For the second time this spring, Mayor Brandon Johnson intervened to get his way in Springfield, this time to kill a bill that would have extended a ban on Chicago school closings and limited the Board of Education’s authority to make budgetary and admissions changes affecting selective enrollment schools.
Johnson sent a letter to Illinois Senate President Don Harmon on Thursday asking him to hold House Bill 303, which had already passed the Illinois House and needed a final vote in the Senate.
The mayor’s public pledge that he would not close or otherwise harm selective enrollment schools meant the bill would no longer be called in the Senate as the spring legislative session ends, according to two sources who were granted anonymity to share details about the legislative process. The bill could be revived in the fall veto session if the mayor reneges on his promises.
HB 303 was among a few bills in Springfield that had amounted to a backlash against policy changes proposed by Johnson’s school board that align with his progressive education agenda.
Backers of the bills have criticized the mayor’s administration for attempting to implement major changes at CPS before the city’s school board becomes fully elected for the first time in early 2027, particularly after the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson’s former employer, pushed for years to create an elected school board to give parents a bigger voice.
The selective enrollment bill was specifically in response to a Board of Education resolution in the winter that called for moving away “from a model which emphasizes school choice to one that supports neighborhood schools.”
Johnson and the school board have stressed they intended only to better support neighborhood schools — many of which have long faced cuts — not to close or defund selective ones.
But supporters of the high-performing and highly competitive selective schools felt that declaration would mean dire consequences for their programs.
Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Johnson’s chief of staff, said in an interview Friday the bill would have usurped Chicago’s local control of its schools. She said CPS has shown progress in recent years, especially when it comes to improvement in test scores, and therefore does not warrant the state intervention over the district’s direction.
“It is also a codification of protecting a select group of elite schools,” Pacione-Zayas, a former state senator, said of the bill. “It communicates, as far as the lead sponsors go, where their priorities are.”
Pacione-Zayas said Harmon, the Senate sponsor of the bill, asked Johnson to write a letter laying out his opposition. Harmon had similarly given Johnson his way earlier this spring after the mayor wrote a letter saying he wanted a partially elected, partially appointed school board in 2025, rather than a Harmon proposal to elect the whole school board this fall.
In the letter sent to Harmon on Thursday, Johnson wrote the selective enrollment bill “seeks to solve problems that don’t exist.” He said he and the school board had already said they didn’t intend to close selective enrollment schools. He also pledged they wouldn’t suffer disproportionate cuts.
“My vision for CPS is not one where some students suffer at the expense of others,” the mayor wrote.
Harmon’s office didn’t confirm the bill won’t be called this session. The bill’s chief sponsor in the House, state Rep. Margaret Croke, D-Chicago, couldn’t be reached for comment.
In addition to banning any Chicago school closings until 2027, the bill would have prevented changes to admissions criteria at selective schools and disproportionate cuts to selective programs’ budgets. The bill’s failure appears to leave charter schools at risk once the current ban on closings ends in 2025 — Johnson’s letter only vowed not to close selective schools.
Some selective enrollment schools have complained this spring that their budgets have been cut. CPS introduced a new funding model that it described as more equitable to support schools with high numbers of students who are unhoused, living in poverty, learning English or disabled. As a result, CPS has acknowledged it is no longer providing selective schools with additional money to support their special programs.
Pacione-Zayas said CPS wants to make sure that all schools have a similar baseline for education and “the best should not just be regulated to one classification of schools.”
The district has refused to publicly release school budgets so far this spring. Officials said that will happen next week.
The letter written by Johnson does acknowledge that he and his board want to make some changes to selective enrollment schools, citing a responsibility to evaluate the system and ensure fairness.
“A system that has seen a precipitous decline in Black and Latine students as well as those that qualify for free and reduced lunch at some of our highest performing and well-resourced schools is not a system that reflects my values as mayor, or our values as a city,” Johnson wrote.
Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.
