Interim Supe Vote Today

Good morning. As you read this, I'm at the airport en route to a week on the East Coast with family. So this week and next week's editions of Board Rule will be short and laser-focused.

Today, the Chicago Board of Education will vote to choose an interim leader of the school district as part of its agenda review committee meeting. The vote is scheduled after closed session, and the agenda notes that it is possible the vote could be postponed. But current CEO Pedro Martinez's last day is June 18, so the decision must be made quickly.

In late May, City Hall floated a new candidate to serve as interim CEO/superintendent following Martinez's departure. She's Macquline King, longtime principal of Courtenay Elementary in Uptown. According to her LinkedIn bio, King joined the mayor's office in November 2022 as senior director of P-16 educational policy.

Last week, the Chicago Tribune reported that the interim search had narrowed to three candidates: King and two Chicago Public Schools central office staffers. They are Chief Portfolio Officer Alfonso Carmona and Chief of Teaching and Learning Nicole Milberg.

To keep you in the loop about the three finalists, I have updated the chart first created by Adam Parrott-Sheffer. The column on improving student outcomes now reflects data from the Educational Opportunity Project, which created a national dataset showing student academic growth in every public school in the nation between 2009-2019.

Here are my hot-take analyses of each candidate:

Carmona: probably the most qualified due to his mix of ground- and high-level experience. But can the district afford to pull him away from charter schools when so much is changing about how they are managed?

King: the City Hall favorite, but I hear that in interviews, she didn't look enthusiastic about the job. Also, the personnel file revelations about her slow responses to suspected child abuse and unsafe student-to-student bathroom activity have observers concerned. (If you can crack the Tribune paywall, they summarize the issues.) On the flip side, she was a 2017 Cahn Fellow, which selects high-potential principals for advanced training in leadership.

Milberg: could be the compromise candidate if neither the Carmona nor the King supporters can win a majority. Sources who know her (I don't) offer wildly differing assessments of her readiness for the job--from good-to-go-day-one to in-way-over-her-head.

Links to sources, since I screenshotted the chart:

LinkedIn profiles for Alfonso Carmona, Macquline King, and Nicole Milberg.

Macquline King's personnel files, made public through FOIA requests. Also, the article on increasing the number of Black principals, published jointly by the Atlantic and The Hechinger Report.

If you have trouble using the Educational Opportunity Project's database to look up the three schools where these candidates served as principals, email me at maureen.boardrule@gmail.com and I will help you find the information.

Good Reads

Since I'm keeping it short this week, allow me to recommend two excellent recent articles you might not have caught up with yet.

Yesterday, WBEZ published Lauren FitzPatrick's vivid portrait of a home daycare supported by Early Head Start, which supports children from birth through age 3. She seamlessly weaves together the experiences of the children, their teacher/principal/chef, Patricia Anaya, and the big policy changes afoot that could destroy the warm, supportive environment Anaya has carefully crafted with support from the highly-regarded Carole Robertson Center for Learning.

I hope this short newsletter is your excuse to dive into Chalkbeat/Block Club's investigation into the state of bilingual education in CPS, published June 5. The piece highlights Nash Elementary, a West Side school that had not worked with English learners until the influx of new arrivals from Central and South America made their way into the neighborhood. Their data analysis shows that new bilingual programs in schools like Nash have fewer staff than more established programs. State and district audits have revealed problems. Given the federal government is gutting its office responsible for English learners, the state may have to pay closer attention and push harder to make sure Chicago's English learners are getting the staff they need to succeed.

See you next week!