Democrats split over education in Chicago mayoral runoff
The two Democrats vying to become Chicago’s next mayor are in many ways a study in contrasts. Brandon Johnson is a 47-year-old county commissioner and Black progressive whose campaign has been largely bankrolled by Chicago’s teachers union. Paul Vallas is a 69-year-old former education administrator and consultant, a white moderate who has been endorsed by Chicago’s police union.
One thing the two men have in common is past careers in public education – a fraught and combustible issue that looms large in Chicago politics. Mr. Johnson taught middle school and then worked for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) as an organizer. Mr. Vallas was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools under Mayor Richard M. Daley in the 1990s and later helped oversee New Orleans’ charter-led school reforms after Hurricane Katrina.
Those experiences, however, have guided the candidates to radically different conclusions about how to fix public schools in Chicago, from where to invest resources and how to assess school performance to the role of charters and parental choice.
After a decade in which the city’s public school enrollment
