(The Center Square) – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday introduced six nominees for the Chicago Board of Education, but he has refused to say if the newly-appointed members are endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union.
The mayor introduced the nominees three days after announcing the resignations of the seven current members.
The nominated members are CTU member Deborah Pope, environmental activist Olga Bautista, political strategist Michilla Blaise, community organizer Mary Gardner, the Rev. Mitchell L. Ikenna Johnson and Frank Niles Thomas, a U.S. Air Force veteran and former Streets and Sanitation ward supervisor with experience in organized labor.
“I was elected to fight, and fight I am,” Johnson said.
The move comes amid ongoing contract negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and CTU, a sizable budget deficit for the district and questions about whether current CPS leadership will remain in place.
The mayor was interrupted three times by protesters Monday, and he had several fiery exchanges with reporters.
Johnson said Chicago Public Schools are woefully underfunded, and he would not rule out a high-interest loan to spend more taxpayer money on public education. He compared critics of his fiscal policy to those who favored slavery.
“They said that it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people, and now you have detractors making the same argument of the Confederacy when it comes to public education in this system,” Johnson said.
Illinois Policy Institute Policy Analyst Hannah Schmid said the Chicago Teachers Union is emboldened with Johnson in the mayor’s office.
“We’re seeing these extreme demands, you know, the kind of demands like nine new staff members at every school, even those schools with 4% of their building filled with students,” Schmid said.
Two of the mayor’s new board members spoke about the need to fully fund public schools. CPS currently spends more than $18,000 of taxpayer funds per student annually.
State Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, who fostered a bill creating an elected school board for the state’s largest school district, posted a statement about the school board changes on social media.
“The process of implementing the elected school board was designed to ensure a smooth and orderly transition during the change in governance by establishing a phased-in approach to minimize disruption to our students and our schools. Losing the experience and continuity of the entire board just a few months away from the installation of a new board runs contrary to these efforts,” Williams stated.
Former Chicago mayoral candidate and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Willie Wilson said in a social media post that Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, is unlikely to help the situation because CTU donated to his campaign.
“He can’t really do nothing, because look at his campaign contribution. It is made by the union,” Wilson said.
Wilson added that CTU, Welch, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and other politicians killed the Invest in Kids school choice scholarship program, which expired last year.
