The November 3rd blue wave that swept the country isn’t the main headline in Chicago’s elections.
The theme of activists opposing the Trump agenda in a number of battleground states has been “working people versus billionaires.” In Michigan and elsewhere, the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) also made headlines for spending tens of millions of dollars trying to stop the election to Congress and the Senate of any candidates opposed to the genocide in Gaza and the disastrous war on Iran.
But in Chicago’s first-ever all-elected school board elections, also held November 3, the AIPAC and billionaire-backed candidates were Democrats. Their target here is the movement that brought Mayor Brandon Johnson to office.
Since 2010, there has been an insurgent movement rooted in Black and Latino working-class communities, with significant leadership coming from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
The outcome of the election has been extremely close. Out of 20 seats on the board, nine out of 14 candidates endorsed by CTU won, with a tenth candidate in the lead with counting almost over. Most school board members elected seem to want to fully-fund schools to provide good education and all the features that a family thinks of when they think of schools: libraries and librarians, nurses and counselors, art, music, after-school programs, and nutritious meals.
Why do the rich care about who leads the public schools?
The children of billionaires don’t go to the Chicago Public Schools. What the billionaires want is to make money from education. The privatized model of charter schools boomed in Chicago starting in the 1990s and resulted in the closing of 50 schools in Black and Latino communities. Today, there are 150 schools that are threatened by the privatizers because enrollment is around half their capacity. This disinvestment contributed to Chicago losing more than 10% of its population – 340,000 residents – during the years that Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot were mayors.
The main target for negative ads paid for by the billionaires was Hilario Dominguez, candidate for school board president. Dominguez is a special education teacher and union organizer.
One statistic cited by CTU President Stacy Davis Gates shows the extent the ruling class went to try to elect candidates beholden to them, “A seat on the Chicago Board of Education is an unpaid position. Billionaires spent a million dollars a week trying to buy it.”
The movement has to now turn to re-electing Mayor Johnson; to elect city council candidates aligned with the progressive agenda Johnson has put forward; and candidates for Chicago’s first-in-the-country civilian police district councilors to hold the infamous Chicago Police Department accountable.
When Johnson announced his campaign for re-election in October, his slogan was, “We can’t go backward!” He spoke of the candidates looking to unseat him by saying they look to, “close schools and militarize our streets.”
He linked together the struggle for good schools and police accountability, and, of course, Chicago’s Black and Latino communities, which have long fought for both.
Frank Chapman is the field organizer and education director of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. He is also a prominent supporter of Mayor Johnson. Responding to the outcome of the school board elections and millions of dollars being spent to stop the movement, Chapman said, “What’s the task of our movement? We have to hit the streets for the police district councilors and to re-elect Brandon Johnson.”
Chapman continued, “We can’t match their money. We need feet in the street – volunteers for a ground game to get our message to the people in these oppressed and occupied communities.”
#ChicagoIL #IL #PeoplesStruggles #Education #SchoolBoard #Elections #BrandonJohnson #CTU
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