Chicago’s public schools are managed by an appointed school board. Every member of the board is appointed by the mayor, Rahm Emanuel. Citizens of Chicago want an elected board, a restoration of democratic control. Legislation passed but key members of the legislature refused to send the bill to the governor.
MEDIA ALERT
For immediate release
11/13/17
Contact
Wendy Katten 773-704-0336
Parents demand public meeting with Senate President Cullerton after he fails to send elected school board bill to Governor’s desk
“The current legislative session ended in Springfield this week, and despite the elected school board bill finally passing after years of grassroots advocacy around Chicago, Senator John Culleton and Speaker Madigan failed to send this bill to the Governor’s desk during this legislative session. Senator Cullerton added a poison pill to the bill around the drawing of maps creating a logjam between the Senate and House.
“As a constituent of Senator Cullerton’s I implore him to once for all side with us, the voters rather than his political allies and special interests” said Jeff Jenkins a Coonley LSC Member & CPS Parent
“Chicago is the only district in Illinois with an appointed school board where the mayor gets to hand-pick the board. There were two city-wide referenda that passed with overwhelming support, one in 2012 with 87% approval, and grassroots groups organized another in 2015 due to inaction by the state legislature, and that passed with 89% approval in 37 wards.
“Chicago Public Schools has faced a number of issues in recent years from drastic budget cuts to creating a recent special education manual that has been harmful to students with disabilities. These examples further justify the need to have an elected school board as democratically elected officials can be held accountable to their actions. Chicago parents and communities have been pushing for an elected school board in order to have transparency and accountability in decisions that impact thousands of children.
“We’ve canvassed Chicago, we’ve done referendums showing 90% support, we’ve even managed to get the bill passed,” said Jitu Brown of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization, “What will it take to get John Cullerton to stop sabotaging democracy?”
Co-sponsored by Raise Your Hand Action, Parents4Teachers, KOCO, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, Northside Action for Justice
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another example of Chiraq corruption at it’s best.
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similar story in st. louis…..many were shocked when the st. louis post dispatch offered an editorial wedenesday filled with stats which prove how great it has been to keep the citizens disenfranchised…….a horrible editorial filled with phony stats. Legislators need the backing of the media to get by with screwing over the voters…..they get it in st. louis….is the same also true in chicago?
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Our politicians are out of control. This grab for power is disgusting. What horrid role models and shysters are in charge. Rahm needs to get his butt kicked. Rahm is a bully. This is exactly what the DEMS don’t need …. Rahm.
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“Rahmit””
Rahm it through the Legislature
Rahm it through the Board
“Rahmit” is the nomenclature
“Rahmit” is the word
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Hand picked boards of education are more likely to reflect the will of the mayor than the citizenry. Education “reform” has been rife with cronyism, nepotism and representation bought by special interests groups. Why should suburban communities get the right to choose school board members, but urban districts are denied democratic choice? All communities should have the same opportunity to fully participate in choosing members of the school boards.
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We learned in NYC that it is better to have a board that asks question rather than one that follows the Mayor’s orders. If the mayor was an education expert, he would be Superintendent
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NYC also has a mayoral control provision that was just renewed for two years, but the renewal was held over the head of Mayor di Blasio by Republican leaders in Albany to get concessions in return.
Senate majority leader John Flanagan got di Blasio to agree to revive the so-called ‘zombie charters’, so new charter schools can open to replace charter schools that failed or never opened.
Another thing reported by Eliza Shapiro of Politico was that the negotiations were originally deadlocked until di Blasio agreed to the concessions and seemed to include the controversial new policy to let SUNY’s charter schools start hiring uncertified teachers to help fix their teacher-turnover crisis.
Because the negotiations all came from behind closed doors, the public was never allowed to weigh in on mayoral control or charter expansion, but there was a comment period for the uncertified teacher policy, which was promptly ignored as the policy went through despite major opposition.
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FWIW, in 2015 we “only” won those 37 wards because many aldermen who were allies of the mayor used various tricks to keep the referendum off the ballots in their wards, thereby not allowing a full, city wide vote that would have been harder to spin excuses for the mayor not listening to the results of. You know that Democracy has been murdered and left in a ditch when you see politicians fighting against their constituents clear choice on an issue like this.
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I am a cautious fan of an elected school board if it reverses the market based policies of the current school board. But we have to have a discussion about the bad old days when political patronage corrupted school board elections. My notion of CPS in the early 90’s is that there were far too many utterly dysfunctional schools run by inept principals enabled by inept district leadership enabled by inept political hacks that ran for school board, all of whom helped get the vote out for the democratic machine. This isn’t teacher bashing… good teachers were all over the place and either closed their door to the chaos or found better principals to work with. How do we prevent the new style of patronage dedicated to gentrification, lower taxes and pushing poor people out from perpetuating the new form of corruption?
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Now we have utterly dysfunctional schools run by principals enabled by inept appointed school board members beholden to Rahm.
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As Chicago is to Illinois, so is Boston to Massachusetts – the one and only city without an elected school board. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, the incumbent Mayor Walsh, who refused to debate his opponent more than twice (and shortened his participation in one of those debates by half) was re-elected by a 2-1 margin. His campaign funds came to an historic $4.5 million, likely some of which came from DFER and other similar groups.
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