Thirty-five candidates are running in the Nov. 5, 2024, general election for 10 seats on the Chicago Public Schools school board (CPS) in Illinois.

This is the first year Chicago residents will vote for board members to oversee CPS. Since 1995, Chicago’s mayor has appointed all seven board members. In 2021, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed legislation that expands the board from seven to 21 members beginning in January 2025. Voters will select 10 new members on Nov. 5, while the mayor will appoint the other 11 members. The board was scheduled to become fully elected in 2027.

According to Crain’s Chicago Business’ Judith Crown, “The election has become a referendum on the vision advocated by Mayor Brandon Johnson and the CTU [Chicago Teachers Union], which includes borrowing funds for a new teachers contract, limiting school choice and moving away from traditional metrics and rankings.” Johnson, who was a teacher with CPS and an organizer with the CTU, was elected in 2023. The CTU endorsed Johnson in the mayoral race. Johnson appointed six new members to the board on July 5, 2023.

How much of a priority charter, magnet, and elective enrollment schools should be has been a central issue in the election. In October 2023, the school board passed a resolution that called for transitioning “away from privatization and admissions/enrollment policies and approaches that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.” All Chicago students are assigned a neighborhood school based on their ZIP code, but they can also apply to charter, magnet, or selective enrollment schools. During the 2022-23 school year, about 56% of CPS students attended neighborhood schools.

Proponents of placing more emphasis on neighborhood schools say those schools disproportionately serve the most disadvantaged students, who require greater resources to educate. Proponents of alternatives to neighborhood schools argue more choices allow families to find the right education for their children.

The CTU and the Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS), an organization that advocates for charter schools, have backed competing candidates who’ve taken different stances on the role of choice in the system. The CTU endorsed candidates in all 10 districts. The INCS has paid for digital ads and direct mail in support of seven candidates. CTU Vice President Jackson Potter said, “You really have to de-emphasize choice in some way to really make the neighborhood schools rise.” INCS Executive Director Andrew Broy said, “The question is do these candidates running for school board support the concept that parents should have a choice of where to send their kids to school.”

The Save Our Schools Coalition, of which CTU is a member, has also endorsed the 10 candidates CTU endorsed. The CPS’s former CEO, Paul Vallas, has endorsed candidates who generally support charter schools through the group he co-founded, Urban Center Action. Vallas was also a candidate in the 2023 mayoral election.

Click here to see the candidates each group has endorsed.

Funding, absenteeism, school closures, and safety have also been issues in the election.

Candidates have also taken stances on the October 4, 2024, resignation of all seven members of the board. The board’s decision to resign allowed Johnson to appoint replacements. Click here to learn more about the resignation. Click here to read our coverage of this event in Hall Pass, our weekly education newsletter.

When all 21 members assume office, CPS will have one of the largest school boards in the country. Of the 13,194 school districts in the country, only 240—or about 2%—have school boards with more than 10 members. Those 243 districts are spread across 18 states.

Tens of thousands of elections will take place in 2024 up and down the ballot, including for school board. Hall Pass, our weekly education newsletter, is your one-stop shop for helping you stay current on school board elections, education legislation, and the debates influencing state and local K-12 policies. Click here to subscribe today to get our next edition in your inbox on Wednesday.