Chicago School Reform Case Study

The effects of these teachers’ strikes only fueled the city’s fiscal crisis and made necessary the establishment of the Chicago School Finance Authority to address the situation. Along with negative reports by Chicago United and disappointing reported standardized test scores from students, the situation reached a point of severe distress. In 1986, Mayor Washington had called for a summit on education reform in which many Chicago leaders were brought together to think of ways to solve issues surrounding CPS. Following the 1987 strike and protests by local organizations, Washington organizes an emergency gathering of near 1,000 people to appoint a community council and expand the education summit. These efforts showed promise of reform but the image of the system was still far from encouraging. The push for immediate reform is what encouraged Chicago united to invite the secretary of education to a closed-door meeting to offer direction that day in early November. Bennett, an appointee of then president Ronald Reagan, spared no sympathy for Washington’s efforts up until this point when he addressed the abysmal reality of CPS. He called attention to Chicago United’s past reports of test sores and dropout rates, referring to CPS as “an educational meltdown” (Banas). While Bennett never specifically said
The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research is formed to conduct regular evaluations of school reform effects and provide insight into ways in which schools can improve. A magazine called Catalyst Chicago is founded as a source of relevant information about school and citywide initiatives and news for LSC members to stay informed. These groups have offered significant advancements in the ability of school leaders to identify problem schools and review how CPS policies help or harm