School Reform In Chicago

When the U.S. Secretary of Education embarrassed Chicago in 1987 by calling its public schools the worst in the nation, the city took up the challenge to do better by its children. Chicago became a huge laboratory of school reform. This collection looks at the primary lessons of that effort, addressing topics such as accountability, parent and community involvement, school leadership, teacher professional development, and instruction. For those who want to improve K-12 schools throughout the nation, this book offers a helpful and inspiring account of one city's efforts. "Like Chicago itself, this volume is provocative, even contentious. Key players in Chicago's reform efforts show that sweeping school-governance changes, though exhilarating, can spur makeshift and ill-considered responses. Quick-fix advocates will be challenged, but the undaunted Chicago reformers who speak out in these pages offer hard-earned lessons that no policymaker should ignore." -- Dorothy Shipps, Teachers College, Columbia University "This is the best-told story of a major urban school system's 15-year struggle to dramatically improve student achievement. It examines key aspects of big school district reform through the savvy voices of the activists, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, journalists, politicians, and unionists who have intimate, 'warts-and-all' knowledge of the process." -- Peter Martinez, Director, Center for School Leadership, University of Illinois at Chicago Edited by Alexander Russo