Who governs the schools, and who chooses them?
By the time Chicago voters finished selecting their first fully elected school board, they had answered a question that had occupied the city for decades: Who should control public education? They had not answered an equally important question: Who should decide where children go to school?
Chicago's November 3rd school board election marked the end of an extraordinary experiment in mayoral authority. For three decades, the mayor selected the people responsible for overseeing one of America's largest public school systems. Beginning in January, that responsibility will rest with 20 geographically elected members and a president chosen citywide.
Jessica Biggs, a former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) principal and current board member, emerged victorious in the presidential contest. Hilario Dominguez, supported by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), finished a distant second. Attorney Victor Henderson placed third.
The result was a setback for the CTU's preferred presidential candidate, though union-endorsed candidates performed considerably better in individual districts. Neither the CTU nor its principal opponents appear to have secured an outright governing majority.
The election's significance extends beyond determining who occupies the boardroom. It invites a reconsideration of a century of school governance, the relationship between government and organized labor, and whether changing the people who govern education necessarily changes the educational choices available to families.
A Republican governor and a Democratic mayor
Chicago's school board history is a study in political irony. For generations, mayors appointed school board members, historically subject to City Council approval. The 1988 Chicago School Reform Act introduced a different philosophy: decentralization.
The legislation created elected Local School Councils, giving parents, teachers and community representatives substantial authority over individual schools. A community-based nominating commission also constrained the mayor's selection of the central school board.
In October 1989, approximately 312,000 Chicagoans participated in the first Local School Council elections. More than 17,000 candidates competed for roughly 6,000 positions. The experiment represented a substantial transfer of authority from central administrators to neighborhood institutions.
Six years later, Springfield reversed much of that decentralization. In 1995, Republican Governor Jim Edgar and a Republican-controlled legislature (imagine that) handed Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley sweeping authority over CPS. Daley could appoint the school board without City Council confirmation or a community nominating commission. A chief executive officer replaced the traditional superintendent structure. Daley selected his former budget director, Paul Vallas, to lead CPS and Gery Chico to chair its governing board.
The arrangement reflected a belief that accountability required identifiable leadership. If the schools failed, City Hall could no longer argue that an independent board was responsible.
Under Vallas, CPS emphasized academic standards, standardized testing, summer-school interventions and stricter student promotion requirements. Even more importantly, charter schools also emerged as an alternative within the public system.
The model had obvious attractions. Decisions could be coordinated, responsibility was concentrated and the mayor possessed considerable political leverage. It also had limitations. Concentrating authority in City Hall meant that individual school board members answered to the mayor rather than directly to parents. Critics argued that community concerns could be subordinated to executive priorities.
The closing of approximately 50 schools under Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013 illustrated the tension. Supporters emphasized declining enrollment and inefficient buildings. Opponents pointed to disruption, unequal neighborhood consequences and insufficient community participation.
The CTU gets its elected board
The CTU spent years advocating an elected school board, arguing that mayoral appointments concentrated too much authority in one political office. Governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation in 2021 providing for a transition. Chicago elected its first 10 central school board members in 2024, while Mayor Brandon Johnson appointed 10 others and the president.
The November 2026 election completed the transition. The new 21-member board takes office January 15, 2027. Yet the political outcome was not an unqualified victory for the union.
Biggs received approximately 49 percent of the vote in preliminary returns, compared with roughly 31 percent for Dominguez and 18 percent for Henderson. CTU-endorsed candidates appeared to win nine of the 20 district seats, leaving the organization influential but short of a guaranteed majority.
The results offer a useful distinction between institutional reform and political control. The CTU achieved its longstanding objective of replacing mayoral appointments with elections. Those elections, however, created a governing body whose members will not necessarily agree with the union's agenda. Indeed, the new arrangement may make coalition-building more important than it was under mayoral control. For reform-minded candidates, the election also raised a question about how clearly different educational philosophies were presented to voters.
Henderson and the school-choice question
Victor Henderson offered an intriguing contrast with Biggs and Dominguez. An attorney with a background involving the Urban Prep charter-school network, Henderson emphasized academic performance, financial accountability and measurable results.
He supported restoring understandable school performance ratings and opposed automatically increasing the property-tax levy to its maximum. He also left open the possibility of school closures under appropriate circumstances.
One answer in a candidate questionnaire deserves particular attention. Asked whether additional charter schools should open in Chicago, Biggs and Dominguez answered "No." Henderson declined to take a definitive position.
Given his professional background, it was reasonable to wonder whether Henderson was sympathetic to expanding charter opportunities. His statements suggested a willingness to consider proposals based on quality, community demand and financial responsibility. That is not proof that he privately favored expansion. Nevertheless, the difference between opposing additional charters and being undecided about them was hardly an unmistakable philosophical divide.
A broader school-choice platform could have presented voters with a more distinct policy alternative. One involving not merely existing charters, magnet schools and selective-enrollment schools, but also the potential role of private and parochial education.
Such a proposal would have required addressing difficult questions about public financing, admissions, accountability and religious institutions. Illinois legislation would be necessary to establish a statewide voucher or comparable scholarship program. Unfortunately, the Chicago School Board could not create one independently.
There would also have been substantial opposition from those concerned that public support for private education could divert resources from district schools. That, of course, is ridiculous. Non-public schools operate at a fraction of the cost of public schools. Consequently resources would be added, not depleted.
Whether a more explicit platform would have improved Henderson's electoral performance is unknowable. Candidates must appeal to voters with competing priorities, and greater ideological differentiation is not necessarily an electoral advantage. But elections can have consequences beyond the immediate vote count.
Building Something That Lasts
Henderson's campaign illustrates the difference between contesting an election and building a continuing political organization. He raised approximately $700,000, almost entirely through loans to his own campaign. Biggs and Dominguez each raised considerably more, while independent organizations spent millions influencing the presidential contest.
Campaign finance does not neccasarilly determine the merits of an educational philosophy. It does, however, affect whether candidates can communicate their proposals widely.
A distinctive platform might attract donors, volunteers and organizations interested in advancing particular policies. Equally, controversial proposals can discourage other potential supporters. Henderson's result cannot establish which effect would have prevailed. The larger historical lesson is that some political movements survive losing campaigns because they establish an enduring set of ideas, institutions and relationships.
Chicago's education debate offers ample material for such a discussion. The argument over school choice is fundamentally different from the argument over who appoints the school board. One concerns the distribution of political authority. The other concerns the distribution of educational opportunities.
A city might democratize its governing institutions without substantially changing families' educational alternatives. Conversely, a mayorally-appointed board could expand school options without providing voters direct control over its membership. These questions should not be confused.
The financial reckoning
The incoming board faces a fiscal situation that makes the distinction more consequential. CPS entered the 2026–'27 budget process confronting a $732 million deficit. The district reports approximately $9 billion in debt and more than $900 million in annual debt-related payments. The debt payments as a percentage of the debt will only keep growing short of a change in overall spending.
Declining enrollment, aging buildings, pension obligations, labor agreements and rising operating costs both complicate and clarify the picture. School consolidation is therefore likely to remain contentious but ultimately necessary.
Dominguez opposed school closures. Biggs and Henderson indicated greater willingness to consider them, though neither advocated indiscriminate shutdowns.
There are legitimate competing considerations. Maintaining neighborhood schools can preserve community stability and reduce travel burdens. Consolidation can free resources for academic programs, but savings are not necessarily immediate and displaced students may face significant difficulties. The greatest difficulty, of course, is going out in the world without receiving a good education.
Charter expansion presents another set of trade-offs. Advocates see opportunities for innovation and parental choice. Opponents question whether additional schools are financially sustainable when total district enrollment is falling. The opponents argument falls flat on its face since better education should be the main goal even with a shrinking student body.
Private and parochial choice would broaden the discussion further, forcing policymakers to confront how public resources should be allocated across different types of educational institutions. Parochial and private schools funding is a state issue. Governor Pritzker and the massive majorities in the Illinois state legislature have punted on that issue. "Invest in Kids" has been revoked and the available funds from the federal government’s "Big Beautiful Bill" have been snubbed by Governor Pritzker. These are questions of educational policy, not merely governance structure.
Beyond the boardroom
Chicago has tried neighborhood decentralization, concentrated mayoral authority and now a fully elected central school board.
Each arrangement has promised better accountability. Each has also confronted the same underlying challenge: improving educational outcomes while managing limited resources and competing institutional interests.
The 2026 election establishes who will make the next generation of decisions. That is why the debate over parental choice, school accountability and educational funding will remain important long after the election results are certified.
For Henderson and others interested in a more expansive reform agenda, the unanswered question is whether a sustained public discussion can emerge around those ideas, independent of any single candidacy. Henderson chose caution when boldness was called for.
For Biggs and the incoming board, the test will be more immediate: reconciling academic aspirations, financial constraints and sharply different views of the school system's purpose. The voters have changed who governs Chicago's public schools. Whether that produces better schools, more educational opportunities or greater confidence in the system will depend on choices still to come. The beginning of a genuine reform movement rather than the immediate gratification of a decent electoral performance would have had long term salutary effects. Unfortunately that was the road not taken.
