I’ll write about four events that I participated in this past week: Bronzeville CAC Meeting, Police & Fire Scholarship Reception, Polished Pebbles Book Launch for “They are all the Same Girl”, Generation All Launch.
This month’s Bronzeville CAC1 meeting featured CPS Chief Education Office Janice Jackson making a home court presentation on the CPS budget. Janice had previously been the local “Network” chief of the schools in the mid-south side which generally speaking covers schools in Bronzeville, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn. And by the standards of network chiefs, she was amongst the best that we’ve had in the past 10 years. She led off her presentation talking about how one of the goals is to restore the public’s trust after the scandal-ridden previous administration, and that part of their approach to that was to highlight all of the good work that is happening in schools across the district. The bulk of her talk was on the dire state of CPS finances and focused on the advocacy efforts that they’ll be taking up in the coming weeks. CPS will be launching a project around the “20 for 20” disparity – CPS students make up 20% of the students in Illinois, but draw less than 20% of the state education funding. Filling this gap, plus making the cuts that CPS is envisioning, ought to make the situation (more) managable from the CPS point of view. It was generally a friendly audience, so the dialogue wasn’t heated or controversial. There was a question about school closings in the face of the financial crisis, and Jackson said that the Mayor had promised a moratorium on closings due to utilization2 and they were going to do everything possible to keep that promise. From my point of view, I’m just hoping that we can collectively keep the schools open and running normally so kids can make it through the school year, and that these weighty funding/contract/pension issues can get hashed out over the summer.
Since the mid-70s3, the University of Chicago has annually awarded scholarships to the children of active members of the Police & Fire Departments who have been admitted into the college. It’s a scholarship that in many ways was a precursor to the Odyssey scholarships, and the UChicago Promise programs. For the past six years, I’ve been involved in the small reception that is held in the Spring for students and their families from the previous class that are in their first year in the college. It’s a collaboration between Civic Engagement4, the College, Admissions, and UCPD5. In the past few years, someone from UCPD is the MC, there’s a speech from OCE or Admissions (with the other Office helping out w/ the Certificates), and Dean Boyer closes the program w/ remarks. We’ve had high ranking officials from the Police Department and the Fire Department – including the Fire Commissioner and Police Superintendent – attend the event every year to make remarks. Even with the growth of scholarship programs across the Higher Education landscape, the degree of warmth that the department chiefs and the families bring to this reception is off the charts. I have to say that Dean Boyer always finds a slightly new way of getting across the point that there has to be a dynamic interchange between a great urban university and a great city, and every year it feels like its one of the speeches that he gets dialed up for.
My team at the Community Programs Accelerator was thrilled to be able to host the launch event for “They Are All the Same Girl” a new book published by Kelly Fair of Polished Pebbles! I think we had around 75 people at the Accelerator space for an introduction to the book, a reading, signing, and a Q & A session. Most of the people involved were strong supporters or had otherwise been involved in some way w/ Kelly’s work with Polished Pebbles, so the event had a great friends and family vibe. I think what came through loud and clear at the event is that as much as this program is Kelly’s brainchild and is fueled by her passion for the work – it’s not a one-woman show. There’s a strong base of support that’s fueling a movement that is going well beyond the program itself. Very inspiring. We’re going to launch a blog at the Accelerator in a few weeks, and one of the first things we’ll do is interview Kelly about the book. You can purchase a copy of “They Are All the Same Girl” online.
Finally, I trekked up to the Ukranian Cultural Center to attend the launch event for Generation All‘s plan to support Neighborhood High Schools in Chicago. I’ve been peripherally involved w/ Generation All since their launch — they are a collaboration between Chicago Community Trust (CCT), Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and are funded by the Ford Foundation. The plan is largely uncontroversial and represents the kind of educational and community investment that we should all want for our schools. Karen Lewis6 of the CTU made some remarks at the event and stressed that for a plan to be worthwhile it needs to have a proper amount of time to be put together and engage the proper stakeholders and that it frankly needs enough time to be implemented and for the results to be revealed. I think that’s a very correct perspective and one that’s well positioned to be a counter to so much of what government/higher ed/ philanthropy does in this era — quickly announce a new initiative, bask in the headlines, and then move on to the next thing. More points for starting things than for seeing them through.
The highlight of the event was when a student from a neighborhood high school was given the opportunity to share his experiences. I always love programs that give voice to the students. You can read the Generation All Action Plan online.
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- The Bronzeville CAC is one of 10 Community Action Councils across the City. These are CPS-related bodies that bring community stakeholders together across the neighborhoods to bring focus to education issues/opportunities across schools. ↩
- The moratorium was for 3 years and was focused on school-utilization. There have been proposed closings due to academic performance issues in the meanwhile. ↩
- I think this was part of the 1st wave of modern UChicago community outreach/civic engagement – the late 60s to mid-70s saw the start of the Police and Fire Scholarships, the Office of Special Programs College Prep, and the Neighborhood Schools Program. ↩
- Which is the parent office of the Neighborhood Schools Program. Until this year, my team has largely run the event – this year due to staffing cuts on our side, the OCE central group largely ran the event w/ general support from me & my team. ↩
- UChicago Police Department ↩
- I got a chance to talk w/ Karen Lewis f at the event – which was great! ↩
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