Chicago just gave voters a piece of the school board — but nobody's really answered whether voters got any actual power. If you're just joining: Chicago's in the middle of a historic shift at CPS. After decades of mayoral control, we've now got a hybrid Board of Education — ten elected members, eleven appointed by the mayor. The plan is a fully elected board by 2027, but the next round of seats is already getting shaped by petition challenges that could shrink your choices at the ballot. It's Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily. Today — a hybrid board, an old corruption report, and one nagging question: who's holding the lever when the public's out of the room? Stick around. Chicago now has its first hybrid school board — some members elected, some appointed — so what does this board actually control at CPS, and what power does the mayor still hold onto? So quick history here: for decades, Chicago's Board of Education was the only one in all of Illinois where the mayor just picked every member — a pretty extraordinary level of executive control over a school system. That's changing in stages. The partially elected, partially appointed board was seated in January 2025, and per WTTW, this November voters choose all 21 members for the first time — including the board president — making it fully elected going forward. The board has real authority: it sets policy, approves the budget, and votes on things like charter school renewals, which we've seen it do pretty assertively in recent months. But here's where it gets messy — there's still an unresolved legal fight over who picks the CPS CEO. A state lawmaker who helped write the elected-board legislation told Chalkbeat it's still the mayor's call; board members and some legal experts say it's theirs. That fight isn't settled, and it matters a lot, because the CEO runs the day-to-day operation of a district with roughly 320,000 students. If voters are the ones choosing this board now, are Chicagoans actually paying attention to who these people are? Not really, and that's a real accountability gap. A poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago found that roughly two-thirds of Chicago adults didn't even know the city now elects school board members, and just 10 percent could name their own representative. So the reform on paper is real, but public engagement hasn't caught up — which makes the November election both a milestone and a test of whether this board will draw the democratic accountability its supporters promised. This one's from Center for Effective Government:
Burke joined a dubious club that day in 2019: More than three dozen Chicago aldermen have been indicted by federal grand juries over the past 50 years. Indeed, since the Department of Justice started collecting data in 1976, more public officials have been convicted of corruption-related offenses in the federal judicial district that encompasses Chicago than anywhere else in the country, according to a report from University of Illinois Chicago professor Dick Simpson.
So we're pulling up this Center for Effective Government piece from 2023 — the Burke shakedown at the Burger King on 41st and Pulaski, the three-dozen-plus aldermen indicted in fifty years. And it hits differently this week, with the Council buying the Greyhound terminal for $19.2 million over the objections of ten alders who couldn't stop it. And that's the connection. Burke and Madigan matter, obviously, but the corruption story runs through a design that gives one alder a near-veto over what gets built in their ward. The permit power that got Burke charged is the same lever that moved that purchase. Right, and it ties to the board story we just hit — the mayor losing the fully appointed school board and the push to crack aldermanic veto are the same fight. Both half-won. Same disease, different address. Burke didn't shake that Burger King down for fun. He did it because the structure let him stand between a guy and his own remodeling permit. You give one person that lever, somebody eventually pulls it for cash. And credit where it's due — this came out of the joint Crain's and University of Chicago series, 'One City, 50 Wards.' They put the structural argument on paper in 2023, before half the watchdog advisories caught up to it. If Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily is part of your routine, take a moment to subscribe and leave a review wherever you’re listening. It really helps other people find the show.
What we’re watching next: Chicago voters are slated to choose all 21 Board of Education members, including the board president, in November.
You’ll find links to every story from today’s briefing in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can dig into the original reporting there. That’s Chicago Politics and Urbanism Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.