If, by the mayor’s standards, current elected school board proposals are illegitimate to govern our school communities, consider how much decades of mayoral control has met, or exceeded, that illegitimacy.
Chicago’s Grassroots Education Movement alliance and CTU are mounting a campaign to pass HB 2267 — for an elected, representative school board — when lawmakers return to the Capitol after for a “lame duck” session, the closing days of the current general assembly before new legislators are seated. But the success of that campaign will depend on members contacting their state senators and insisting the bill get consideration first thing in the new year.
Chicago is an outlier in Illinois as a major district whose school board is not directly elected by the people whose welfare it is meant to serve. HB 2267, which has passed the House and currently awaits recognition and vote in the Senate, would fix that situation and finally bring an important measure of democracy to Chicago Public Schools.
Chicagoans must have the right to elect their school board. Teachers must have the right to bargain on staffing and class size.
