Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in a tight spot.

It’s a spot she built herself, so she’s responsible for the fix she’s in. And how she gets out will have lasting effects on her success as mayor.

The spot in question is this: How to reverse field and come out against an elected school board for Chicago Public Schools?

Running for mayor, first-time politician Lightfoot told voters she favored an elected school board. Almost from the day she took office — and certainly, by the time she began jousting with the Chicago Teachers Union early in her term — Lightfoot apparently decided that was a bad idea.

Read more at the chicagotribune.com

David Greising is the president and chief executive of the Better Government Association, joining the BGA in 2018. For nearly a century, the BGA has fought for honest and effective government through investigative journalism and policy advocacy.

Greising’s career started at the City News Bureau of Chicago, with stops at the Chicago Sun-Times, Business Week magazine, the Chicago Tribune and Reuters. He was a co-founder of the Chicago News Cooperative and worked briefly as a consultant to World Business Chicago. Today, Greising writes on government issues in regular columns for the Tribune and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Under Greising’s leadership, the BGA has played a key role in uncovering public corruption amidst the wide-ranging federal probe, starting with an in-depth report about Ald. Ed Burke’s conflicts of interest before the federal charges against Burke. The BGA also has exposed waste and fraud at O’Hare and the proliferation of corruption and poverty into Dolton, Lyons and other Chicago suburbs. The BGA’s policy team has led calls for ethics reform in Chicago’s City Council and in state government.