This brief analysis was written by Catalyst Publisher Linda Lenz, who covered education for the Chicago Sun-Times during Harold Washington’s tenure as mayor.
Harold Washington, the first African American to serve as mayor of Chicago, brought to office an unprecedented interest in improving the citys public schools. However, his enemies in the City Council stood in the way of bold moves.
So he began by assembling leaders from a number of sectors, including the School Board, the business community and education groups, to work behind closed doors to fashion a reform plan. His model was the Boston Compact, an agreement wherein school officials pledged to improve student achievement and readiness for work and business leaders pledged to hire more Boston public school graduates.
Washingtons effort, called a summit, had all but ground to a halt when the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike in September, 1987. The walkout, the ninth in 18 years, lasted a record 19 days. After it finally was settled in the mayors office, Washington seized the opportunity to expand the summit, take it public and, thereby, politically sanction the overhaul of a school system that employed many of his backers.
Washington died of a heart attack before the summit convened. Its leaders cast the work to come as Washingtons legacy, but the summit was so broad-based that its compromise plan called mainly for new resources while keeping the system largely as it was. A break-away group of education activists and business leaders successfully pushed a radical plan decentralization through the creation of local school councils in the Legislature, which enshrined it in the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988.
Some leaders in the African-American community decried the act as deform, in part because it took power away from the African Americans who finally had ascended to leadership of the system. At the time, the School Board president, the superintendent and the president of the Chicago Teachers Union were black.
NOTE: School Reform Chicago Style: How Citizens Organized to Change Public Policy, a comprehensive political history of the Chicago School Reform Act, will be posted to this web site in the future. It was written by Mary OConnell and published in 1991 by the Center for Neighborhood Technology
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Education Summit Participants
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Acting Mayor
Eugene Sawyer Chairman Education Summit |
Rev. Dr. Kenneth Smith
President Chicago Theological Seminary; Co-chairman |
Dr. John Corbally
President MacArthur Foundation; Co-chairman |
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| Dr. George Ayers President, Chicago State University Warren Bacon Rev. Willie T. Barrow Karl Bays Bruce Berndt Cardinal Joseph Bernardin Dr. Manford Byrd Alain Carranza Harold Charles Bobbi Cobb James Compton Mary Brian Costello Florence Cox James Deanes William Farrow Leon Finney Jan Flapan Tee Galley Dr. Frank Gardener Ron Gidwitz Dr. Josue Gonzales Daryl Grisman |
Carlos Heredia Co-Chair, Parent/ Community Council Larry Howe Nancy Jefferson Theodore Jones Ann Leonard John W. Long Coretta L. McFerren Henry Martinez Teresa Matos Jan Metzger Samuel Mitchell Don Moore Richard Morrow Jean Oden Donald S. Perkins Matthew Pilcher Artensa Randolph Thomas Reece Dr. Salvatore Rotella Aida Sanchez Dr. Ted Sanders |
Daniel Solis Executive Director, UNO of Chicago Norman Swenson Jacquelyn Vaughn Dr. Richard Wagner Dr. Arnold Weber Ken West Consuelo Williams Peter S. Willmott Jack West CITY OF CHICAGO Hal Baron Sharon Gist-Gilliam Robert Mier Samuel Patch Arturo Vasquez Judith Walker STAFF Joe Washington Germaine Gordon Luz Martinez Note: The 50-member Parent / Community Council was created by Mayor Washington to bring parent and community voices to the Education Summit. |