A panel of journalists, community members and political commentators discussed the challenges facing Chicago Public Schools and approaches to creating educational equity at Roosevelt University’s annual Herb Franks Endowed Seminar in Political Science. Hosted by the University’s College of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (CHESS), the annual event is named in honor of the Roosevelt alum and former President of the Illinois Bar Association Herbert Franks, and the seminar seeks to promote a better understanding of state and local politics. The event was moderated by Ben Joravsky, a former Chicago Reader columnist and host, and the panel included Jianan Shi (the former executive director of Raise Your Hand and former CPS CEO of the Board of Education), Kalyn Belsha (the Senior National Education Reporter for Chalkbeat) and Byron Sigcho Lopez (a former adult education teacher and alderman of the 25th Ward).
This year’s discussion was titled “Chicago Public Schools in a Time of Uncertainty.” And explored the difficult position of public education across the country reckoning with budget mistakes made in the past and potential budget cuts facing them in the future from the current White House administration. Moderator Ben Joravsky, a former Chicago Reader columnist and host, introduced the panel by providing a capsule description of CPS’ last 30 years: after increased emphasis on test scores and charter school funding strained resources for neighborhood schools in the late 1990s, then-Mayor Rahm Emmanel created further strain with the Renaissance 2010 program that closed 123 neighborhood schools but created 230 charter institutions. The increased privatization of the system further decreased the resources available to neighborhood school students, and the cost of constructing the new facilities placed CPS in a debt currently estimated at $9 billion.
Additionally, severe budget cuts made to the Department of Education place current debt relief in question, and there are continual threats to cut services such as special needs programs and meal plans that assist CPS’ most vulnerable students. Fortunately, panelists saw reason for optimism. Jianan Shi currently serves as a member of the CPS board, which recently transitioned from mayor-appointed to democratically elected.
“This system has existed for over a century, and it only becoming representative of peoples’ needs in 2025 means that change is possible in the face of massive systemic establishment,” he said. “When the board consists entirely of elected individuals in 2026, I believe that parents’ concerns about community schools and federal interference in what’s best for our local children will be much easier to hear.”
