April 3, 2019

Chicago gets a black woman mayor

Chalk Beat -Changes are sure to come to Chicago’s schools with the Tuesday night election of Lori Lightfoot, 56, the former federal prosecutor who achieved the improbable: going from a relative unknown to a landslide victory in the race to be Chicago’s next mayor.

With Lightfoot’s three-to-one victory over Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, she becomes the first black woman to take the fifth-floor office in City Hall and Chicago’s first openly gay mayor.

Lightfoot, who was previously appointed to lead several city police oversight agencies but has never held elected office, pledged throughout her campaign to bolster the city’s struggling neighborhoods, starting with strengthening public schools. She inherits governance of a school district that a decade ago topped 400,000 students but has since dropped nearly 12 percent to 361,000.

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