Chicago City School Board, District 6A

GOLDEN SHRUG

The Dish: Dear reader, this race seems uniquely designed to exhaust me. It seems now like every election, increasingly insular and navel-gazing Progressive Groups foist upon the voters of the City some half-baked candidate pulled from their ranks and attempt to convince us that they're the newest progressive Nachshon. I am increasingly annoyed by this rank dishonesty, and staunchly hold the position that local elected offices in Chicago are not a jobs program for ambitious 501c4 staffers. I am even more annoyed when this happens two elections in a row for the same office, and that the candidate in question was awarded a nepotistic political appointment to their current berth solely on the back of their membership in The Movement or whatever we're calling it these days to get foundation grants. 

Now, I must preface this by saying… I have no personal beef with Anusha Thotakura. By all accounts she's a lovely person, and has a very solid history of service in the political realm, and is certainly a progressive. She's also, as Raeghn pointed out in 2024, the least qualified candidate in this pack to be a School Board member, which remains true today even with two years of appointed membership in the body under her belt. Despite heavily branding herself as “a former teacher,” and running almost exclusively on that credential, it is important for voters to know that Thotakura’s only real classroom experience was a bare-minimum Teach for America stint in a middle school in San Jose, California. This is concerning because they’d let a rock with googly eyes be a teacher in TFA if that rock was willing, because that is the point of TFA, and experience there is not independently indicative of a deepseated commitment to public education in and of itself. Her TFA stint was sandwiched between non-education-related political staffer positions, and is the only foray into education during Thotakura's career as neither of her degrees are in education-related subjects, making her time in San Jose classrooms seem more like a branding-minded dalliance than a serious interest in education or student outcomes.

This brings me to the matter of the 28-year-old Thotakura’s background. I firmly believe that it’s vitally important for progressives to examine each and every claim that our supposed champions make, including those about their political perspective, and especially when they’re running for offices in which they will represent, and make decisions about, the interests of extraordinarily disinvested Chicago communities. And this is yet another concern I have with Thotakura’s candidacy, because dear reader, I simply cannot envision her knowing how to deal with disinvestment on a personal level. This is a woman who grew up in a million-dollar home on the literal right side of the tracks in the wealthy part of the very split-income suburb of Palatine, is the daughter of extremely successful millionaire restaurant franchisees and likely grew up wealthy, attended Fremd High School (the much better resourced and wealthier of two Palatine-area high schools). This isn't to shit on her parents’ immigrant experience and their fight to be successful, but it is relevant context for her running to be on the Board of a School District where 73% of students are considered "economically disadvantaged”. If her only experience with scholastic disinvestment was during her time in TFA (which, if you listen to her speak at candidate forums, very much sounds like the case), I cannot imagine how she’s able to contribute more perspective or lived experience than the aforementioned rock with googly eyes on this Board. 

To make matters worse, Thotakura has absolutely no connection to CPS beyond being appointed to serve on the School Board two years ago. She lived in her hometown of Palatine as recently as 2022 according to campaign finance records, did not attend a CPS school at any point during her life, has no connection to those schools beyond being a volunteer debate coach (which does not count), and did not attend undergraduate or graduate school in Chicago. Even Thotakura’s worthwhile work on the Board isn’t entirely original, as her Green Schools resolution (a centerpiece of her platform) was essentially cribbed from items won by the CTU in its newly bargained contract just two months earlier. And her pretty decent platform, which mostly contains gestures at progressive policies on mental health, expanding pre-K, and job training, does not contain nearly enough substance to make up for being a carpetbagging nepotee. 

Dear reader, I truly do not get why Thotakura is here, what she’s doing in this race or in this seat, or why she’s displaying the naked and festering hubris to run for local office in Chicago anyway. If she’d stayed back home in the suburbs with her parents, she could very well be running for a General Assembly seat in her home District and we’d be crying with joy over her candidacy for that office, for which she’s qualified and would be a good fit. Instead she decided to move to one of the wealthiest areas of Chicago and tell people here how to run our schools. Boo, and also hiss. Not every candidate is a good fit for every office, and not every opportunity is the right one in politics. Just how I don't necessarily want my State Senator to become my Congressperson, I also do not necessarily want someone who fits the profile of a good State legislator to run for a more local office. It takes good political sense and no small amount of humility to figure out which is which. But I digress. 

Most inexcusably, despite running as the progressive option in Subdistrict 6A, Thotakura’s platform as of this writing isn't even the furthest left… in fact, its generic gestures at progressive school policy lag far behind the other two candidates in this race, one of whom is decidedly to her right. Embarrassing. I cannot stand when Progressive Groups attempt to hornswaggle voters into attempting to elect an unqualified candidate, and political nepotism is anything but progressive. I cannot recommend that 6A voters seriously consider Anusha Thotakura for this office, and I implore The Groups to stop doing this shit. It harms your purported missions, discredits the movement you're claiming to build, and degrades your progressive credibility which everyone benefits from when serious policy battles have to be won. 

This leaves two serious candidates to consider for residents of Subdistrict 6A, which includes parts or all of the 1st, 2nd, 27th, 31st, and 32nd Wards. The first of them is former 12th District County Board Primary candidate Isaiah White, who seems to be doing much better this time around than during his erstwhile run in the Spring. 

White, a gay man and longtime CPS staffer with extensive experience across different school roles, is a former foster youth, is deeply involved in his community, and seems like a very solid candidate for CPS Board… however. He's racked up endorsements from several people that this Guide Does Not Like, including The Office side character Scott Waguespack and political version of a medium rare chicken breast Margaret Croke. An endorsement from progressive County Commissioner nominee Drake Warren is far from enough to save this list. White's platform is also… interesting. Take his School Transportation plank, for instance: mixed in with great ideas like massively expanding bussing via removing IEP barriers and working with the CTA are items that fall far outside the purview of a School Board member, like improving pedestrian and bike infrastructure around schools, and given that White's aspirational Subdistrict is largely within Wards controlled by Alderpeople whose support of these improvements have been lukewarm at best as of late. Then again later in his platform, a stellar section on fiscal management (aggressively tackling pension payments is good! Contract and procurement reform are also good!) is offset by sections that play into years-old fearmongering about selective enrollment schools, which do not need “protection” as CPS is not pursuing changes to the model. And again, in what is otherwise a pointed section on ethics reform and outside employment, White attempts to set a standard of serving as a full-time CPS Board Member and forgoing outside employment. While this is admirable, and should be the goal, the position is currently (and heinously) unpaid, which means that White's presumably-wealthy spouse has the means to support him while he serves as a full-time volunteer… which is not realistic for the vast majority of Chicagoans. The correct and progressive position in this instance would be advocating for the School Board to become paid, and staffed! 

Beyond his somewhat-confusing platform, White has unfortunately also taken support from the full Bad GuyTrifecta of Common Ground Collective, INCS, and Urban Center (in their first direct contribution to a School Board candidate this cycle), which puts him in bed with billionaires, privatizers, and fraudsters. He was also endorsed by evil naked mole rat Paul Vallas during his County Commissioner run in the Spring. That is, dear reader, very very bad. For the unsuspecting voter, Isaiah White may be a confusing candidate, mixing conservative backing with smatterings of progressive policy, but I cannot recommend him, especially over the remaining, truly stellar candidate in this field. Also, Isaiah, what's up with the Zoombini screenshot in your Public Media Folder under the “Super Secret Surprises” subfolder? The public needs to know! 

Dear reader, you may be asking, “where is a progressive to turn in 6A?” and thankfully, the ballot has provided us with a stellar answer in the form of Brenda Lee Anderson, a Black queer non-binary policy expert with a PhD in education policy and a chip on their shoulder about public schools. Bren may not have attended CPS schools, but you’d have a hard time knowing it when you hear them talk about their experiences as a young person. During a childhood that included both their parents facing incarceration and themself having a stint in foster care and saw Bren emerge as the first person in their family to graduate high school, they attended neighborhood public schools, a shuttered charter school, and even had a brief stint at a parochial school. That varied educational experience produced a passion for learning that launched an award-winning career in higher education, including creating the University of Arizona’s first-ever confidential support resource for students who experience sexual violence. And yes, they only moved to Chicago a couple of years ago to teach at Northwestern University and work in the Mayor’s office, but if someone new to the City is going to run for a local office that requires relevant expertise, I sure as hell prefer them to have that expertise and Bren absolutely does. Their platform, and their background, prove it. 

That platform? Chock-full of commitments that are in touch with the needs of CPS, and highlight their qualifications. They want to reimagine the CPS budget, including a community-inclusive audit of all external CPS vendor contracts (a truly fantastic idea, there is a ton of bloat and waste in the ranks of CPS external vendors) and implementing outcomes-based accountability metrics for vendors, pushing for a democratized CPS budgeting process that mirrors the Participatory Budgeting model that progressive alderpeople have implemented over the past decade, and supporting progressive property tax revenue streams such as PILOTs (Payments in Lieu of Taxes for large tax-exempt landowners) to shore up the District’s budget. Bren wants to improve both teaching and learning conditions, including restricting AI usage in classroom and District operations, returning and expanding early-COVID-era student support programs that boosted outcomes, especially tutoring in math and reading, and broadening professional development for teachers alongside arts and cultural programming for students. Bren also wants to champion holistic student success, not just as a buzzword but as an effective educational program ranging from universal pre-K and guaranteed wraparound services at schools, to using data-driven approaches that produce root-cause solutions to chronic absenteeism (paying students? It worked in Detroit!), to ensuring full implementation of Illinois’s mandated inclusive sex and health education which allow students of all ages to stay safe, healthy, and informed about their needs. And most of all, Bren wants to invest in meaningful community partnerships that provide expanded options to current CPS students, and create a homegrown teacher pipeline for local university students, a strategy that lifts all boats and ensures teachers who know their communities are educating students who can access needed community resources. Pretty good, huh? 

Well that isn’t all that you need to know about Brenda Lee Anderson, because a peek into their campaign finances returns a concerning-at-first gift from LEE PAC, a TFA-affiliated organization whose support would normally be disqualifying, and some hilarious evidence that Bren was the only non-CTU endorsed candidate to make the ballot by taking the union up on their pledge to pay legal fees for candidates whose petitions were challenged. The CTU support is even more dramatic because those funds were used in part to fend off a challenge from CTU-endorsed Anusha Thotakura, who appealed a pro-Bren ruling despite her endorsers at CTU calling ballot challenges a “dirty trick”. Whoopsie, Anusha! I was most concerned about the LEE money, as gifts from that PAC can often be an indicator of support for charters, but after digging high and low I couldn’t find any evidence to support that Brenda Lee Anderson is uniquely pro-charter, or linked substantially to TFA (unlike, once again, incumbent Anusha Thotakura). Paired with their platform, their record of success in higher education, and their diverse educational background, why wouldn’t you Back Bren?

Dear reader, the more you look at this race, the clearer it becomes. Isaiah White is an enthusiastic but charter-backed moderate. Anusha Thotakura is a rich kid suburbanite who feels entitled to a seat at the CPS table for no reason beyond Org Nepotism. Brenda Lee Anderson is a grassroots, queer, non-binary Black candidate whose lived experience and educational pedigree basically scream “school board member,” and is a candidate who scares their opponents so thoroughly that both of them tried to knock Bren off the ballot. Girl, I Guess has a long, proud history of backing independent, grassroots, progressive candidates, even if that means we’re the only one standing by their side. We care who’s the most qualified, the best fit for the role, and who’s the most honest about their background, their beliefs, and where they’ll take the office going forward. Brenda Lee Anderson is that candidate, I’m proud to #BackBren with a Golden Shrug for Subdistrict 6A, and I seriously hope that we don’t see Anusha back here again at the conclusion of this particular 2-year term to run a third time.