Dupage Policy Journal

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeanne Ives has called the choice of Tony Sanders as the new Illinois State Board of Education superintendent another failed choice for superintendent by Gov. JB Pritzker.

Ives, the former state House of Representatives delegate from District 42, called Pritzker's choice a "total disaster" in a recent Facebook post.

"Elgin U-46 Superintendent Tony Sanders named new Illinois State Board of Education Superintendent," she said in the post. "Another failed Superintendent Choice by Pritzker. In the five years prior to COVID (2015-19) in no year did even 1/3 of his students read or do math at grade level."

In deriding Pritzker's pick, Ives—who lost a 2020 bid to win the House's 6th District seat—added that Sanders' students continue to struggle.

"Latest report card shows only 20% are at grade level in English and less than that for Math," she said.

Sanders had led the state's second-largest school district since 2014, a recent Chicago Sun-Times report said. He will replace Superintendent Carmen Ayala, the first woman and person of color to hold the position, who announced her retirement late last year; the Chicago Tribune said.

Sanders, who Pritzker touted as an "extraordinary choice," is now poised to follow in the footsteps of his father Ted Sanders, himself a former U.S. deputy secretary of Education and superintendent of Education in Illinois, Nevada and Ohio; the Tribune said.