Chicago Public School’s CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett resigned late Sunday amid a federal probe of a $20 million no-bid contract between the district and the training academy SUPES where she once worked as a consultant. The deeper look into SUPES and a possible conflict of interest started after Sarah Karp, former Deputy Editor at Catalyst Chicago, first investigated Byrd-Bennett’s connection to the academy. For his part, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is distancing himself from the resignation, issuing a statement on Monday about the welfare of Chicago students and the important task of closing the budget deficit. But Chicago’s Mayor is more than a tangential player; he hand-selects the CEO and the Board of Education members. Karp is now a senior investigator at the Better Government Association, and she joins us to detail the unique role of the Mayor in shaping policy for the district. (Flickr/CPM-Viewminder)