Only 24% of CPS students are proficient in math. Only 40% in reading. That is the emergency, and it should be the first item on every board agenda.

 

Too little of this board's attention has gone to student learning. As an education researcher, I know how to read student data — what it tells us, what it hides, and which schools are quietly falling behind while district averages look stable. Children who don't reach reading proficiency carry it into adulthood. I saw that up close tutoring with Literacy Chicago.

 

The research is clear about what moves those numbers: strong curriculum taught well, early literacy done right, capable school leaders, and excellent teachers supported with real training and development. That last piece has been my life's work — 25 years on teacher quality, with the Illinois State Board of Education, with state lawmakers, and nationally. I'll bring that expertise to making sure every classroom in District 4A is led by someone equipped to do the job.

 

Every decision I make will be measured against one question: does this help a child in District 4A learn more this year than last?

Every dollar this district spends on debt is a dollar that could have gone into a classroom.

 

I came to education through economics, so look at CPS's own budget: more than $9 billion in long-term debt, $794 million in debt service this year, and a total burden the board president himself puts above $900 million annually — more than $28,000 per student. Nearly $200 million of that still pays off bonds sold a decade ago to paper over a deficit.

 

We are living inside the consequences, and this board keeps reaching for the same shortcuts: budgets balanced with money nobody has appropriated, and pressure on management to take out high-interest loans and payday lending at the scale of a school system. Both move today's problem onto tomorrow's students, and both end in mid-year cuts that come out of classrooms.

 

The state genuinely does shortchange us (its own formula has CPS at 73% of adequacy) and I've won education funding fights in Springfield before. I'll fight that one hard. But a budget has to be built on money that exists. I'll vote for real numbers and tell District 4A families the truth about the tradeoffs.

A student who isn't in the building can't learn, and roughly 40% of CPS students are chronically absent. Students show up for schools where they feel safe and known.

 

That takes resources: social workers, counselors, and nurses actually staffed in our schools, alongside social-emotional supports and a welcoming environment in every building. The district's Whole School Safety approach points in the right direction — what it needs is the staffing and funding to deliver on it.

 

It also takes getting kids there. I'll push for what the evidence supports — early warning systems, mentoring, family coordination — and for restoring transportation, including lower-cost options like helping high school students earn commercial driving licenses through workforce development grants and safe "bike bus" routes. Built with the families who struggle most to get their kids to school, not for them.

Parents deserve to know how their district is performing, in plain language, without hunting for it.

 

CPS has a five-year plan with real targets like cutting chronic absenteeism 15% as well as raising 3rd–8th grade proficiency 20% by 2029, and a monthly board process for tracking it. I'll push to use it honestly: a public scorecard against the district's own goals, reported whether the news is good or bad, with leadership held accountable for hitting them.

 

And I'll start the work on what comes after 2029: a 10-year plan to make CPS the best big-city school system in America by Chicago's 200th birthday in 2037.