Bruce Leon has three opponents in his race for District 2 on the Chicago Board of Education, but he’s really running against a man who’s not on the ballot: Mayor Brandon Johnson. 

“Bruce Leon will stand up to the bully Brandon Johnson,” Leon trumpeted in a mailer to voters, declaring himself against a $300 million high-interest loan, against firing schools CEO Pedro Martinez, and against defunding selective enrollment schools — all priorities of Johnson’s.

“Enough is enough,” the mailer concluded. “Bruce Leon is the only truly independent candidate with the courage to stand up to Mayor Bully and the CTU.”

Johnson is a former organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, and is closely aligned with the union, which endorsed and funded his candidacy for mayor. Johnson also has a 26 percent approval rating. He recently caused an uproar when the entire school board resigned, allowing him to appoint new members who will, presumably, rubber stamp his personal vision for the school district. The City Council was so outraged that 41 alderpersons signed a letter calling for a hearing on Johnson’s handling of the schools.

With Johnson and his education policies so unpopular, could voters take out their displeasure with the mayor by voting against CTU-backed candidates? Leon hopes so. The board that takes office in January will include 10 members appointed by Johnson, so it’s important to have a few independents to push back, he says.

“I think it’s an important part of this election in general,” he says. “Are we happy with the status quo, or do we want change? It’s better to have a board that can push back on the payday loan and the CEO. I’m an independent. I am not even taking outside money. I am someone who, in my opinion, will act with no strings attached. No matter what happens, the mayor gets to pick 10 people. Even if five of us win, we’re still only 25 percent of the board.”

(The CTU has endorsed Ebony DeBerry in District 2. DeBerry and the CTU, which has spent $1.3 million on the election, have sent out mailers calling the self-funded Leon a millionaire “trying to buy his way onto the school board” and claiming he’s the candidate of “Trump Republicans and out-of-state billionaires” who are using him to support the agenda of Project 2025, which “calls for an end to public education…and rips money out of our public schools and into for-profit charter schools.” Leon has been endorsed by the Chicago Republican Party, the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, and the libertarian Chicago Tribune. INCS Action Independent Committee, a pro-charter school organization that has raised $3.2 million, sent out a mailer attacking DeBerry.)

In District 4, candidate Ellen Rosenfeld is also running an anti-Johnson campaign. 

According to a Rosenfeld mailer, “she will stand up to Mayor Brandon Johnson and his CTU allies and reject the mayor’s reckless payday loan proposal for our schools.”

Rosenfeld also calls herself an independent. Traditionally, in Chicago politics, that meant “not affiliated with the Democratic machine.” In this school board election, it means “not affiliated with the Chicago Teachers Union,” which has been accused of functioning as a political machine.

“What it means to be independent to me is I’m beholden to no one’s agenda,” Rosenfeld says. “I’m not the CTU’s candidate, I’m not Mayor Johnson’s candidate. We can’t afford for this board to be a rubber stamp for Mayor Johnson.” 

The mass resignation of the school board put Johnson’s control of the schools at the top of voters’ minds, Rosenfeld says, and may turn out to be an advantage for anti-Johnson candidates.

“It brought it to the spotlight,” she says. “Now, when I talk to people, there are so many people engaged. People are doing their research. It has far-reaching tentacles.”

Like Leon, Rosenfeld has been endorsed by the Chicago Republican Party and the Tribune, which means she’s also been subject to mailers linking her to Project 2025. (An elected school board has brought more politics to Chicago, a city already up to its ears in politics. According to the Sun-Times, candidates have raised $4.7 million.) Is she an independent, or a right-wing stalking horse? Mayor Johnson now looms so large over the city’s educational policies that such distinctions may not matter to voters. They may simply be looking for candidates who will stand in the way of his complete control of the school district.