Candidate Q&A
Why are you running?
Chicago’s first fully elected school board needs members who answer to families rather than to City Hall or any single interest group, and too few do. A majority of this board has shown little independence from the mayor, and special interests have set too much of its agenda. I’m running to be an independent voice for District 4A.
Independence matters because student outcomes are nowhere near strong enough. Only 24% of CPS students are proficient in math and 40% in reading, yet an analysis by Board Rule found the board spent just 3% of its meeting time on student learning this spring. I’ve spent my entire career, including a Ph.D. in the economics of education and 25 years on teacher quality, studying how to improve those numbers, and I want that knowledge guiding board decisions.
I’m also deeply concerned about how this board governs, especially on the budget. It passed a $10 billion budget that counts state money nobody has appropriated, keeps reaching for high-interest borrowing and has little to show for its lobbying in Springfield. Those choices are reckless, and students will pay for them in midyear cuts. My north star is simple: I will do what’s right for kids.
Are you in support of the most recent CPS budget that relies on uncommitted state funding?
No. Balancing a $10 billion budget on state money that hasn’t been appropriated is reckless. District leaders warned the board it could force midyear cuts, and those cuts come straight out of classrooms. I also would have voted against the high-interest borrowing proposed in 2025, which would have piled more onto a debt burden that already costs CPS nearly a billion dollars a year. That money goes to big banks and bondholders instead of teachers, counselors and books, and we have to stop adding to it. Every dollar spent on interest is a dollar a child never sees.
The state does shortchange Chicago, and its own funding formula shows CPS well short of adequacy. The answer is a board that builds a serious, sustained case in Springfield alongside parents, business leaders and legislators, rather than writing the money into the budget and hoping it shows up. I’ll be part of that fight. Families deserve budgets built on real numbers, along with an honest explanation of the tradeoffs before a vote is taken. That’s the standard I’ll hold myself to.
How will you work with CPS officials and staff to balance the district’s budget?
I’ll start by treating the district’s financial staff as partners and asking for a realistic multiyear forecast, so every vote is made with a clear picture of the next three years rather than the next three months. CPS carries more than $9 billion in long-term debt and spends roughly $800 million a year servicing it, money that never reaches a student. I’ll oppose high-interest borrowing to cover operating gaps. I’ll push for a line-by-line review of central office spending and contracts before anyone proposes cutting school-based staff, and I’ll protect the investments that most directly improve instruction, including the teacher pipeline programs that recent cuts have weakened.
Every board resolution should come with a cost estimate before we vote on it, because a board that adds expenses without identifying how to pay for them leaves management to find the money later, and that’s how deficits grow. I’ll also push for budget hearings early in the process, when families can still shape the tradeoffs, and for a coordinated, year-round strategy in Springfield instead of a scramble every spring. Those conversations belong before the budget reaches a vote, when they can still change the outcome.
Other than the budget, what is the single biggest issue facing Chicago Public Schools?
Student learning. Like I said above, only 24% of CPS students are proficient in math and 40% in reading. That is an academic emergency, and it deserves the board’s first hour of attention at every meeting. Children who don’t learn to read well by third grade carry that disadvantage into high school and adulthood. The research is clear about what works: strong curriculum taught well, early literacy done right, capable principals and excellent teachers who get real training and support. That last piece has been my life’s work, and I’ll protect the teacher pipeline programs that recent budget cuts have weakened. Teachers are the most important in-school factor impacting how much students learn.
Chronic absence compounds everything, since roughly 40% of students miss too much school to benefit from even the best instruction. Getting them back requires social workers, counselors and nurses in our buildings, along with mentoring, early warning systems and transportation that actually works. Parents also deserve plain-language reporting on how their schools are doing. I’ll measure every decision against a simple question: does this help a child in District 4A learn more this year than last?
What is a top issue for students, schools and families in your specific school board voting district?
District 4A runs from East Edgewater and Uptown through Lakeview and North Center, and the gap between its schools is wide. Some neighborhood elementary schools are full, highly rated and hard to get into, while others a mile away struggle with enrollment, staffing and resources. Families at both kinds of schools want the same thing: confidence that their neighborhood school will prepare their child well. Too many families stay with CPS through elementary school and then leave at the middle or high school transition, either because they don’t see a neighborhood option they trust or because they lose out in a stressful selective enrollment process.
Keeping those families means making every high school in this district a place where students can find rigorous academics, strong arts and athletics, and adults who know them by name. It also means supporting the newcomer and lower-income families in parts of Uptown and Edgewater, whose children often need extra help with language, stability and basic needs to succeed. They also deserve safe routes to school and kids with disabilities should have reliable transportation. Every child in this district should have a great school close to home.
If you accept campaign contributions from special interest groups, how will you maintain independence from those donors?
I’ll judge every proposal, including those from my supporters, by one standard: whether it’s right for kids and whether we can pay for it. Endorsements earn a hearing, never a vote. I’ll disclose every contribution, recuse myself where a real conflict exists and explain my reasoning publicly on major votes so families can hold me accountable. That independence is what this board lacks most. Special interests hold too much sway over its agenda, and a majority of current members have shown little independence from City Hall, whether on the CEO search or on pressure to borrow. I’m proud to be endorsed by the SEIU Illinois State Council and the Chicago Federation of Labor, and I believe everyone who works in our schools deserves good pay, safe working conditions and strong representation. Standing with working people and exercising independent judgment go hand in hand. I’ll listen to every group that wants to make its case, from unions to parent organizations to community groups, and then decide based on evidence. Board members need to answer to District 4A families, not to any organization or officeholder.
How can current board policies and procedures be improved?
The board needs to spend more of its time on student outcomes and less on reacting to crises and political fights. Too much of each meeting now goes to procedure and politics, with little left for learning. I’d start with four changes. First, publish a scorecard that tracks the district’s own five-year goals, such as cutting chronic absenteeism by 15% and raising 3rd through 8th grade proficiency by 20% by 2029, and review it at every meeting whether the news is good or bad. Second, require a fiscal note on every resolution so members know what a vote costs, and how it will be paid for, before they cast it. Third, set firm timelines for staff to answer members' information requests, and release meeting materials early enough that members and the public can study proposals before votes. Fourth, respect the line between governance and management.
The board sets goals, adopts policy and holds the CEO accountable; it shouldn’t be managing day-to-day operations or bending to pressure from the mayor’s office on hiring and borrowing. Good governance isn’t glamorous, but it’s how a board earns public trust.
How should CPS and the board work to address declining enrollment?
Families leave when they don’t believe a school will serve their child well, so the answer starts with quality: strong instruction, safe buildings, reliable transportation and schools that communicate honestly with parents. CPS has lost tens of thousands of students over the past decade, and many families I talk with walked away during the long COVID closures and never came back. We should ask them directly what it would take to return, through surveys, exit interviews and conversations at the school level, and then act on what we hear. Schools also need help telling their story.
Many neighborhood schools offer excellent programs that families a few blocks away have never heard of, and the district should support principals in reaching them. Finally, the board has to plan for the enrollment we actually have. Budgeting as if the decline isn’t happening leaves half-empty buildings stretched thin and pushes hard decisions onto the next board. I’d rather make those decisions openly, with communities at the table, and invest in the schools that give families a reason to stay. Neighborhood schools anchor our communities, and they should be the first choice for the families who live around them.
Do you foresee a need to close some district schools?
Nobody wants to close a school, and I’m not running to close schools. I’m also not going to pretend enrollment trends don’t exist. Some schools have become so small that they can’t offer the rigorous courses, arts, sports and extracurriculars every child deserves, and students pay for that quietly, year after year. A high school with a few hundred students struggles to staff advanced math or a full music program, and an elementary school with combined grades asks teachers to do the impossible. Any conversation about a school’s future has to start with that community, happen in the open and put students' opportunities ahead of politics.
Chicago still carries the scars of the 2013 closures, when decisions came from the top down and families felt ignored, and we can’t repeat that mistake. Options like shared campuses, co-located programs, new partnerships and targeted investment should come first. If a change ever becomes necessary, families deserve transparent data, a real voice in the decision and guaranteed access to a stronger school, and that decision should come only after every alternative has been tried. No student should ever be sent from one struggling school to another.
Should CPS implement AI in its classrooms? What, if any, guardrails should be put in place?
Not yet. I’ve signed a pledge supporting a three-year moratorium on AI in CPS classrooms, and I’d push the district to use that time well rather than simply wait. CPS should study how these tools affect learning, student privacy and teachers' work, drawing on evidence from districts that have moved faster and on the experience of our own students, who already encounter AI outside school. Teachers, parents and students should all have a voice in that review. The research so far is mixed, and children shouldn’t serve as test subjects while adults figure it out.
If CPS adopts AI after the moratorium, firm guardrails need to come with it. Vendors should face strict limits on what student data they can collect, store or use to train their products. Teachers need real training before any tool reaches their classrooms, and AI should support their judgment rather than replace it. The district should also evaluate every tool it buys against student learning and drop anything that doesn’t deliver. No chatbot can replace the relationship between a student and a great teacher and my priority always will be ensuring that every child has access to excellent teachers who genuinely know and care for them and have the band-with to help them on a successful path in life.
The board currently includes one Honorary Student Member. As the board has recently tripled in size, should that number be expanded?
Yes. One student can’t represent the experience of more than 300,000 students across a 21-member board. Students at a selective enrollment high school, a neighborhood high school, an alternative school and a newcomer program see CPS in very different ways, and the board needs to hear all of them. Students bring a perspective no adult on the board can replicate.
I’d support expanding student representation so that students from different regions of the city and different kinds of schools, including newcomer students and students with disabilities, have a seat at the table. Those members should receive the same briefing materials as everyone else, real time on the agenda and support from district staff so they can gather input from their peers rather than speak only for themselves. I’d also want student members to help shape how the board measures its progress, since they live with the results of our decisions every day. Adding seats is a good start. Making sure student voices actually change what the board does is the harder and more important work, and it’s work I’m committed to.
How will you be responsive to student-led issues?
I’ll show up. I’ll meet regularly with student councils at District 4A high schools, hold listening sessions where students set the agenda and follow up in writing on what I heard and what I did about it. Students are often the first to tell us when something isn’t working, whether it’s a safety concern, a missing course, a broken bathroom or a mental health need, and they deserve answers rather than polite attention. I’ll also make myself easy to reach through school visits and social media, since few students can get downtown for a board meeting in the middle of a school day.
When students bring forward a proposal, I’ll help them navigate the process, connect them with the right district staff and push for a clear response on a real timeline. I’ll report back to students on the outcome, even when the answer is no. Young people often understand a problem better than the adults around them, and some of the most practical ideas for improving schools come from the students who sit in them every day. My job is to make sure those ideas reach the board and get taken seriously.
Did you attend Chicago Public Schools? When/Where?
No. I didn’t grow up in Chicago.
Have you sent your children to Chicago Public Schools?
No. Although we bought a home specifically to be able to send our kids to our preferred CPS school, the structural issues that led to the 2-week teacher strike in 2019 followed by the year-long Covid-19 CPS school closure did not allow for the stability our family needed. I want to address those structural issues so that every CPS family has the stability they need.
Have you ever served on a Local School Council? When/Where?
No.
Have you ever worked for Chicago Public Schools?
No, not directly for CPS, although I have worked and volunteered in several CPS-adjacent capacities. For example, I conducted focus groups with CPS teachers on their use of educational research to inform their instructional practice (see our brief: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED512564.pdf) and supported the CPS National Board director at the Quest Center in creating opportunities for teachers to develop their expertise and prepare for an examination. I also tutored with Literacy Chicago, supporting CPS adults who left school unable to read and served on the Chicago Advisory Board of Turning the Page, a literacy non-profit operating in Chicago’s south and west sides.
In addition, I have worked extensively with the Illinois State Board of Education and with districts across Illinois and Illinois lawmakers. This includes coaching Illinois leaders on addressing teacher shortages, supporting the development of REACH, collaborating with various groups of teacher leaders, advocating for budget line items, and supporting cost-effectiveness decision-making. As a high schooler, I participated in the Chicago Community Trust’s Future Leaders Chicago program which convened scholars from across CPS and other Chicagoland schools to explore inequities in education and other services across Chicago.
What neighborhood do you live in?
East Lakeview