Plaudits and protests for new School Board member
Jaime Guzman (second from left) has been appointed to the CPS Board of Education to replace Jesse Ruiz. He's pictured here at the December meeting of the Illinois State Charter School Commission, from which he has since resigned.
In appointing a Latino educator who supports charter schools to the Chicago Board of Education, Mayor Rahm Emanuel won both plaudits and a protest.
Juan Salgado, executive director of Instituto del Progreso Latino, a nonprofit community development organization that operates two charter schools, called Guzman a good choice because of his work in both education and with community organizations.
“He works with community leadership in real meaningful ways… and runs an institution now that supports community not-for-profits,” he said.
In contrast, the Chicago Teachers Union was furious.
“While Mr. Guzman does have teaching experience, which is a rarity for members of the mayor’s handpicked Board, our students and their families do not need another pro-charter, politically connected rubber stamp who will continue the decimation of our neighborhood schools through charter expansion,” CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey said in a statement.
Guzman, who replaces Jesse Ruiz on the Board, did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. In a press release, Emanuel said Guzman’s “experience in both the classroom and as an educational administrator make him well-suited to continue driving improvements in our classrooms across the city.”
A Chicago native, Guzman began his education career as a Teach for America corps member in New Jersey in the late 1990s. He went on to become a program director for TFA in Chicago and a bilingual teacher at Kanoon Magnet School in Little Village. He also served as a regional director for the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights Plaudits and protests for new School Board member | Catalyst Chicago: