6 takeaways from Chicago’s historic school board election

Chicago voters finally got a say over their schools. Here’s what they said.

The nation witnessed a generational blue deluge on Tuesday.

But Chicagoans made a different kind of history: selecting members of the city’s first-ever fully elected school board. The results are packed with insight on the nature of the city’s political structure and culture.

Here are six, some of which I unpacked Tuesday night on the Fox 32 Chicago election desk.

1. For the first time in history, the Chicago school board is not in the palm of the mayor’s hand

Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Chicago Teachers Union recently enjoyed a voting bloc as large as 15 of the 21-member school board. This was a familiar dynamic for Chicagoans, who have long lived under a school board appointed directly by the mayor.

But after Tuesday, the mayor and CTU no longer control the presidency or the board majority. Jessica Biggs, a former principal and sitting board member opposed by the CTU, won the race for board president with nearly half the vote.

With mail votes still being counted, it’s likely the union will end up with nine board seats.¹ That’s despite several structural advantages for the union in these elections, as I described on election night:

• Most incumbents in competitive races (eight) were chosen by CTU via 2024 election or appointment via Johnson.

• The CTU was heavily involved in drawing the district maps.

• The union collects roughly $40M a year, but spends just 19 cents of every dollar on teacher representation. The rest is spent on administration, overhead, and other union leadership priorities. This machine infrastructure does not show up in official campaign reporting.

A particularly stunning defeat for the mayor and CTU was Aaron “Jitu” Brown in the West Side’s District 5A. The mayor cleared a path for Brown on the school board in 2024. Brown’s opponent, Michilla Blaise, dropped out of the elected board race only to be chosen by the mayor soon after as an appointed board member. Brown was resoundingly defeated by real estate agent LaPamela Williams, who won 64% of the vote.

2. Running Hilario Dominguez for school board president was a strategic blunder

Hilario Dominguez ran for president of the school board while on leave from his job as the CTU’s political director. The union’s political leadership went all-in for Dominguez despite significant concerns about his personal conduct, dedicating 73 cents of every dollar they spent on the school board to his race.

But as election night returns came in, it became clear that Dominguez was the Ken Paxton of Chicago: a candidate chosen for his loyalty over electability.

Dominguez’s underperformance was most clear in two north-side districts won by CTU-backed candidates Debby Pope and Karen Zaccor. Both are retired longtime teachers whom Mayor Johnson appointed to the board in 2024. In District 2B, Pope is winning by 38 points while Biggs carried the district by 11. In District 4a, Zaccor is winning by 6 points while Biggs won the district by 24.²

Proven right by these results: CTU members who earlier this year overwhelmingly rejected the union’s ask for $8.5 million in higher dues to increase political spending.

3. Citywide returns highlighted the city’s freakish municipal election timing

The race for school board president was the first citywide race for a Chicago city office held in November since the 1870s. And the results show how much Chicago’s freakish municipal election timing suppresses voter turnout.

For example, Victor Henderson, the distant third-place finisher for school board president, received more than 109,000 votes (about 18% of the total).

That’s more than any single mayoral candidate received in February 2019, and more than almost any candidate is likely to receive this February. It could be enough to make the runoff.

Meanwhile, Dominguez’s roughly 188,000 votes would have topped the field in the first round of either of the last two mayoral elections. And Biggs’ 296,000 votes are more than half of all votes cast for mayor in February 2023, which would have been enough to avoid a runoff altogether.

Chicago is the only big city in the country to hold its municipal elections in February following November statewide elections. Chicago Policy Center research shows this suppresses voter turnout by 40%. Ald. Gil Villegas has introduced a resolution calling on Springfield to change the city’s municipal election timing, or authorize the City Council to do so.

4. CTU leadership is already invoking a strike

Tuesday was a win for democracy nationwide. Almost universally, losing candidates accepted defeat, and peaceful transitions of power will soon begin in Washington and in statehouses and city halls across the country.

That was not the case in Chicago.

Hours after returns showed Dominguez losing the race for board president, CTU President Stacy Davis Gates was already talking about a strike. “I’m ok to negotiate when I know that this union will take it to the picket line,” she said. She later described outside spending in school board races as “rigging the results.”

State law grants CTU more power than any teachers union in the country. Among those powers is the right to walk out of schools, which the union has done five times in the last 14 years.

Now that the board is elected, this behavior should be called out for what it is: refusal to accept the results of a legitimate election.

5. The fake $150M included in the CPS budget was exposed

This summer, Johnson’s appointees on the board pushed through a nearly $10 billion budget that assumed an additional $150 million in state money out of thin air, over the objections of the district’s own CEO and CFO. S&P Global Ratings promptly warned that the budget failed to address the district’s “underlying structural imbalance.”

As I wrote at the time, it was akin to setting the district’s house on fire and hoping insurance pays out. Now the insurer is in disarray. Two days after the election, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch announced he will not seek another term as speaker after 26 House Democrats called for new leadership. A $150 million bailout from Springfield was always far-fetched. It is even more so now.

6. The board has a historic opportunity for meaningful change

In one of her first comments on a major policy question after winning the election, Biggs told the Chicago Tribune she intends to let the moratorium on school closures expire next year, though she said no school would close without community input. That is a necessary step for a district with 158 schools where empty desks outnumber students.

The Chicago Policy Center’s CPS Excellence Agenda offers the new board a Day 1 roadmap built on three pillars: academic excellence, financial excellence and board excellence. Among its recommendations: require instructional materials aligned with research-proven methods such as the Science of Reading; move CPS to zero-based budgeting by fiscal year 2028, so every department and school justifies each line item; set consistent minimum standards for school enrollment and performance as part of an ongoing framework for optimizing facilities; and set a new standard for fairness and transparency in the next round of CTU contract talks, which begin in less than two years.

For the first time, the people setting that agenda answer to voters rather than City Hall. They should use that mandate.

In the news

I joined the Mincing Rascals podcast on WGN to break down the election results. (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). My green light recommendation: “Wweennddyy Eeiisseennbbeerrgg” by Wendy Eisenberg.

1. The CTU claims a 10th member in their bloc, Yesenia Lopez. This is debatable at best. Though union-affiliate Our Schools PAC spent money on her campaign’s behalf, she refused endorsement from CTU and has not joined the CTU bloc in several big votes, including last year’s budget.

2. Also worth noting: female candidates lead in 15 of the 20 board district races. Of the five in which a man leads, three were uncontested.This reflects research from Sarah Anzia and others who find that voters tend to prefer female candidates in school board races. H/t to Ridge Knapp for pointing this out.