Education
Mayoral Control of CPS Ends, As Newly Elected School Board Members Take Office Amid Turmoil

The seeds of the crisis now engulfing the Chicago Public Schools and Mayor Brandon Johnson were sown during the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the pandemic upended public education in Chicago, school officials breathed a sigh of relief as $2.8 billion in federal relief funds started to flow almost immediately to CPS.
But the chronically underfunded school district, led by CEO Pedro Martinez and controlled by then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, used that money to do much more than pivot to virtual learning, sanitize schools and help students catch up on material they missed during the months they were out of the classroom.
CPS officials used those funds to hire thousands of teachers and staff members while trying new ways to reach struggling students, as leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union celebrated. Finally, everyone agreed, Chicago students would get the resources they have long needed to thrive, and not a moment too soon.
But those funds are now gone, and no one agrees on much of anything — except a desire to avoid deep cuts and layoffs, leaving the nation’s fourth largest school district mired in crisis at a moment of profound change.
It will be up to Chicago’s new 21-member Chicago Board of Education to steer the district out of the morass. For the first time in Chicago history, that board will include Chicagoans elected to oversee the education of more than 325,000 Chicago children.
When that board takes office Wednesday, it will end nearly 30 years of complete mayoral control that began in 1995 under former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Before that, community members would nominate school board members, with the mayor picking his favorites.
Johnson, a former middle school teacher who rose to political prominence as an organizer for the CTU, will still have a great deal of control over CPS. He has appointed 10 people to the board, including its president, with one spot left unfilled as of Tuesday.
The immediate challenges facing new school board members are enormous: They must ink a new deal with CTU, pick a new leader and confront the threat posed by President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to deport thousands of undocumented Chicagoans.
Fraught Contract Negotiations
Contract negotiations between CPS and CTU have become bogged down, with district officials and union leaders deeply divided over how to address the systemic issues facing Chicago’s students.
While one of the key union demands is to carve out more prep time for elementary school teachers, district leaders have flatly rejected that call, saying it would reduce instructional time for students.
The two sides are also battling over the system the district uses to evaluate teachers, and whether teachers, or principals, have the ultimate say over what students are taught.
Not only will the new board members be responsible for resolving those issues, but they’ll also have to figure out how to pay for any additional staff the contract requires — and raises for the teachers, which will cost at least $120 million to keep pace with deals offered to other unions representing city employees.
Budget Crisis Morphs Into Leadership Crisis
As the district confronts a budget crisis, exacerbated by escalating pension costs and a massive amount of debt, leadership is in limbo. The final act of the school board appointed by Johnson was to fire Martinez, starting the clock on a six-month transition to the district’s next leader.
That unanimous vote, late on the Friday before Christmas, ended months of controversy that burst into public view when Martinez said he refused Johnson’s request to resign.
The relationship between the two men broke down during the summer, as the district worked to approve a budget for 2025 that closed a $500 million shortfall.
Ultimately, the spending plan approved by the board closed that gap, but failed to make a $175 million payment to one of its employee pension funds or set aside money to pay for a new contract with the CTU or the union representing principals.
Martinez opposed plans to borrow money to cover those costs, calling the proposal backed by the mayor “exorbitant” and fiscally irresponsible.
Rather than terminate Martinez, all seven of Johnson’s 2023 appointees to the CPS board resigned. Johnson replaced them with the current board members, while facing a torrent of criticism.
It will be up to the new, partially elected school board to pick the CEO’s replacement while continuing to work with Martinez, who went to court to stop the school board from reducing his authority to run CPS and negotiate a new contract. Martinez won a temporary restraining order against the board, with a hearing on a permanent injunction scheduled for Jan. 21.
Union leaders said negotiations, which were progressing well, ground to a halt after Martinez was fired and he won that judicial order.
Mass Deportation Looms
At the same time, CPS officials are bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to take office. He has promised to immediately launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
Tom Homan, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Trump’s pick to serve as his “border czar,” has vowed to start that effort in Chicago. Trump has said he will instruct federal agents to conduct deportation operations at schools, churches and playgrounds and to deport all undocumented immigrants, not just those accused of criminal acts.
Martinez has promised to protect undocumented students, but union leaders have said a new contract is needed to enshrine those defenses.
When Trump first took office in 2017, many undocumented parents kept their children out of school for fear that their family could be separated during unannounced raids.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]