A couple things to address your post. Vallas has stated he doesn’t plan to push for more charter schools. Vallas expanded selective enrollment school options when he was at CPS. He didn’t just push charter schools like a lot of people are saying, but advocated for school choice in a general sense (selective enrollment, magnet programs, charters, etc.) to give parents more options.
In the Sun-Times questionnaire (link below, #16), you can see Johnson and Vallas’ answers to “Do you believe Chicago Public Schools should remain a system of choice with selective enrollment, magnet and charter schools serving a significant share of students rather than neighborhood schools?” Johnson answered “No” to this question and there have been serious concerns that he would reduce or scrap selective enrollment schools. Selective enrollment schools are the best performing schools in the city and some of the best in the state. A vote for Johnson isn’t necessarily a vote to improve public education if he scraps or dismantled the best performing public schools (e.g. Lane Tech, Payton, etc.).
https://elections.suntimes.com/runoff-questionnaire/
Also, CPS massively improved during Vallas’ tenure. No public schools were closed, teachers got solid raises, student enrollment increased, the district had solid budgetary footing (the pension issue came after his tenure), and student performance measures increased across the board. Johnson and supporters paint his record as abysmal, but that’s not true from what I’ve seen and read.
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