Read on Twitter
What does this mean? Is it just the Mayor's usual push for a hybrid that preserves her full control of the board? https://twitter.com/thedailylineIL/status/1356617249608650753
Or is she resurrecting the idea that you can require members to have been LSC members---which seems like a pretty questionable prerequisite from a legal standpoint. (Are there other elected positions with that sort of condition? Beyond age, residency, citizenship?)
Or is it just adding another factor (e.g. campaign finance reform) that will make it even more onerous to pass? And if it's that, is this "proposal" just a way to push the narrative that school board candidates will be funded by the dastardly union?
Real talk: We have democratically elected bodies at city, state, federal level with deeply flawed campaign funding mechanisms resulting in the election of (some!) public officials of questionable expertise, values, skills, etc.
But somehow, when it comes to the standard for an *elected* Chicago Board of Education, the bar is (conveniently!) much, much higher! Just regular old candidates being elected with the regular old inadequate system that that we use for every other office isn't good enough!
The entire point of language that has now passed IL House several times is to create the structure for an elected REPRESENTATIVE school board, w/ districts small enough to make elections winnable by grassroots candidates that look like the city & district they're representing
That's why there are 20 districts. (and one at-large seat---which should help stimulate interest in the race). The language that passed the Senate back in 2016 (right?) had 16 seats. We prefer the 21, but at least that language was headed in the right direction.
Would publicly financed campaigns be a nice-to-have? YES! Would it be great if our Board of Ed members were engaged parents with LSC experience? YES!
Should we not be allowed basic representative democracy in a body that levies half our property taxes in the city til we can achieve those other factors (the latter one of which is probably not even legislative-able)? NO!
P.S. @DonHarmonIL, where is our elected representative school board?
