As voters consider their choices in the first-ever election for president of the Chicago Board of Education, they’ll need to account for a particularly striking set of issues related to character and competence.
Whoever is elected will need a healthy dose of both qualities, including a good bit of steel in their backbone, to effectively lead a school system that is dealing with significant problems. Chicago Public Schools, which has a “junk” credit rating, faced a $732 million budget gap this year — on top of carrying around $9 billion in debt and having deeply underfunded pensions. It has lost nearly 80,000 students since 2010 while adding substantially to staffing in that time, and it struggles with a race-based achievement gap among its students. And it faces the end to a moratorium on school closures at the end of the current school year.
It will take some savvy strategic thinking, backed by the character needed for leadership, to make a dent in solving the district’s problems. And that’s why it’s so concerning that each of the candidates for board president is facing serious character questions as Election Day approaches.
After all, character is a significant factor in leadership.
The CPS inspector general is investigating sexual harassment allegations against candidate Hilario Dominguez related to events that happened in 2017. His accuser, who was a 17-year-old program participant at the time, said he behaved inappropriately toward her as a 24-year-old staff member of The Resurrection Project. The accusations were ruled as “not substantiated” earlier this year, the case was reopened just recently based on new information, the Tribune reported.
Candidate Jessica Biggs is answering questions about how she finally got off of CPS’ “do not hire” list — on a third try — just weeks after Biggs, as an elected school board member, completed the board’s search for a new district superintendent. Biggs’ name was placed on the list in 2018 after she was fired as principal of Burke Elementary School based on claims she manipulated attendance reports in an effort to prevent CPS from closing the school.
Candidate Victor Henderson’s then-wife, in a divorce filing, accused him of physically abusing the couple’s sons.
Dominguez denies any wrongdoing. Biggs has said she was fired over “minor bureaucratic issues.” Henderson in court papers agreed not to subject his sons to corporal punishment.
There are plenty of voters who will stick with their candidate, no matter what unexpected character issues might surface.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is one of them. He is unshaken in his support for Dominguez even after the revelation this week. Johnson cited Dominguez’s opposition to school closures, among other issues, in response to reporter questions. “Let’s just separate the two” topics, Johnson said.
Voters hardly need to see it that way. Rather, they can look to combine the two: Consider both the candidates’ ideas and whether they have the character and leadership skills to put their ideas into action.
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Dominguez, who like Johnson is a former leader at the Chicago Teachers Union, argues that the state owes money to CPS — due to chronic underfunding of the statewide evidence-based funding plan. Never mind that Johnson already has tried this argument, without success. Dominguez notes the current CPS budget calls for $150 million in new state funding and says he’ll get it somehow, even where Johnson has failed.
Biggs argues against relying on money that the state has not committed. She says she would bring together leaders from the state legislature, the school board, the city and the unions to work on a five-year recovery plan. She also says she would seek parity in state funding for CPS pensions, compared to what every other municipality receives.
Just how she would persuade the legislature to do so, Biggs has not spelled out.
Henderson says that his background as an accountant makes him good with numbers and his work as a lawyer makes him a good negotiator. He would spot savings others won’t see, then secure them with his masterful negotiating style.
What they offer is lots of hope but not enough concrete plans. More substantive details from all three candidates between now and Election Day would be a service to voters and ultimately to the ability of the elected president to lead CPS.
As Nov. 3 approaches, voters looking for a litmus test might want to consider the issue of future school closings.
Back in 2013, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel handled the closure of 50 schools with so little public discourse and such inequitable results that the idea of new closures is politically radioactive, no matter how fiscally necessary closures may seem. But with the current moratorium on closures set to expire next year, the issue will come to the fore again, just as the new board president is taking office.
Biggs says decisions need to come from the neighborhoods and not downtown, but she lays out few specifics and won’t state a firm position in the end. Henderson has said he would close schools “as an extraordinary last resort.”
Dominguez justifies his position against closures by referencing academic studies, including one that claims closures actually add costs due to related increases in violence. Experiments with reinventing CPS school buildings as community centers — classes in some rooms and neighborhood amenities such as grocery stores or health clinics in others — need to be expanded dramatically, he says.
The three candidates present quite a contrast for voters. Biggs has run Chicago schools and helped govern the system as a member of the board already. Dominguez grew up in CPS and has bright ideas but lacks the executive leadership experience that this job demands. Henderson’s lack of background in education implies a steep learning curve and raises questions about why he found a calling to teach the city’s children so late in his career.
The election absolutely is about character. It’s also about ideas. And how voters assess the combination of both will determine who leads Chicago’s school board into a very difficult future for CPS.
David Greising is president of the Better Government Association.
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