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For Chicago Public Schools, 2024 was a year of chaos and conflict, political maneuvering and policy disputes. In 2025, with the district facing more changes and challenges, the upheaval and uncertainty is likely to carry over.
The district will usher in the new year with a new governance structure, after voters for the first time elected people to the Chicago Board of Education, and uncertainty over who will lead the district and what kind of financial shape it will be in.
In 2024, the mayor’s hand-picked school board fired CPS CEO Pedro Martinez after a months-long drama during which Mayor Brandon Johnson asked him to step down — and he refused. The Board of Education resigned en masse in October, but were busy earlier in the year approving major policy shifts, such as getting rid of campus police and overhauling school budgets. District officials grappled with a half-billion-dollar budget deficit as federal COVID relief money ran out.
As the year begins, there are many questions about what comes next for the nation’s fourth largest school district and for education policy across the state. Here are seven things we’ll be watching in 2025.
Who will be the next CPS CEO?
On the night before Christmas break, Mayor Johnson’s hand-picked school board voted to oust Martinez — ending a tumultuous, months-long power struggle between the two leaders.
But the drama may not be over just yet.
Martinez was fired without cause and will remain in the top job for the next six months through the end of the current school year. He will then get a lump-sum payout of around $130,000.
Martinez said he would work to ensure a smooth transition for the next CEO. But his lawyer also took legal action before the vote in an effort to stop the board from terminating him.
Now, the question of who will take the reins of Chicago Public Schools next will fall to a new half-appointed, half-elected school board, which will be sworn in on Jan. 15, 2025.
One of the school board’s top duties is to hire and evaluate a district leader. But who is up for the job?
How will the new 21-member school board govern?
Chicago education will enter a new era in 2025. For the first time in Chicago’s history, voters elected 10 people in November to the city’s Board of Education. They, along with 11 more people appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, will be sworn in on Jan. 15.
The elected and appointed members come from varying backgrounds — from former educators and nonprofit leaders to a Grammy award-winning rapper and songwriter. They also have different alliances. Of the elected members, four are backed by the Chicago Teachers Union and another three are backed by pro-school choice and charter PACs. The remaining three are independent of those major interest groups.
The 21-person body — triple the size of the current board — will have to learn the ropes of governing and deciding how to work together effectively. We’ll also watch for changes to the logistics of the board, including whether it will launch special committees that focus on different education areas.
But most of all, we’ll be watching what sort of policy decisions the new board will embrace. At least 15 of the board members are likely to align ideologically with the mayor, who is a close ally of the teachers union, so the board could lean toward making decisions that match the mayor’s agenda, which includes increasing focus on neighborhood schools, a key priority of the district’s five-year plan.
How are students — especially the most vulnerable — experiencing school?
For the first time in a decade, Chicago saw its public school enrollment stabilize last school year. Much of the shift is due to an influx of migrants from the southern border. This has had big implications for Chicago Public Schools’ segregated school system with bilingual education deserts.
Many schools last year did not have staff who could communicate with non-English-speakers, much less state-mandated bilingual education programs. Though this school year saw an expansion of support for English language learners, has it been enough?
Additionally, CPS has seen an increase in students with disabilities, as documented by Individualized Education Programs. At the same time, there has been a shortage of teachers and school staff who are certified to work with these students and vacancies remain. A new contract agreement reached with the union that represents school support staff aimed to tackle those vacancies. The CTU is also pushing for language that could add more teacher assistants, though it is causing some internal labor conflict.
Students with disabilities have also been most acutely affected by the district’s transportation woes sparked by a bus driver shortage. This left many without a ride to school over the past several years. Now, CPS is out from under state oversight and expanding bus service again. But will students with disabilities still face hurdles getting to school?
Will CPS try to close schools after a state-imposed moratorium ends?
On the same day the new Board of Education is sworn in, a state moratorium on school closures will expire. That means the board could move to shutter schools.
However, most of the current leadership oppose the deeply unpopular and politically divisive move.
On the campaign trail, a majority of elected school board members said they don’t support closing schools. Johnson staunchly opposes school closures and frequently reminds people of the closure of 50 schools in mostly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in 2013 under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And he’s chosen appointees who also disagree with shuttering schools.
This fall, the previous Board of Education also passed a resolution introduced by CPS CEO Martinez that committed to not closing schools until 2027.
Still, the district faces a thorny question many other big districts are also grappling with: How should it balance largely thinning enrollment over the past decade with its financial challenges? The district could continue operating small schools, or it could take a different approach.
The Johnson administration’s preferred approach so far has been to boost funding for needier campuses, with the goal of strengthening neighborhood schools and enrollment — and the new board could double down on that.
What is the state doing to improve lagging math achievement?
Math achievement took a dive in Illinois and Chicago during the COVID pandemic, according to state test scores. The latest data suggests students are rebounding in reading and to some degree math.
But proficiency in math remains low, according to the Illinois Assessment for Readiness for third to eighth grades and the SAT for 11th graders. The lagging scores in 2024 have some raising questions about whether schools need a better approach to math instruction.
Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders told Chalkbeat in August that officials are looking at ways to improve how math is taught in schools. And in October, when state test scores came out, Sanders said the state is working on a math and numeracy plan for schools across the state.
He offered few details but said the plan would be a “first-of-its-kind” effort and would provide support to teachers around effective math instruction.
When will CPS settle a new contract with the Chicago Teachers Union — and how will it impact classrooms?
Contract negotiations between the Chicago Teachers Union and the district have entered their eighth month. The talks have escalated significantly in the past few months, fueling the tension between the mayor and CPS leadership.
The union has since pared down its sprawling 700-plus proposal package — which originally called for 9% staff raises, hiring thousands of new staffers, and providing additional support for students, such as affordable housing. But both sides have not yet closed in on a deal. At a recent Board of Education meeting, union leaders argued that accepting their contract demands now will help protect the district against potential major changes to public education and mass deportation plans that could come under President-elect Donald Trump.
The district has faced serious financial questions over the course of bargaining. CPS is projecting a half-billion-dollar deficit next fiscal year, without accounting for the cost of labor contracts. State leaders have not signaled that they plan to send bigger increases in education funding to CPS.
In order to pay for the contract, the Johnson administration suggested the district take out a short-term loan, which CPS leaders have so far rebuffed. The biggest question is twofold: When will the district settle the contract – and how will it pay for it?
How much money will the state send to school districts?
School funding is always a big issue, but it’s likely more top of mind for Illinois districts after billions of dollars in federal COVID relief funding for schools dried up this fall. Plus, the state is dealing with a $3 billion budget deficit, Capitol News Illinois reported.
The loss of those dollars led to a big deficit at Chicago Public Schools and has raised questions about how to pay for costs going forward, fueling the district’s months-long power struggle with City Hall.
Since creating a new funding formula in 2017, Illinois lawmakers have increased funding for K-12 schools by $350 million every year except in 2020, when the COVID pandemic first hit. But education advocates and officials argue that districts need larger annual increases as schools’ needs have increased over the years.
In Chicago, more state funding could help solve the district’s ongoing financial challenges and help pay for labor contract expenses, for example. But Gov. JB Pritzker and other elected officials have said significant funding increases are not coming to CPS.
Still, Pritzker has signaled more interest in boosting education funding. The question, he said, is how.
“To be clear, I would like to put more money into our education system,” Prtizker told reporters in September, acknowledging the state is not adequately funding education. “The question is, Where do you find the dollars to do that? And that’s obviously one of the biggest challenges of being governor.”
Samantha Smylie contributed.
