CHICAGO — Chicago voters have rejected Mayor Brandon Johnson’s education agenda as only four of 10 candidates endorsed by the powerful teacher’s union will hold seats on the city’s new hybrid Board of Education.

Though the races began as sleepy provincial contests, they quickly became a referendum on Johnson and his closely allied Chicago Teachers Union. The new mayor, whose 2023 campaign was bankrolled by the CTU, has struggled to retain control of the nation’s fourth-largest public school district and drawn criticism for plans to take out a high-interest, $300 million loan.

The historic local races follow an embarrassing stretch for Johnson in which he unsuccessfully attempted to oust Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez and cycled through two board presidents.

As a result of the chaos, a significant number of progressive members of the City Council broke ranks with the mayor and the Chicago Teachers Union, including via a letter rebuffing the mayor that netted 41 aldermanic signatures.

“People are tired. You look at the last month, the comedy of errors,” said Angel Gutierrez, who had a strong lead over CTU-backed candidate Felix Ponce with 90% of precincts reporting.

For Gutierrez, the election was a clear referendum on the mayor’s alignment with CTU. “A real leader takes a step back and is introspective,” he said. “At this particular moment in time, the people have spoken.”

The campaign sparked a spending spree by the CTU and opposite-minded political action committees, with more $8 million spent across the 10 races.

CTU spent at least $1.7 million in direct contributions to candidates as of Monday, largely in-kind contributions for field staffing, polling, advertising or voter outreach. In all but two races, the CTU-backed candidate had raised the largest sum. Spending caps were also lifted on nine of the races.

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools Political Action Committee had devoted nearly $2.3 million to either supporting or opposing school board candidates during that same time period. A second pro-school-choice PAC, the Urban Center, had devoted another $770,000.

But even in a local school board race, a grassroots movement emerged. In several districts, some candidates touted themselves as independents who can’t be bought by the deep-pocketed interest groups — both CTU and charter-aligned — funneling money into the race.

Despite CTU’s dismal showing, Johnson still will remain in control of the board after the election, with the power to appoint 11 of its 21 unpaid seats. The new board will be seated in January.

At the CTU headquarters on election night, a program featuring union officials, candidates and other left-leaning organizers touched upon the labor group’s firebrand anti-establishment messaging.

Though early returns hinted at mixed results for the union, the CTU and its allies remained focused on dismantling a system where “the deck is stacked against us” — even after the city’s progressive labor coalition has lost much of its underdog status after winning the mayor’s seat.

Union President Stacy Davis Gates did not comment on losses in her remarks beyond acknowledging: “It’s perspective, y’all. Billionaires spent a lot of money to get three out of 21.”

“You all created an expansion of democracy in an entire society that is toying with the idea of fascism,” Davis Gates said in casting the historic election as a win for Chicagoans and voting rights no matter what. “I don’t care how powerful they try to make us in disunity. The little engine that could expanded democracy at a time when fascism is on the rise.”

Here’s a quick look at how the 10 races played out.

District 1

On the city’s Far Northwest Side, CTU candidate Jennifer Custer beat Michelle Pierre, who is backed by the charter schools network, 51% to 49%.

District 2

CTU-endorsed candidate Ebony DeBerry triumphed over businessman Bruce Leon 42% to 21%. Candidates Kate Doyle and Margaret Cullerton Hooper had 21% and 16%, respectively.

District 2 candidates garnered the most campaign cash, $1.2 million, as of Monday, buoyed by $550,000 that 50th Ward Democratic committeeman Bruce Leon loaned his campaign.

Meanwhile, DeBerry was one of the few CTU-backed candidates ready to declare victory during Tuesday’s watch party.

DeBerry nodded to the other candidates behind her on the CTU stage, some of whom were on track to lose.

“This really is a winning team, and know that none of them will disappear from this fight,” she said. “The values that we share … the love we have for our children and everybody else’s children does not go away.”

District 3

On the Northwest Side, Carlos Rivas, who was backed by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, beat CTU-backed Jason Dones 56% to 44%.

District 4

On the city’s North Side lakefront, Ellen Rosenfeld won against former CTU member Karen Zaccor in perhaps the board’s closest-watched race 42% to 30%.

A high-profile, high-spending race — Rosenfeld, the wife of Democratic Committeeman Paul Rosenfeld – celebrated with supporters Tuesday night.

“We’ve faced challenges that seemed insurmountable, including hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on negative ads aimed at tearing us down,” said Rosenfeld, who herself reported $205,000 in expenditures. “But tonight, we have shown that our voices are stronger than any attack.”

The six-way race also included Kimberly Brown, Thomas Day, Carmen Gioiosa and Andrew Davis.

District 5

Austin’s Aaron “Jitu” Brown, who was endorsed by the CTU, held off write-in challenges from Jousef M. Shkoukani and Kernetha Jones.

District 6

In a district covering the Near North Side, Near South Side and the Loop, CPS parent Jessica Biggs triumphed over CTU-endorsed candidate Anusha Thotakura 46% to 32%.

District 7

CTU-candidate Yesenia Lopez beat Eva Villalobos and Raquel Don. Lopez, a community organizer and executive assistant in Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ office, outraised her nearest District 7 opponent by more than $800,000.

Lopez had 56% of the counted vote, while INCS-backed Eva Villalobos had 33% and Raquel Don had 10%.

District 8

INCS-basked Angel Gutierrez beat CTU member Felix Ponce 64% to 36%.

District 9

On the city’s Southwest Side, independent Therese Boyle triumphed over CTU-backed Lanetta Thomas 38% to 27%.

Boyle partly chalked up her lead on the South Side to “a perfect storm” of voters’ disapproval of the public turmoil at CPS, as well as the mayor’s proposed property tax hike and cozy relationship with the teachers union.

“All of that brought the idea of a school board to the forefront for the general voters,” said Boyle, a CTU member and retired school psychologist who did not seek the union’s endorsement.

“I come from a union family … but I don’t like their particular direction,” she said of the CTU. Presuming that a majority of the board’s 21 members will still be allied with the union given the mayor’s 11 appointments, Boyle said she expects policies favorable to the CTU will come to pass despite the string of upsets. “But it says something,” she said. “I think people are upset.”

District 10

In one of the city’s tightest races, Award-winning rapper Che “Rhymefest” Smith won against Karin Norington-Reaves 31.6% to 29.7%. Robert Jones, the Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church pastor who is backed by the CTU, had 22% of the vote.

For supporters of an elected Chicago school board, this November was decades in the making. Though Johnson retains control by one seat, these ten races represent an important first step for advocates who argue giving voters a direct say in CPS leadership is better for democracy.

Mayor Richard M. Daley got the state to give him control of the Chicago school board in 1995, and Chicago’s mayors have kept it since, much to the CTU’s chagrin as it butted heads with mayor after mayor. However, Springfield lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker dealt Johnson’s predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, a stunning defeat in 2021 by backing a bill that gradually takes power away from City Hall.

The process began Tuesday with the election of 10 new members to join the 11 mayoral appointees. By 2027, the entire 21-member board will be picked by voters.

However, few expected that hard-fought victory for the teachers union would be followed by some of the most tumultuous months in recent CPS memory. The unusual turn of events has left the pro-CTU Johnson fighting to flex his waning executive authority over the school board, blowing up several local school board races into larger referendums on him and the teachers union.

Johnson faced frequent criticism on the campaign trail for being too beholden to the powerful labor organization, despite his vows to be an independent leader. His union ties — he was a paid organizer for the CTU — prompted several pro-charter and independent candidates to join the race, offering themselves as the anti-Johnson voices on the ballot.

The tension boiled over this summer when Johnson butted heads with Martinez, a Lightfoot holdover, over the issue of a disputed $175 million pension payment for non-teacher staffers at CPS and a $300 million high-interest loan. The pension payment historically had been paid by the city until Lightfoot shifted the burden to the school district. The loan was pitched by Johnson’s team as a means to pay for the $175 million obligation plus the start of the next CTU contract.

Martinez refused, and Johnson’s handpicked school board sided with him in its July budget vote. That spending plan left open-ended the fate of the pension payment as well as how to afford the upcoming teachers’ and principals’ raises. Johnson then asked for Martinez’s resignation, according to the CEO, and was rebuffed. After that, the school board resigned en masse, signaling further reluctance to the mayor’s agenda but also clearing the way for him to replace them with new allies.

Only the Chicago Board of Education has the power to fire a CEO. Last week, Johnson’s second school board president, the Rev. Mitchell L. Johnson, resigned after coming under fire for a string of antisemitic, sexist and conspiratorial social media posts. Martinez remains the CEO, for now.

Still, the latest political headwinds surrounding the CTU and larger progressive movement come after an impressive decade of organizing to move Chicago government to the left and, for the first time in four decades, take control of the fifth floor of City Hall.

The teachers union underwent a radical transformation a decade ago when it organized against former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2013 mass school closures that disproportionately hit Black neighborhoods. Under then-CTU President Karen Lewis, a bold message of racial equity caught fire and solidified the labor organization’s reputation as the vanguard of Chicago’s political left.

The union and the rest of the progressive labor movement have since successfully pushed a broad slate of candidates in 2019 and 2023 that helped create a more independent City Council, frustrating traditional Democrats who are often criticized by CTU allies for going to get along. That culminated in 2023’s highly polarized mayoral runoff between two starkly divergent visions on education — Johnson, who cut his teeth in politics as a CTU organizer, and Paul Vallas, the moderate pro-school-choice candidate and former CPS CEO — with the union coming out on top.

One and a half years later, it remains to be seen where the powerful labor group’s political might lands with voters now.

CTU’s lone unopposed District 5 candidate, Aaron “Jitu” Brown, capped off the union’s speeches Tuesday night by firing a warning message at “the real special interests” of the pro-charter lobby: “Get the hell away from our students.”

“There’s an old proverb that says, ‘Until lions have their own historians, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter,’” Brown said. “So I want to talk to you as a lion about our story.”

____

©2024 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.