Starting Chicago's Super Search

Last week, the Chicago Board of Education officially launched its search for a new Chicago Public Schools district leader. Earlier, the board had resolved that its next leaders would have to hold a superintendent's license, which had not been required for the job since 1995.

"The new interim will have a superintendent's license, as well as the permanent hire," board member Che "Rhymefest" Smith said on April 19, during a Far South Community Advisory Council panel discussion at Julian High School. That's the first public mention I've heard of the need to find an interim superintendent. Current CEO Pedro Martinez has been tapped to serve as commissioner of K-12 schools for Massachusetts. According to WBEZ, Martinez plans to finish the school year and leave CPS in mid-June. When Martinez was hired, the search took five months.

Member Jessica Biggs is leading the board's transition team, according to a press release from Friday, April 25. The board has hired Alma Advisory Group, a Hyde Park-based search firm with experience helping CPS hire senior administrators. The job description underscores the next leader's political acumen, need to "steward financial stability and sustainability," and charges the next leader with executing the recently completed five-year strategic plan. It also charges the next leader with managing perhaps the most politically explosive issue CPS faces:

• Address our facilities footprint compared to our current student enrollment, and lead thoughtful and transparent consideration and planning to protect the district’s overall financial sustainability. This may include finding new innovative solutions, as well as difficult possibilities such as school closures, consolidations, or re-zonings.

Alma Advisory Group led the 2021 search for Denver's superintendent, which included a process to gather feedback from educators, parents, students, and the community. The hire was current Denver superintendent Alex Marrero. After the search, one board member and some community leaders complained that the process had not turned up candidates with enough experience to handle Denver.

Here in Chicago, Board President Sean Harden says the search will include "robust community engagement." This month, each elected school board member will hold a forum in his or her district for community members to give input on the search. Dates and times have yet to be determined, but they will be posted on the board website's new page for search-related info. An online survey and focus groups are also in the works.

Some board members have already started gathering input. Smith held a community forum on April 12, in partnership with the Academy for Local Leadership. Some common themes that emerged from the question "Wouldn't it be great if the next superintendent...":

• Had deep expertise in teaching and learning, including direct experience teaching students. (The job description says "direct experience in a student-facing role" is "strongly preferred.")
• Had expertise in career and technical education. (This is not in the job description.)
• Had strong local knowledge and experience--Chicago native, Chicago parent, and/or experience working in CPS. (This is not in the job description.)

Should One of Chicago's Very Own Lead CPS?

While some observers have criticized CPS for its insularity and hostility to outsiders, history suggests that outside leadership has not made a positive impact on the district. Since 1995, the district has only had two leaders with no prior experience in Chicago or Illinois: Jean-Claude Brizard and Barbara Byrd-Bennett, both appointed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Brizard left the job after just 17 months, during which the Chicago Teachers Union held its first strike in a quarter-century. Byrd-Bennett's tenure was longer, but she resigned in disgrace and was later sentenced to prison for taking part in a bribery and kickback scheme.

At the Julian panel, Smith noted that 200 Chicagoans have a superintendent's license, and "over 5,000" educators across the state hold the credential. He pointed to this pool of potential candidates as people who could "continue without disrupting the operation of schools." At Smith's forum and elsewhere, parents consistently express a strong preference for a new CPS leader with prior district experience, and one whose own children attend CPS schools, as Martinez's children currently do.

April Board Meeting: After-Action Review

Last week, the board chose to delay the vote on charter renewals yet again. Renewals typically have been voted on in January. Related lease agreements were also deferred. According to Chalkbeat Chicago, "several" board members want to make changes to the length of renewals, which were proposed to last for two to four years. The board also chose to withdraw a resolution that would have tightened its charter oversight.

All other items I mentioned in my preview last week passed as expected.

More Federal Shenanigans

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education announced it has opened an investigation into the civil rights complaint filed in late February by Parents Defending Education (now known as Defending Education) about the CPS Black Student Success Plan. The group filed a similar complaint against a similar initiative operating in the Los Angeles Unified School District and filed another complaint in early March against Portland Public Schools. In all these cases, Defending Education argues that targeted efforts to support Black students violate federal Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race or shared ancestry. The Trump administration agrees with their interpretation of the federal law, but many other experts disagree. Chalkbeat Chicago breaks down this complicated legal situation and reminds us that Mayor Brandon Johnson has threatened to sue the federal government if it chooses to withhold funds to force schools to end diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Los Angeles school district leadership responded to Parents Defending Education's July 2023 complaint by dropping race-specific language but continuing the substance of the program. The language change persuaded the Office of Civil Rights to dismiss the complaint last summer. LAUSD's efforts to boost Black student achievement had already been operating for four years before the complaint was filed. The $120 million in targeted resources provided by the plan continues to go to 50 schools with large numbers of Black students, but now all students within those schools are receiving additional services. To learn more, read LA School Report's Q & A with Pedro Noguera, dean of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education.

In mid-April, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., set off a firestorm of controversy when he announced plans to deepen research into the causes of autism and National Institute of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya laid out plans to gather medical records from existing private and federal databases and allow researchers access to a "disease registry" of autistic people. HHS walked back the registry idea after public outcry.

But a barrage of changes–some implemented, some only proposed–to the federal role in education and public health could roll back decades of progress in helping students with disabilities thrive in school and in life. This week, The 74 profiles three people whose stories illustrate both how far we've come and how far back we could go.