Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson told a City Club crowd Tuesday that he would cut $1 billion in city costs, generate $500 million in new annual revenue, and close under-enrolled public schools if elected — pointing to a high school he says has just 30 students in a building meant for 1,000.
Wilson, a businessman making his fourth run at the city's top office, pitched the plan as part of a broader effort to shrink government without raising taxes, according to Yahoo News. He said a department-by-department audit of city spending, targeting every city contract, would alone save $225 million. Speaking for nearly an hour in a speech and public interview, Wilson described Chicago's current spending as a runaway truck and said taxes are too high while businesses and residents leave the city amid ongoing corruption concerns.
A Nearly Empty High School Becomes Exhibit A
Wilson singled out Frederick Douglass Academy High School, saying around 30 students are enrolled in a facility designed to hold 1,000 — a stark illustration, he argued, of why some schools should close. He called for trades to become a top focus in Chicago schools and pushed for CPS to adopt stricter reading, writing and math standards.
Douglass Academy's emptiness is not an isolated case. CPS data cited by WGN-TV shows it was one of 13 Chicago high schools that were at least 80% empty, part of a wider pattern in which 35% of the district's public schools were found to be less than half full. The station traced much of that decline to CPS losing more than 77,000 students since 2010.
The scale of the underutilization shows up across the district's books. Based on FY2025 figures, the Civic Federation found 58% of CPS school buildings were underutilized — meaning enrollment below 70% of a school's capacity — and that in 2024, 154 of the district's 498 schools were operating at less than half capacity. The federation also calculated that CPS had roughly 306,000 students filling just over 450,000 available seats, leaving about 144,000 seats, or 32% of total capacity, unused.
The Shadow of the 2013 Closures
Chicago has been here before. In 2013, the city closed 50 schools housed in 46 buildings under then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a move the Civic Federation says was controversial in part because it proceeded without meaningful notice and engagement with affected communities. A decade later, only 20 of those 46 buildings, or 43%, had been repurposed, while the rest sat vacant.
A WBEZ-Sun-Times investigation, as reported by Block Club Chicago, found the 2013 closures largely failed to deliver on promises that displaced students would be better off elsewhere. Wilson himself struck a different tone on the issue back in 2018, when he vowed during that year's mayoral campaign to reopen some of the schools Emanuel had shuttered, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago's enrollment slide isn't unique to this city, either. Milwaukee, Denver, Flint, Boston, San Francisco and Philadelphia are among other cities wrestling with underenrollment, and Chalkbeat reports some of them are also moving toward closures.
A Mayor With Less Sway Over Schools Than Before
Any closure push Wilson pursued as mayor would run into a structural obstacle: Chicago's school board is now entirely made up of independently elected members, meaning the next mayor would have less direct power over school direction than past mayors enjoyed. The city's budget also operates independently of CPS's budget, though CPS receives substantial revenue whenever the mayor declares a surplus in tax increment financing dollars — something Mayor Brandon Johnson has described as necessary to support schools in recent budget cycles.
That governance shift comes as Chicago Public Schools enrollment has fallen 20% over the past decade, per the Chicago Tribune. The timing also lands amid broader budget turbulence at City Hall: on the same day as Wilson's speech, 28 City Council members told Johnson that his proposed $17.6 billion 2027 budget lacked the votes to pass, according to WTTW.
Jobs, Vacant Lots and the Bears
Beyond schools, Wilson pledged to direct more city spending toward locally owned companies and push thousands of city-owned vacant lots toward development. He also promised more frequent competition for city contracts and said he would look out for businesses because they employ people.
Wilson said he would work to keep the Chicago Bears in the city, calling the team one of Chicago's top five money-makers and arguing its presence creates numerous jobs — even though city and state officials have rejected most proposals to use taxpayer money to keep the team within city limits.
Wilson, who has said he was among the first Black McDonald's franchise owners, touted his business background as the cornerstone of his campaign and said he is not bought. He rejected the notion that his candidacy should center Black Chicagoans specifically, saying voters should choose him as the best person for the job rather than because of his race, and describing himself as Black, white, Chinese, Latina and all colors.
Wilson has run for mayor three times before and has routinely drawn around 10% of the vote in each race. The City Club crowd that turned out to hear his pitch this time was about half the size of the one that showed up for Johnson's address at the same venue the previous month.
