Two groups that support “school choice” and charter schools and are critical of the Chicago Teachers Union have amassed $3.6 million from prominent business leaders — including a few billionaires — looking to shape the city’s first-ever school board elections.
While the groups haven’t yet reported any spending on the school board races, their coffers represent by far the biggest expected infusion of money supporting and opposing candidates. It’s more than six times the cash that all 32 candidates combined have brought into their election campaigns and 20 times more than the teachers union’s political action committees reported holding at the end of June.
One of the independent expenditure committees, Urban Center Action, was formed earlier this summer by Juan Rangel, who recently worked for a private school tax credit program and previously was fired amid controversy from UNO Charter Schools, a large network he founded. Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who lost against Mayor Brandon Johnson in last year’s mayoral election, is also affiliated. The group has raked in $671,000 in less than two months, state election records show.
Rangel said Urban Center Action will be supporting candidates who will be “independent thinkers,” which he said is particularly important considering the tight relationship between Johnson and the teachers union. Given the looming budget deficits of both the city and the school district, he said it is critical that someone “be the adult in the room” and act responsibly.
“I think these are candidates that would like to hold the system accountable and make sure that there is a balanced debate,” Rangel said, adding that he would reveal which candidates Urban Center Action will back in the coming weeks.
The Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which advocates for privately managed, publicly funded schools, is operating the other big-money fund that sits at nearly $3 million, records show. The group reported a $100,000 contribution last month from California-based Reed Hastings, the billionaire co-founder and chairman of Netflix, and a whopping $986,300 in June from James Frank, an automotive fleet leasing and management executive who serves as chairman of the Intrinsic Schools charter network in Chicago. Frank, who reported a suburban Des Plaines address, is an INCS board member.
Two months from now, Chicago voters will elect 10 members to represent geographic districts on a 21-member board. The mayor will appoint the other 11 members, including the board president. In 2027, the board will become fully elected. Chicago’s school boards have been appointed by the mayor since 1995, and before that by various committees including past iterations of what is now known as the City Council.
Many were worried about the role that money would play in Chicago’s school board elections. Los Angeles’ recent races served as a cautionary tale. There, union and outside money made the election a race between those who ally with charter schools and those who side with the teachers union.
Traditional political action committees have limits on donations of $13,700 for individuals and $24,700 for companies. But independent expenditure committees like the ones for INCS and Urban Center are set up like super PACs so they can accept an unlimited amount of money from donors to run ads, send fliers and provide other indirect campaign support without contributing directly to or coordinating with candidates. They can oppose candidates, too.
Hopefuls can also directly raise money on their own. So far, two candidates have not reported any contributions to their election campaigns while 14 others have reported less than $10,000. In all, the 32 candidates’ campaign committees have received a total of $551,230, according to a Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ analysis.
Rapper Che “Rhymefest” Smith, running in District 10, has reported $88,921, mostly in loans from himself, his studio and his wife. District 2 candidate Maggie Cullerton-Hooper has reported $70,725 in contributions, including $25,000 from the campaign fund of her father, John Cullerton, the former Illinois Senate president.
The business community contributions to INCS and Urban Center are significant but not a surprise. The mayor and his appointed Board of Education have faced backlash from school choice advocates after Johnson campaigned on a progressive education platform and the school board announced it would prioritize funding neighborhood schools. Johnson was an organizer for the CTU, which spent heavily to get him elected.
“Definitely, we will spend substantial resources on … people who, first, put student impact at the center of their agenda; second, understand our policy priorities; third, are reasonable, collaborative people to work with both as a matter of policy; and who can work with 20 other board members,” said INCS President Andrew Broy, adding that he anticipates being involved in the majority of the races while also using the cash for statehouse elections.
Even though Johnson will still appoint the majority of the new board for now, Broy said there’s a “major difference between having 19, 20 or 21 board members aligned in single step with the mayor and with CTU, versus having a caucus” of members with opposing policy ideas. INCS doesn’t have a goal for how many candidates it can push onto the board — it wants to support hopefuls with realistic chances.
“We’re here to win races, not just to spend resources,” Broy said.
CTU official Kurt Hilgendorf said Rangel and the contributors have spent a long time trying to privatize CPS.
“These are the same policies as Project 2025,” Hilgendorf said, referencing the right-wing plan for the presidency should Donald Trump win in November. “Expanding vouchers, defunding public education. That is what they are about.”
He said he believes voters will side with the union, which will do “what it does — knock on doors, call people and go where the people are.”
Three individuals and one company have contributed $100,000 each to Urban Center Action: Billionaire Joseph Mansueto, the founder and chairman of financial services firm Morningstar; James Perry, an executive with private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners; and Daniel O’Keefe, an executive with asset management firm Artisan Partners. Perry is a recent Chicago Public Media board member.
All but one of Urban Center’s 13 contributors are from Chicago. The other is from Evanston.
Other contributors who gave $50,000 each include:
- Paul Finnegan, the Madison Dearborn Partners chairman;
- Vince Kolber, founder and chairman of transportation equipment company Residco;
- Brian Miller, co-founder and partner of health care private equity fund Linden Capital Partners and former Latin School of Chicago trustee; and
- Charles Mulaney, a law firm executive who serves in several board roles with the Archdiocese of Chicago, is a lifetime trustee of the private Fenwick High School and is the father of comedian and actor John Mulaney.
Another $70,000 has come from four more people, who include the current CEO of Madison Dearborn Partners, a co-founder of Madison Dearborn Partners who settled insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006, and two real estate executives — one of whom founded a private high school for students with learning differences on the Near West Side.
INCS has piled up its cash more so from contributors who don’t live in Chicago, like Hastings and suburban-based Frank. Jim C. Walton, the Arkansas-based billionaire heir to his family’s Walmart fortune, gave INCS $338,000 in January. INCS also received $172,600 in March from its board chair, Chicagoan David Weinberg.
Broy said it’s more expensive to canvas Chicago’s “very large” school board districts than in races for City Council or the statehouse. Asked if he worries about the perception of non-Chicagoans sending big bucks for these elections, he said he’s comfortable knowing these contributors care about the “student experience” and are “so invested in the outcome of the board … because they understand how important the CPS board is.”
Urban Center and INCS also have traditional political action committees that can donate directly to candidates. The Urban Center PAC has about $2,000 and INCS about $240,000 — INCS has spent a minimal amount of that cash on one school board candidate.
There are limits on how much individuals and companies can donate to PACs, said Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Independent expenditure organizations, on the other hand, can bring in and spend as much as they want, but they can’t coordinate with candidates. Dietrich noted that the election code does not spell out what “coordinate” means, leaving the restriction in a gray area.