This far South Side district includes all or parts of Chatham, Hegewisch, South Deering, Riverdale and the Southeast Side.
Mayor Brandon Johnson in July appointed Connie Anderson, a 46-year-old commercial property tax paralegal, to fill the open seat, so she’s technically running as an incumbent with the Chicago Teachers Union’s endorsement. She faces Patrick Watson, 61, an aide to 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale, one of the mayor’s fiercest critics on the City Council.
Anderson is staunchly opposed to charter schools and an ardent advocate of pumping more money into existing schools despite the dramatic enrollment decline. “Declining enrollment should be an opportunity to strengthen schools — not an excuse for cuts, closures or consolidation,” she has said. The mayor couldn’t have said it better himself.
Watson told us point blank that CTU has too much influence over Chicago Public Schools currently. A graduate of Chicago Vocational Career Academy, Watson says school consolidation can be beneficial in order to ensure students have a “full high school experience academically and socially.”
This race is in some respects a proxy for next year’s mayoral contest, and there is no starker choice in Chicago’s school board elections.
For the sake of putting CPS on a sustainable course, Patrick Watson is the clear choice.
This editorial has been corrected to reflect that Connie Anderson did complete the Tribune editorial board’s questionnaire.
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