The Case for Elected School Boards and the Fight for Democracy in Public Education

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization's Jitu Brown giving parents and concerned citizens instruction before collecting signatures

With the creation of the Chicago Educational Facilities Task Force and HB 363 by the Illinois General Assembly (ILGA) that mandates (but doesn’t really enforce) community engagement and more equitable capital funding by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) officials, it seems that a few of Illinois State Congressmen are beginning to realize the gravity of the huge mistake (granting mayoral control over Chicago’s schools) that was made by ILGA in 1995.  It is hard to imagine that they had any idea their decision to give Richard M. Daley mayoral control over CPS would bring about destruction to low-income communities throughout Chicago and the entire country.   

Daley’s first appointment under his newly granted power was Paul Vallas. Paul was historically the first CEO of CPS because previously that position was called Superintendent. The title was changed to demonstrate a commitment to corporatizing public education. It was Vallas’ commitment to transferring public schools to private sector operators made him the perfect choice for Daley who was notorious for being anti-union and pro-privatization (we’re talking about a guy who signed a 99 year bad lease to give the city’s parking meters to a private sector operator).  

After Vallas spearheaded the massive growth of the private sector within CPS by skirting around laws regarding caps on charter schools, he headed to Philadelphia – a city that recently announced it would be handing all of its public schools to the private sector. Not surprisingly, Philadelphia is also a major city that does not have an elected school board. After Philly, Vallas headed to New Orleans to capitalize on the fact that Hurricane Katrina wiped out most of the public schools in the city, which created a new canvass for opening private sector run schools.   Vallas now heads up a consultant group that just landed a $1 billion contract with the Illinois State Board of Education, which is headed by long-time privatization ally and friend Gery Chico (they were both moved from City Hall to CPS at the same time by Mayor Daley). 

What had an even more detrimental impact on a national level was the fact that Vallas’ replacement in Chicago was Arne Duncan.  In 2004, the mayor, Arne, and the Commercial Club of Chicago launched a massive privatization plan (Renaissance 2010). Despite the fact that this initiative further destabilized already underserved communities, created no academic improvement, caused massive teacher turnover, and caused spikes in school violence, this caught the attention of long-time basketball buddy Barack Obama who then made him the U.S. Secretary of Education.  Given Arne’s distaste for Local School Councils and his willingness to completely ignore parents, teachers, students, community members, and others who are affected by his policies, many people in Chicago realized Obama’s promise of “change from the bottom up” was merely a campaign slogan.

At any rate, he would have never have been granted this undeserved promotion if he had not been first appointed to the position of CEO of CPS by former Mayor Daley. Surely Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons, and other corporate interests would have still had a massive influence on public education policy, but perhaps school districts across the country wouldn’t be forced to enact these billionaire's dangerous ideas or face the non-receipt of badly needed funding. Perhaps, our tax dollars would not be being used to transfer educationfrom the public sector to the private sector at the expense of children and the common good.

It is also worth mentioning that New York City’s schools are also under mayoral control. Mayor Bloomberg handpicked Joel Klein whose undying devotion to privatizing and union busting landed him a job with Rupert Murdoch.  The same is true in D.C. where Mayor Fenty lost his re-election campaign largely because of the community disenfranchising policies of Michele Rhee who then started Students First (misnomer) and now makes millions of dollars for her efforts. The point is that wrecking balls like Vallas, Duncan, Klein, and Rhee would not be able to force research-refuted policies upon communities who do not want them if they had not been appointed under mayoral control.

The Tucson School Board offers us an example of how an elected school board is not necessarily the entire solution.  It isn’t hard to imagine that in politically corrupt cities like Chicago, one or two of the mayor’s buddies would somehow end up on the board anyway.  However, mayoral control is always the precursor to massive privatization efforts and therefore, is far more dangerous to public education.  An elected school board also means that at least there is some public accountability rather than a “rubber stamp” board that will do whatever the mayor wants.

The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing, the demonstrations outside Pearson headquarters, the unanimous rejection of high-stakes testing by the ELECTED Broward County School Board, the growing number of parent groups fighting against corporate school “reform”, and the recent 90% strike authorization vote are clearly indicative of a populace that is growing weary of being ignored in favor of privatization.

One great example of how to fight back is the Communities Organized for Democracy in Education (CODE) that serves as an umbrella group for the parent and community groups across Chicago who have been advocates for public education.  This effort to create solidarity among the disenfranchised is paying off as thousands of signatures have been gathered in order to get a referendum on the November ballot that calls for an elected, representative school board.  It turns out, people like having a say in what happens to the schools and children in their community. And the signatures keep adding up!!! 

It is encouraging to know that people from more affluent communities are joining in solidarity with the parents, students, and teachers from low-income communities and are promoting awareness about what is happening to public education.  This is what change from the bottom up really looks like and it may very well be the first and most important step towards restoring and sustaining the public in public education and keeping it out of the hands of corporate interests.  Hopefully, these grassroots efforts will have the same national impact as the corporate “reforms” because we already know that what happens in Chicago does not stay in Chicago.