Contributions start flowing into Chicago’s school board race

Data analysis by Thomas Wilburn

Sign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest education news.

Campaigning in Chicago’s historic school board race is ramping up, and so are financial and in-kind contributions to candidates, which now total at least $650,000.

Recent weeks have seen an uptick in support for Chicago Teachers Union-endorsed candidates and others who are drawing backing from political committees, labor unions, and other organized groups. Meanwhile, the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ political arm is finalizing a slate of candidates to endorse and gearing up to enter the fray with a multimillion-dollar war chest at a time when the district has signaled a move away from school choice and charters are under growing scrutiny.

Some candidates without that organizational backing in Chicago’s first elected school board race say they are scrambling to make up for its lack by lining up volunteers and fundraising actively.

“It is absolutely a challenge running against big institutional support,” said Jessica Biggs, a former teacher and school principal running in District 6. “It means my campaign is really reliant on individual donations small and large.”

Chicago voters will for the first time select 10 board members on Nov. 5 — the first step in a transition away from a board fully appointed by the mayor. Mayor Brandon Johnson — elected with a major financial and boots-on-the-ground boost by the CTU, his former employer — will appoint another 11 members. By 2027, all seats on the board will be elected.

Current candidate totals exclude smaller checks or in-kind donations received since June 30, when candidates last reported their financials to the Illinois State Board of Elections. The next quarterly deadline for school board campaigns to report all contributions is Oct. 15, two weeks before election day. However, candidates are required to report contributions of $1,000 or more within a week of receiving them.

After an initial trickle of contributions over the summer , recent weeks have brought in an influx of checks and in-kind support and widened fundraising gaps between candidates in a number of districts, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of campaign data. Some candidates, such as Bruce Leon, the founder of a human resources firm and 50th Ward Democratic committeeperson , and Che “Rhymefest” Smith, an artist and activist, have made sizable loans to their own campaigns.

CTU activates to help its endorsed candidates

In June, the Chicago Teachers Union endorsed a slate of candidates. The endorsed candidates are now getting financial help from the union in the form of field staff and consultants, such as Chicago-based Goshen Impact Services, which also worked on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s reelection campaign.

Multiple CTU-endorsed candidates began reporting payments from the CTU’s political action committees in August, amounting to about $80,000 to date. That help, along with hours spent door-knocking and phone-banking by CTU member volunteers, is giving contenders an important boost in a race in which few candidates have much name recognition.

CTU-endorsed candidates are also receiving financial support from two other groups: Our Schools Action , a coalition of community groups of which the CTU is a member, and People United for Action, which works to elect progressive candidates for public office.

Anusha Thotakura, a deputy director at Citizen Action/Illinois and former teacher, received roughly $20,000 worth of in-kind support from the CTU, including to help pay the salary of a field organizer, Abierre Minor, and for Goshen Impact Services. She said she has organized her own group of volunteers independent of the CTU and is making a push to get the word out about her campaign that’s not closely coordinated with the union. In fact, she said she is not sure what some of the in-kind CTU support is.

“I’ll knock on someone’s door and they’ll say, ‘Oh, hey, I just heard about you from somebody else,’” she said. “It doesn’t hurt to have multiple people reaching out.”

She said she decided to get into the race after her opponent, Andre Smith, received a donation from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools.

“We cannot let private interests take control of the board,” she said. “Organized people beat money every time.”

Karen Zaccor, a former teacher running against five other candidates in the most crowded race in District 4, also said she doesn’t know exactly what the CTU’s in-kind donations to her campaign are paying for, beyond helping to get the word out about her candidacy.

Zaccor said she is proud of the union’s support. But as a member of the advocacy group Northside Action for Justice, she said she readily enlisted district volunteers without outside help and is leaning on her deep ties in the area. For now, Zaccor is at a fundraising disadvantage, with opponent Ellen Rosenfeld, another former teacher, bringing in more than $48,000 in reported contributions, including many from campaigns to elect other officials.

Support from the union’s more than 30,000 members will power efforts to amplify the message of its endorsed candidates, with goals such as knocking on doors at least three times, said Hilario Dominguez, the CTU’s political director. This past weekend, the CTU hosted a launch event for candidates Ebony DeBerry and Jason Dónes with elected officials such as U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, who fanned out with supporters afterward to knock on doors.

Dominguez criticizes backing from moneyed donors to the Illinois Network of Charter Schools and to Urban Center, a group run by Juan Rangel, the former head of the UNO charter network, and affiliated with Paul Vallas, a former CPS CEO who last year lost a mayoral bid to CTU-backed Mayor Brandon Johnson. He called these groups “the legion of doom.”

“I imagine we are going to be outspent,” Dominguez said. “This is still a unique opportunity for democracy, and we are not going to let our schools be bought, sold or privatized.”

The union’s two political action committees have reported a total of $176,000 on hand at the end of June. It’s likely that state and national teachers unions will contribute to the race as well, as they did to Johnson’s election as mayor.

Meanwhile, the New York-based nonprofit Leadership for Educational Equity, which is affiliated with Teach for America, donated about $1,000 to five candidates, including some graduates of the alternative teacher prep program.

Charter and school choice groups are waiting in the wings

Testing the union’s formidable ability to get out the vote will be financial injections from two Illinois Network of Charter Schools-affiliated political funds that together have amassed more than $3 million.

The network’s political arms have received some large donations during the summer, including more than $986,000 from James Frank, the auto leasing executive who chairs the Intrinsic Schools charter network, and $100,000 from billionaire Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. The majority of the advocacy group’s money is held by an independent expenditure committee, which cannot donate directly to candidates or coordinate with their campaigns, but can spend on advertising and other services to support them.

Andrew Broy, the network’s executive director, said the group will support candidates committed to school choice at a time when the district appears poised to move away from it. He said the people writing big checks to the group have a track record of caring about education.

“We have a focus on making sure the students’ experiences are at the center of the district’s focus,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the case right now.”

The group, which donated to two candidates — Andre Smith and Carlos Rivas — earlier in the summer to help them get on the ballot, will decide on the full list of candidates it will support this week. Eighteen candidates filled out its questionnaire and sat down for recent interviews, Broy said. Its PAC board will vote on whom to support, and contributions will start flowing later this month.

With Johnson appointing 11 of the board’s 21 members, INCS-backed candidates would make up a minority on the board by default. But, Broy said, “I do think there is a big difference between the CTU controlling 20 seats — and having some independent thought on the board.”

Broy raised issues with the number of people removed from the ballot due to challenges to their petitions. In all, 47 people filed to run and 32 made it on the ballot.

Chicago Board of Elections records show four attorneys represented objectors to 19 candidates, none of whom were endorsed by the CTU.

Broy contends the CTU backed the push to remove opponents from the ballot, which he called hypocritical because the CTU campaigned for years to allow Chicagoans to pick board members. So far no evidence has emerged that CTU was involved.

Political action committees are not required to report expenditures until next month. The attorneys also represented two CTU-endorsed candidates facing challenges. When contacted by Chalkbeat earlier this month, three of the attorneys did not respond, and one, Mike Kasper, declined to comment.

Dominguez, the CTU political director, would not directly answer questions about claims that CTU was involved in the ballot challenges. But he called the issue a distraction, noting four CTU-endorsed candidates also faced challenges and one of them got knocked off the ballot.

“It’s bothersome that folks are alleging CTU is not in support of grassroots candidates when all our candidates are grassroots,” he said.

‘Independents’ race to make up for lack of big-player backing

Some candidates backed by neither group said they are at a fundraising disadvantage — and trying to harness their unaffiliated position to appeal to voters.

Biggs, the former principal, said her campaign has signed up more than 40 volunteers and drawn support from more than 80 donors, most of them contributing relatively small amounts. Some money went to warding off a ballot challenge. She has a paid part-time field organizer, but she is doing most of the work of running the campaign herself, with help from a “kitchen cabinet” of five volunteers.

“People want someone who is independent making decisions for schools,” she said. “That message really resonates. The challenge is getting that message out.”

Maggie Cullerton Hooper, a CPS parent and local school council member running in District 2, has raised more than $68,000 for her campaign. The daughter of former state Senate President John Cullerton, Cullerton Hooper brought in $25,000 in transfers from her father’s political action committee and a number of political endorsements.

But her campaign manager, Erika Caldwell, said the bulk of the candidate’s haul comes from small donations — and Cullerton Hooper is not counting heavily on her political establishment ties. Instead, she is emphasizing her experience as a person with disabilities who is raising two CPS students, including one with a disability.

“There are a lot of students in the system having decisions made for them by people who haven’t had that lived experience,” Caldwell said.

Reema Amin contributed to this report.

Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org .