"Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them," said Shakespeare's Malvolio in Twelfth Night.
And then there's Jessica Biggs, a member of the Chicago school board and a woman running for president of the board in the first-ever school board election in the city's history, where Chicago citizens elect all 21 members.
Immediately upon hearing "Chicago" and "elections," some of you cynical people might think of foul play or funny business. I'm here to dispel those scurrilous rumors and half-truths. The "City that Works" (sometimes) and the "City of Big Shoulders" (only when they're elbowing ordinary citizens out of the way) want everyone to know (and all law enforcement listening on wiretaps) that this election will be on the up and up. There will be no ballot box stuffing, leg breaking, or intimidation of voters in any way.
None that you'll be able to see, anyway.
Jessica Biggs is not a leg breaker. She's not very intimidating, either. The towheaded pixie is just a simple, run-of-the-mill Chicago pol. In other words, she's a cheat.
Biggs was principal of a southside school, Burke Elementary, in 2018 when the CPS fired her after an investigation found “a deliberate, multi-year scheme to falsify attendance data to game her school’s rating," said one opponent. Her dismissal put her on a "Do Not Hire" list until last summer when, all of a sudden (these things tend to happen suddenly in Chicago), her name was removed in time for her to run for board president.
I'm not really a suspicious type, but there were rumors of a quid pro quo between Biggs and Superintendent of Public Schools, Jacqueline King. Could King and Biggs have struck a deal where Biggs would support King's continued service as superintendent?
C'Mon, man. This is Chicago.
Chicago Sun-Times:
A Chalkbeat and WBEZ review of the 2018 district inspector general’s report, CPS data and all available court records, including transcripts, and interviews with at least a dozen district officials, educators, experts, and others show a more nuanced picture: At Biggs’ direction, Burke staff improperly marked students tardy when they arrived late enough that they should have been flagged as absent for half the day. An uptick in the school’s attendance rate under Biggs helped improve a high-stakes rating given to the school at the time.
But the inspector general’s report does not lay out a full-blown conspiracy to cheat, and it’s hard to say how much of the attendance bump came from mislabeling students versus a concerted effort to get kids to school. The watchdog recommended that Biggs be disciplined, but did not suggest she be fired.
Again, this is Chicago. Are we supposed to believe that Biggs was doing such a fine job that kids flocked to her school and thus bumped her attendance figures? Or is it more likely Jessica Biggs cooked the books?
To prove that politics makes very strange bedfellows in Chicago, former public schools CEO Janice Jackson, who fired Biggs in 2018, now supports her bid for school board president.
“She didn’t come back with a chip on her shoulder,” Jackson said. “She came back to serve and did the same thing she did when she was a principal, which was to look out for the kids and the families that she was entrusted with.”
Not buying it. The whole business reeks of politics and corruption. Can't be very far behind.
During the 2016-17 school year, a staffer complained to the district’s internal watchdog that Biggs was directing the attendance clerk to misrepresent attendance data and sent staff to pick up students in their personal vehicles without getting written permission from parents, as was CPS policy. One of her opponents, Hilario Dominguez, said this failure to follow transportation protocols “endangered students.”
The inspector general’s office substantiated the complaint after interviewing teachers, clerks and other staff. Burke’s assistant principal told the watchdog that even a student who arrived 30 minutes before the end of the school day might still be marked tardy instead of absent. Illinois law requires that students attend for at least 300 minutes to be considered present.
Investigators suggested in their report that the school’s flawed tracking of attendance was tied to efforts to better its standing. In one email highlighted in the report, Biggs thanked school staff for their hard work to improve attendance and said that to boost the school’s rating, “we MUST hit 94% by the end of the year!” One teacher told the watchdog that staff felt pressure to increase attendance.
Biggs was the only employee at the school who benefited substantially from goosing attendance. Teachers didn't get paid more. Administrative staff wasn't rewarded. But an ambitious principal looking to make a move out to the suburbs or another district out of state would have a leg up on any other candidate when she could point to the increase in attendance in a city known for truancy and poor attendance.
Now she's up for school board president, an unpaid position but a stepping stone to other, lucrative positions. Her track record suggests that she's a perfect fit for Chicago: a cloud of suspicion hanging over her head while rumors of illegality swirl around.