Leonie interviews Cassie Creswell, the Executive Director of Illinois Families for Public Schools, about the risk to student privacy from the College Transparency Act that was just approved by the Senate HELP committee, the transition to an elected school board in Chicago, and why we should oppose the federal tax credit voucher scheme for private and religious schools.
Chalkbeat, Mayor Zohran Mamdani names 13 school board members, cementing control of NYC schools, https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2026/07/28/mamdani-appoints-new-york-city-school-board-pep-members
Illinois Families for Public Schools, MEDIA RELEASE: Advocates Call on Chicago School Board Candidates to Pledge to Protect Human-Centered Education, https://www.ilfps.org/media_release_pledge_human_centered_ed_cps
Email to send to your Senators to oppose the College Transparency Act , https://actionnetwork.org/letters/please-send-a-message-to-your-senators-reps-urging-them-to-oppose-the-college-transparency-act-that-would-authorize-federal-surveillance-of-all-college-students-throughout-their-lives
Organizational sign-on letter, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q81ppj2rcprQybaQ9K3-aAL-PgKwpVla/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q81ppj2rcprQybaQ9K3-aAL-PgKwpVla/edit
Guide to Chicago’s November school board elections, https://www.chicagoreporter.com/tcrs-guide-to-chicagos-november-school-board-elections/
Cassie Creswell: Illinois and Iowa private school voucher programs, https://qctimes.com/opinion/column/article\_597a1bb1-c249-4dce-8cde-805c392f3594.html
The 2013 mass public school closure and firearm violence in Chicago: A quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analysis, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953626005046
Public school closings in Chicago linked to more gun violence in nearby neighborhoods, https://news.uchicago.edu/story/public-school-closings-chicago-linked-more-gun-violence-nearby-neighborhoods