Chicago’s school board elections
* Sun-Times…

Two groups that support “school choice” and charter schools and are critical of the Chicago Teachers Union have amassed $3.6 million from prominent business leaders — including a few billionaires — looking to shape the city’s first-ever school board elections.

While the groups haven’t yet reported any spending on the school board races, their coffers represent, by far, the biggest expected infusion of money supporting and opposing candidates. It’s more than six times the cash that all 32 candidates have brought into their election campaigns and 20 times more than the teachers union’s political action committees reported holding at the end of June.

One of the independent expenditure committees, Urban Center Action, was formed earlier this summer by Juan Rangel, who recently worked for a private school tax credit program and previously was fired amid controversy from UNO Charter Schools, a large network he founded. Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who lost against Mayor Brandon Johnson in last year’s mayoral election, is also affiliated. The group has raked in $671,000 in less than two months, state election records show. […]

The Illinois Network of Charter Schools, which advocates for privately managed, publicly funded schools, is operating the other big-money fund that sits at nearly $3 million, records show. The group reported a $100,000 contribution last month from California-based Reed Hastings, the billionaire co-founder and chairman of Netflix, and a whopping $986,300 in June from James Frank, an automotive fleet leasing and management executive who serves as chairman of the Intrinsic Schools charter network in Chicago. Frank, who reported a suburban Des Plaines address, is an INCS board member. […]

Traditional political action committees have limits on donations of $13,700 for individuals and $24,700 for companies. But independent expenditure committees like the ones for INCS and Urban Center are set up like super PACs so they can accept an unlimited amount of money from donors to run ads, send fliers and provide other indirect campaign support without contributing directly to or coordinating with candidates. They can oppose candidates, too.

$553,230 has been raised by all candidates for Chicago’s elected school board.

* Tribune…

Since filing their nomination paperwork in June, 15 candidates have fallen out of the running in Chicago’s historic school board election this November. […]

How they and others have been spending their money as candidates have been knocked off the ballot likely won’t be apparent until the next round of disclosures are due Oct. 15.

CTU said it has endorsed grassroots candidates running against campaigns “funded by Walmart heirs, Netflix billionaires, charter school operators, and corporate education ‘reformers’ like Juan Rangel and Paul Vallas, who will continue to pour millions into these races.”

Since the start of the year, Walmart heir Jim Walton has contributed $350,000 to Illinois Network of Charter Schools PACs, and Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings has contributed another $100,000, according to state elections board data.

Vallas, the former CPS CEO who lost his 2023 bid for mayor, and Rangel, former head of the UNO charter school network, which disbanded after the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Rangel for fraud, co-founded the Urban Center PAC in March. The committee supports school choice, according to its website, and contributed a cumulative $3,000 to two school board candidates, Andre Smith and Eva Villalobos, as of the Urban Center’s most recent disclosure, which also includes a $5,000 contribution from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ INCS Action PAC, Illinois State Board of Elections data show.

Click here for Chalkbeat Chicago’s updated list of Chicago school board candidates.