School Reform in Chicago: Lessons in Policy and Practice - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1891792180 ISBN 13: 9781891792182

Publisher: Harvard Educational Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

In 1987, The U.S. Secretary of Education embarrassed the city of Chicago by calling its public schools the worst in the nation. Chicagoans may have been tempted to brush off that observation as heavy-handed Washington bluster. But, the secretary was only repeating what civic leaders, educators, parents, and students there already knew: the city's schools were failing, and they desperately needed fresh resources, organization, ideas, and purpose. Over the next decade, Chicago underwent the most ambitious school reform effort in history, becoming a huge laboratory for school reform innovations in areas such as governance, leadership, accountability, and community involvement. Along the way, there were many notable successes, spectacular flops, and lessons learned.

About this title

About the Author

Alexander Russo is an independent writer and consultant whose writing on education has appeared in the Washington Monthly, Slate.com, Education Next, The Harvard Education Letter, and numerous other publications. Russo is a contributing editor for Catalyst magazine, based in Chicago, and an associate editor for The Title 1 Report, based in Washington, D.C.

From the Back Cover

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

"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

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Educational Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1891792180
• ISBN 13: 9781891792182
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 170
• Editor: Russo Alexander