After beating eight candidates to become Chicago’s next mayor, Brandon Johnson will take the helm of Chicago Public Schools with his inauguration on May 15 — embarking on a four-year term that will see Illinois’ largest school district profoundly changed.
Then-mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson speaks at a rally at the Chicago Teachers Union Foundation, March 18, 2023.
“We should be having these discussions about what else can we do,” said Allensworth, “given the extensive use and given a lot of costs — financial costs, but also the psychological costs on students and instructional time costs.” As that reform effort shakes out, Johnson has room to usher in a new district-level norm, said Paul Zavitkovsky, a former CPS principal and assessment specialist for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Urban Education Leadership.
“There’s an opportunity here to ... make some major changes in the way statewide testing is done,” Zavitkovsky said, “not that it would be designed to resolve all problems for all districts, but to think clearly about what the proper role of statewide assessment is — what it can and can’t do.” Johnson has said that maintaining the previous funding structure, “creates a huge disadvantage for schools in communities like Chicago, where enrollment and Black populations are declining.” He vowed to “work side-by-side with Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the General Assembly to overhaul the CPS school funding formula and make sure our school communities receive the state funding they need and deserve.”
The director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, Cassie Creswell, said while she hopes the legislators who supported Johnson’s campaign can help him procure more funds, underlying state finance issues present a problem. Whether funding efforts bear fruit, Creswell expects Johnson’s leadership — from the board members he appoints to district transparency and engagement of parents — to catalyze a change in CPS’ institutional culture.
But when it comes to attracting and retaining families who may otherwise opt for home schooling or a private school, the district’s value proposition makes a difference, said Dougal, whose organization studies high performing schools in the U.S. and around the world.
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