Assignment based on seat appointment method

Referring to Table 3, across the city as a whole, only 40% of the vote went to CTU-endorsed candidates whilst 14 of the 21 seats apportioned have gone to CTU/Johnson aligned individuals. Likewise, when looking at individual districts, Table 3 shows that only four of the districts’ elected/appointed school board membership alignment appears to match the voting results across the whole of the district. Districts 4, 6, 9, and 10 notably had ~69% or more of the vote go to non-CTU endorsed candidates, but each of these districts will have 1 Independent and 1 CTU/Johnson aligned school board member.

Table 3: City Wide and District Level Chicago Public School Board Vote Share & Elected/Appointed Member Discrepancy

Table 4: Subdistrict Level Chicago Public School Board Vote Share & Member Alignment

Table 4 shows that at the subdistrict level, 11 of the 20 district representative members of the school board thus far are aligned with who won a simple majority vote in their subdistricts.

When looking at who would have won pluralities, this increases to 15. This is because in districts 2, 4, 6, and 9 there were notable 3+ way races. Although the CTU backed candidates did not win a simple majority of the votes in these races, they won a sizable number of votes in all of these and a district wide plurality in district 2 resulting in Ebony DeBerry’s victory.

Subdistricts 2B, 4A, and 9A would have seen CTU endorsed candidate victories as these candidates won a plurality of the vote in these subdistricts even whilst not securing a simple majority of the vote. Subdistrict 6A however would still have been won by a non-CTU aligned candidate.

Only the appointments for subdistricts 1A, 3A, 6A, 10B, and for the School Board President thus far fall outside of both a representation of either a simple majority of votes or a plurality of votes cast in their subdistricts.

Thus if the election had taken place in November 2024 under the same rules that will be leveraged in November 2026, 9 of the 21 seats would have gone to CTU endorsed candidates, and 12 (including the CPS board presidency) would have gone to non-CTU endorsed candidates. This only slightly deviates from the 8 seats going to CTU endorsed candidates that would have been obtained if the vote was to be conducted at the city wide or 10-district wide level. However all significantly diverge from the actual board composition post mayoral appointment.

Four Appointed Members, including CPS Board President Sean Harden, face serious risk of losing should they seek election in 2026

Of all the appointed members, four (including CPS President Sean Harden) have seats where CTU-endorsed candidates did not win a majority or plurality of the vote. An additional four board members (including one who was elected at the district level) will be running in subdistricts where CTU-endorsed candidates did win a plurality but failed to secure a majority of the vote.

Based on the above CPS Board President Sean Harden may face an uphill battle getting elected in 2026 given 60% of the city voted for non-CTU endorsed candidates.

Ed Bannon (1A), Olga Bautista (10B), Anusha Thotakura (6A), and Norma Rios-Sierra (3A) all have potential challenges ahead given CTU endorsed candidates did not win either a plurality or majority in their subdistricts. Anusha Thotakura, however, has a name brand recognition advantage, given she was the CTU-endorsed candidate that received 35.5% of the vote in her subdistrict, providing an ample voter base to work off of for 2026.

Karen Zaccor (4A), Ebony DeBerry (2A), Debby Pope (2B) and Frank Niles Thomas (9A) will have plurality victories in their subdistricts to work off of, but with CTU endorsed candidates in their subdistricts failing to have won simple majorities they will still have to contend to retain their seats should they seek election in 2026. Given this, these constituencies will need to be effectively served in order for these individuals to retain their votes in 2026.

A clear rift is emerging in Mayor Brandon Johnson’s electoral coalition since his initial runoff victory in 2023

Given a simple majority of voters rejected candidates aligned with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s education policies, a cornerstone of his campaign, barely a year and a half after electing him, it demonstrates a continued rift between the Mayor and various parts of his April 2023 electoral coalition.

Figure 3 shows that outside of precincts that were a part of district 5 (where CTU’s endorsed candidate ran unopposed) only precincts in the far northwest side (district 1) and through district 7 (central west side) notably swung in the direction of the mayor. Additional parts of district 6 (Near North / Streeterville in particular) voted more in alignment with CTU endorsed candidates than they did with the Mayor in April 2023. These were primarily areas Mayor Johnson had underperformed in during the April 2023 race.

Across the rest of the city, CTU candidates consistently performed worse than Mayor Johnson had in their precincts. South side districts 9 and 10 showed considerable degradation from the April 2023 race, mirroring a decline in support seen related to the “Bring Chicago Home” initiative I have written about previously. The fact this degradation has continued into a second election suggests a lingering trend away from the mayor in these areas who had primarily aligned with Lori Lightfoot in the February 2023 Mayoral Election before switching to Johnson in the April 2023 runoff.

The fact that there was also a smaller percentage of voters who supported CTU backed candidates vs the mayor in the city’s progressive strongholds of Uptown, Avondale, Logan Square, Wicker Park, LakeView East, Edgewater, and Rogers Park is interesting. These areas were Johnson’s base of support in the February 2023 race which gave him enough support to make the runoff race in April.

Chicago Public Schools will only continue to feature prominently in the months ahead

This new CPS board will be tossed into the deep end as ongoing budget discussions continue and negotiations for a contract extension with the CTU commence. Beyond these immediate challenges there are still the underlying enrollment, educational achievement, accessibility, and budget issues that CPS must juggle in order to provide quality education to city residents in a fiscally sustainable way.

I hope that CPS Board President Harden and the members of the board as a whole note the will of the voters as expressed in these most recent elections - even if those results may run counter to their individual objectives and preferences.

November 2026 is closer than it may seem, and nothing motivates a voter more than providing the best possible future for their child.

References

2010. City of Chicago | Data Portal. https://data.cityofchicago.org/

Amin, Reema. 2024. “All members of the Chicago Board of Education to resign.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/10/04/cps-school-board-members-resign-amid-johnson-martinez-tensions/.

Amin, Reema. 2024. “Chicago Board of Education fires CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/12/21/board-of-education-fires-pedro-martinez/.

Amin, Reema, and Becky Vevea. 2024. “Mayor Johnson announces 10 of 11 appointees for new Chicago Board of Education.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/12/17/mayor-picks-appointees-for-partially-elected-cps-school-board/.

Amin, Reema, Becky Vevea, Mila Koumpilova, and Samantha Smylie. 2024. “Election 2024: Chicago School Board Results.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/11/05/school-board-election-results-2024/.

Berkshire, Jennifer C. 2024. “The Harris-Walz Vision for Public Schools.” The Nation. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/harris-walz-education-agenda-public-schools/.

Cherone, Heather. 2022. “Chicago Teachers Union Endorses Brandon Johnson for Mayor, Urges Him to Make Bid Official.” WTTW News. https://news.wttw.com/2022/09/28/chicago-teachers-union-endorses-brandon-johnson-mayor-urges-him-make-bid-official.

Chicago Public School District. 2023. “Stats and Facts.” Chicago Public Schools. https://www.cps.edu/about/stats-facts/.

Faguy, Ana. 2024. “Trump's pledge to axe the Department of Education explained.” BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79zxzj90nno.

GECKER, JOCELYN. 2022. “3 San Francisco school board members appear headed for recall.” Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-15/san-francisco-votes-in-school-board-recall-election.

Howe, Jesse, Nader Issa, Sarah Karp, and Lauren FitzPatrick. 2024. “$5,824,344 has been raised so far by all candidates for Chicago’s new elected school board.” Chicago Sun Times, November 15, 2024. https://chicago.suntimes.com/graphics/education/2024/school-board-finance-tracker/.

Issa, Nader, and Sarah Karp. 2024. “Mayor Brandon Johnson names all new CPS school board after mass resignations.” WBEZ Chicago. https://www.wbez.org/education/2024/10/07/mayor-brandon-johnson-names-new-cps-school-board-resignations.

Kamenetz, Anya. 2021. “Why education was a top voter priority this election.” NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/04/1052101647/education-parents-election-virginia-republicans.

Kids First Chicago. 2024. “Mayor Brandon Johnson Rejects CPS Budget: What Comes Next?” Kids First Chicago. https://kidsfirstchicago.org/blog/mayor-brandon-johnson-rejects-cps-budget-what-comes-next.

Kids First Chicago. n.d. “About the Chicago Board of Education.” Kids First Chicago. https://kidsfirstchicago.org/about-the-chicago-board-of-education.

Schanz, Jenn. 2024. “CPS CEO Pedro Martinez granted temporary restraining order against school board.” NBC Chicago. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/cps-ceo-pedro-martinez-granted-temporary-restraining-order-against-school-board/3631918/.

Schmid, Hannah. 2024. “Chicago Public Schools sees uptick in enrollment, but still lower than 10 years ago.” Illinois Policy. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-public-schools-sees-uptick-in-enrollment-but-still-lower-than-10-years-ago/.

Smith, Mailee. 2023. “Chicago Teachers Union, affiliates spend nearly $2.5M to put Johnson in mayoral run-off.” Illinois Policy Institute. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-teachers-union-affiliates-spend-nearly-2-5m-to-put-johnson-in-mayoral-run-off-2/.

Smith, Mailee. 2024. “Chicago Teachers Union spent $1.74M trying to take over Chicago school board.” Illinois Policy. https://www.illinoispolicy.org/chicago-teachers-union-spent-1-74m-trying-to-take-over-chicago-school-board/.

Smylie, Samantha, and Kalyn Belsha. 2021. “Illinois governor approves phased-in elected school board in Chicago.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2021/7/30/22602068/illinois-governor-approves-elected-chicago-school-board/.

Spielman, Fran. 2019. “Lightfoot’s 2020 budget requires CPS repay $60 million for pensions.” Chicago Sun Times, October 28, 2019. https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2019/10/28/20936377/lightfoot-2020-budget-pension-reimbursement-chicago-public-schools-teachers-strike

.Vevea, Becky. 2023. “Where do we go from here? Chicago's new mayor will shape Chicago Public Schools next era.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2023/3/28/23660693/chicago-mayor-2023-election-runoff-public-schools-education-brandon-johnson-paul-vallas/.

Wilburn, Thomas. 2024. “Illinois Senate approves proposal on Chicago’s elected school board transition.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/03/06/chicago-votes-for-elected-school-board-in-november-2024-elections/.

Wilburn, Thomas. 2024. “Campaign spending in Chicago’s school board elections approaches $7 million.” Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/chicago/2024/10/31/school-board-campaign-spending-at-almost-7-million-ahead-of-election-day/.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse