![]() |
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) was a Chicago public school reform project from 1995 to 2001 that worked with half of Chicago's public schools and was funded by a $49.2 million, 2-to-1 matching challenge grant over five years from the Annenberg Foundation. The grant was contingent on being matched by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was one of 18 locally designed Annenberg Challenge project sites that received $387 million over five years as part of Walter Annenberg's gift of $500 million over five years to support public school reform. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge helped create a successor organization, the Chicago Public Education Fund (CPEF), committing $2 million in June 1998 as the first donor to Chicago's first community foundation for education.
In the 1990s, billionaire Walter Annenberg, former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon, was the United States' most generous living philanthropist. By 1998, Annenberg had given away more than $2 billion and the assets of the Annenberg Foundation he had established in June 1989 with $1 billion had grown to $3 billion and ranked as the 12th largest in the U.S. Every weekday from May through November, Annenberg was driven from his home in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania to his Annenberg Foundation headquarters in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, where, as its sole director, he reserved virtually every decision for himself when making grants. [1]
In June 1993, Annenberg announced he was making the largest individual gift to private education in history—$365 million to four schools: $120 million each to the communication programs at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California, $25 million to Harvard College, and $100 million to his alma mater, the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. [1] [2]
In October 1993, Annenberg announced an unrestricted $25 million gift to Northwestern University bringing his total donations to Northwestern to $55 million, his last major gift to higher education for five years as he shifted the focus of his philanthropy to public K–12 education. [1] [3]
Annenberg told Newton Minow, senior counsel of Sidley & Austin, chairman of the Carnegie Corporation (1993–1997), Annenberg Professor of Communications Law and Policy at Northwestern University (1987–2003) and director of its Annenberg Washington Program (1987–1996): "Everybody around the world wants to send their kids to our universities. South America, Asia, Europe, all of them. But nobody wants to send their kids here to public school. Who would, especially in a big city? Nobody. So we've got to do something. If we don't, our civilization will collapse." [1]
Annenberg sought recommendations on making a large gift to American public schools from his pro bono education advisors: [4]
On December 17, 1993, the 85-year-old Annenberg announced his five-year $500 million "Challenge to the Nation" at a ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with President Bill Clinton, Secretary of Education Richard Riley, Gregorian, Sizer, Kearns, and Frank Newman, Illinois Governor Jim Edgar and Colorado Governor Roy Romer (the president, outgoing and incoming chairman, respectively, of the Denver-based bipartisan Education Commission of the States (ECS). [1] [5]
Annenberg announced that he was giving $113 million over five years to three national school reform organizations: [4] [6]
The remaining $387 million was for: school reform in the largest urban school systems, attended by a third of the 47 million public school students in the U.S.; for school reform in rural schools which make up a quarter of all public schools, attended by 1 in 8 public school students in the U.S.; and for arts education. [1] [4]
Annenberg delegated how to spend the $387 million to his closest professional friend, Vartan Gregorian, whom he had known for twenty years—since Gregorian's tenure at the University of Pennsylvania where Annenberg was a trustee and its largest donor. Annenberg called Gregorian: "The best all-around executive I know. A man of great character and absolute integrity. The most outstanding human being I know." Gregorian oversaw everything involved in the Challenge and ensured that it was nonpartisan. Reflecting Annenberg's vision of the Challenge as a catalyst—not a yardstick—he did not require Gregorian to meet specific benchmarks, such as dispensing funds on the basis of the schools' raising their reading or math scores by certain percentage points. [1] [7]
Gregorian recruited university presidents and business leaders to assemble civic teams in various cities to pursue Challenge grants, and awarded grants to 18 locally designed projects: [4] [6]
The three co-authors of Chicago's winning Annenberg Challenge $49.2 million grant proposal were: [17] [18]
On December 17, 1993, Ayers, Hallet and Chapman met to discuss how to win an Annenberg Challenge grant for Chicago. Hallett and Chapman were already informal pro bono advisors to the national Annenberg Challenge, and over the course of the following year they met repeatedly at Brown University with other Annenberg advisors and worked to ensure that Chicago would be one of the first cities selected to receive a grant. [18]
In Chicago, Ayers, Hallett and Chapman gathered a 73-member Chicago School Reform Collaborative Working Group from organizations involved in school reform to help them draft a proposal, with Hallett's Cross-City Campaign for Urban School Reform donating its headquarters and providing staff support to the Working Group. [18] In June 1994, Ayers and Hallett submitted a draft proposal to Gregorian on behalf of the Working Group. [29]
The presidents of the three largest independent foundations active in Chicago school reform: [18] [25]
supported the Working Group's proposal, helped negotiate its approval by Gregorian, agreed in advance to provide matching funds, and smoothed negotiations with Chicago Mayor Daley's administration, the Chicago Public Schools administration and the Chicago Teachers Union, which had each submitted competing Annenberg Challenge grant proposals. [18] In November 1994, Ayers and Hallett submitted a final proposal to Gregorian on behalf of the Working Group. [33]
On January 23, 1995, in a ceremony attended by Mayor Daley, Governor Edgar, and other dignitaries at Washington Irving Elementary School (where the 1988 School Reform Act had been signed), Walter Annenberg's daughter, Wallis Annenberg, presented a symbolic $49.2 million check from the Annenberg Foundation to 11-year-old Amanda Morado, who accepted it on behalf of the nearly 410,000 Chicago public school children. [10] The $49.2 million challenge grant over 5 years (a planned $3 million the first year, then $11.55 million per year for the next four years) was contingent on being matched 2-to-1 by $49.2 million in private donations and $49.2 million in public money. [18] [34] In recognition of preexisting strong support by local foundations—which were already spending more than $12 million per year on Chicago school reform (including $4 million per year from the MacArthur Foundation and nearly $3 million per year from the Joyce Foundation)—the Annenberg Foundation agreed that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge could draw upon existing commitments as a source of matching funds. [18] [34] The public match would come from public funds committed to implementation of the 1988 school reform law, including some of the $261 million per year state Chapter 1 antipoverty funds provided to Chicago public schools (an average of $500,000 per elementary school and an average of $800,000 per high school). [18] [34]
Supplemental educational programs provided by local and national school reform groups working with networks of schools expanded in Chicago in the six years after the 1988 School Reform Act devolved state Chapter 1 antipoverty discretionary funding from the Chicago Public Schools administration down to individual schools, and foundations increased their school reform funding from $2 million per year to over $12 million per year. [18] These programs provided by existing groups working with networks of schools became models for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge's grants which were to go to external partners—such as the Coalition of Essential Schools or the Algebra Project [35] —working with networks of 5 to 10 schools, as opposed to going to system-wide initiatives or going directly to individual schools. [18] [34] The external partner could be anything from a school reform group to a teachers union to a community organization to a university to a local business. [34]
An 8-member board of directors made up of representatives of organizations that had no vested interest in Annenberg money was recruited to approve grants, hire an executive director and project staff, and determine which funds could count towards the required $98.4 million match. [18] [34] The board of directors was handpicked by Adele Smith Simmons, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, who was asked by Gregorian to "work with foundation leadership to create a board that would be diverse, including people from the community, business interests and civic leaders, and include no more than nine people." [18] [34]
At a meeting with Simmons and Patricia Albjerg Graham, Deborah Leff suggested that Barack Obama would make a good board chairman. [36] After meeting and being impressed by Obama, Graham told Obama that she wanted him to be chairman of the board of directors. [36] Obama said that he would agree to serve as chairman if Graham would be vice chairman, to which Graham agreed. [36]
A 23-member group of Chicago parents, teachers, activists, funders, administrators, local school council members and academics who were involved in school reform, called the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, was chosen to design the initial Request for Proposals (RFPs), help publicize the Challenge and hold informational sessions for potential grantees, screen and rate the initial letters of intent, aid the board of directors in selecting an executive director, and work with the project's staff. [18] [34] Twenty of the 23 members of the Collaborative were elected by all Working Group members who had attended two or more of the drafting sessions during the first ten months of 1994 for the winning $49.2 million grant proposal; the other three members of the Collaborative were appointed representatives of the Office of the Mayor, the Chicago Public Schools administration, and the Chicago Teachers Union. [18] [34]
On June 22, 1995, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge announced the members of its board of directors and Chicago School Reform Collaborative and said that RFPs had been sent to all 550 Chicago public schools and to numerous community agencies. [37] [38] Two-page letters of intent from schools were due by August 1; by August 23, schools would receive a letter either asking them to apply next year or inviting them to a meeting for further details on how to prepare a proposal to get funding that year, with proposals due by October 1, and grants announced December 4. [37] [38]
The founding Board of Directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge as announced in 1995 were: [38] [39]
The final Board of Directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 2001 were: [46]
The Board of Directors met monthly for the first six months and quarterly thereafter.
Barack Obama, elected by the Board of Directors as founding chairman and president of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (1995–1999), resigned as chairman and president in September 1999 to run as a candidate in the 2000 Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District of Illinois, and was succeeded by Edward Bottum (1999–2001).
Patricia Albjerg Graham, elected by the Board of Directors as founding vice chairman and vice president (1995–2000), resigned as vice chairman and vice president in 2000 when she retired as president of the Spencer Foundation and moved back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, was succeeded by John W. McCarter, Jr. (2000–2001).
Ray Romero was initially elected as secretary-treasurer by the Board of Directors, but declined because of other commitments; Wanda White was then elected by the Board of Directors as founding secretary-treasurer (1995–1998), was succeeded by Edward Bottum (1998–1999), and then Victoria Chou (1999–2001).
The founding members of Chicago School Reform Collaborative announced in 1995 were: [38]
William Ayers and Warren Chapman were elected by the Collaborative as co-chairmen of the Collaborative in 1995.
Ken Rolling, the executive director of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from September 1995 through 2001; then executive director of Parents for Public Schools (2003– ); was the former associate director and program officer for community organizing and school reform at the Woods Fund of Chicago (1985–1995). [24] [25] [55] In September 1995, an office administrator was hired. In August 1996, a program director, a grants manager and a financial officer were hired. In 1997, a director of development, a communications director, a communications assistant, a clerical assistant and a data manager were hired, bringing Rolling's staff to nine. The University of Illinois at Chicago provided office space rent-free to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge staff.
By August 1, 1995, letters of intent were received from 177 networks—representing two-thirds of Chicago public schools—of which 89 networks were invited by the board to submit full proposals. [18] 77 networks—representing almost 300 schools—submitted proposals (32 for implementation grants and 45 for planning grants) by the October 1 deadline. [18] On November 29, the board approved grants for 35 networks—representing 170 schools—and identified and certified over $9 million in matching private donations which enabled the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to receive its first $3 million from the Annenberg Foundation in early December 1995. [18] [56]
At a December 20, 1995 reception at First Chicago National Bank, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge presented $2.58 million in grant certificates to the first 35 networks winning grants. [57] One-year renewable grants of $100,000 to $200,000 were awarded to 13 networks to expand existing programs and 22 other networks received planning grants of $17,000 to $25,000. [57]
The number of implementation networks grew from 13 at the beginning of 1996, to 25 in the 1996–7 school year, to 45 in 1999. [58] [59] The number of schools in a network ranged from 3 to 15, with the average network having 4 to 5 schools. [58] [59]
In 1996–7, half of the external partners were universities or professional education organizations (e.g., Chicago State University, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, the Erikson Institute, Governors State University, National-Louis University, Northeastern Illinois University, Roosevelt University, the University of Chicago). [58] The other external partners represented a diverse mix of neighborhood organizations (e.g., the Logan Square Neighborhood Association), youth organizations (e.g., Youth Guidance—implementing the Comer Process), foundations (e.g., the Great Books Foundation), education reform or advocacy groups (e.g., Designs for Change), museums (e.g., the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Kohl Children's Museum), parks (e.g., the Garfield Park Conservatory and arts organizations (e.g., the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Suzuki-Orff School of Music for implementation of Clap, Sing and READ!, teaching literacy-through-music in Chicago's underserved communities). [58] Of external partners in the 45 networks funded in 1999: 35% were Chicago-area colleges and universities, 28% were education reform and education services organizations, 23% were arts and cultural institutions, and 14% were neighborhood and community-based organizations. [59]
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge received its $49.2 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation over five calendar years from 1995 through 1999, but funded grants to its networks of schools for five and a half years from January 1996 through June 2001. [59] The total funding of implementation grants to networks of schools fell steeply in 2000 and 2001, and since the number of schools in networks receiving implementation grants remained steady at 206 schools, per school funding also fell steeply. [59]
The exceptions were 18 "breakthrough schools" that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge identified to receive sustained funding during its last two years to further promote their improvement and encourage them to serve as models and sources of support to other schools. [59] The "breakthrough schools" selected in December 1999 and announced to the public in February 2000, received their grants directly, not through an external partner as part of a network of schools. [59]
By December 31, 1999, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge had identified and certified $110,643,651 in matching funds—$50,655,505 in public matching funds and $59,808,146 in private donations—more than the $98.4 million required to earn the $49.2 million grant from the Annenberg Foundation. [60] Less than $5 million in matching funds went to or through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, most of the matching funds instead went to support school reform programs consistent with its vision and funding criteria. [55] [61]
Thirty-six foundations and corporations provided private matching funds for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, with foundations providing over three-quarters of the private donations. [60] Ten foundations, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Chicago Community Trust, the Spencer Foundation, the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund of New York, the McDougal Family Foundation, [62] the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, [63] the Prince Charitable Trusts, [64] and the Woods Fund of Chicago, and two corporations, IBM and Bank of America (which had acquired Continental Illinois Bank in 1994), contributed more than $1 million each in private matching donations for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. [60] The MacArthur Foundation and the Joyce Foundation were two of seven foundations that contributed over $10 million in private matching donations for the Annenberg Challenge nationwide, and the Polk Bros. Foundation—led by president and CEO Sandra Polk Guthman, a former IBM executive, [65] was one of a further eight foundations that contributed over $5 million in private matching donations for the Annenberg Challenge nationwide. [60] [61]
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge raised $3.5 million in research funds to support the largest urban school reform research project in the United States, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Research Project by the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR). [55] The CCSR was created in 1990 to perform research on the Chicago Public Schools in the wake of the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act. [66]
In 1997, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Board of Directors and its fundraising Development Committee began development of Chicago's first community foundation for public education. [60] [67] In June 1998, the Board of Directors committed $2 million as the first donor to the Chicago Public Education Fund, which was incorporated as a non-profit organization on January 29, 1999. [68] The Chicago Tribune Charities became the second lead donor with a commitment of $500,000, with substantial gifts from the Pritzker Foundation and the Polk Bros. Foundation and a number of smaller donations boosting its funds to almost $4 million by March 2000. [68] In September 1999, the Chicago Public Education Fund hired its first president, Janet M. Knupp, who was previously executive director of Chicago Communities In Schools [68] (where she was a successor of its founding executive director Alice Palmer); [69] and in the fall of 1999 issued its first RFPs. [68]
The Chicago Public Education Fund and its first grants of $1.5 million were announced to the public on March 28, 2000; [68] its 12-member board of directors [70] was chaired by CAC board member Scott C. Smith, president, CEO and publisher of the Chicago Tribune and chairman of the Chicago Tribune Charities, and included CAC board member John W. McCarter, Jr., as well as Anne Hallett, Adele Smith Simmons, Penny Pritzker, [42] [71] Golden Apple Foundation founder and chairman Martin J. Koldyke, [72] and six other members; with a supplemental advisory Leadership Council of dozens of business and civic leaders, including CAC board members Barack Obama, Edward S. Bottum, Susan Blankenbaker Noyes, James Reynolds, Jr., Nancy S. Searle, and CAC executive director Ken Rolling. [68] [73]
Although the Chicago Public Education Fund grew out of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, it differed in having a broad base of contributors instead of just one contributor, and in making fewer, larger, system-wide grants instead of many smaller grants to small networks of schools. [68] The initial focus of the Chicago Public Education Fund was on improving the recruitment, retention and effectiveness of principals and teachers, with: [68]
Upon its dissolution in 2002, the CAC donated its records (132 boxes containing 947 file folders) to the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago to be made available for public research. The CAC records in the Special Collections department of the Daley Library were briefly closed to public access for two weeks from August 12, 2008, through August 25, 2008 over concerns by the university about their ownership of the records and the confidentiality of some of the information in the records. [78] [79]
The Annenberg Challenge was criticized from its outset in 1994 and 1995 by conservative proponents of vouchers for private schools, including James Pierson, executive director of the John M. Olin Foundation, [80] [81] [82] Chester E. Finn, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of Education (1985–1988) under Secretary of Education William Bennett in the Reagan administration, founding partner and senior scholar of Chris Whittle's Edison Project new chain of for-profit private schools (1992–1994), then John M. Olin fellow at the Hudson Institute (1995–1998), [82] [83] [84] and Diane Ravitch, former Assistant Secretary of Education (1991–1993) under Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the George H. W. Bush administration, then senior research scholar at New York University, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and co-founder with Finn in 1981 of the Education Excellence Network housed at the Hudson Institute. [84] [85]
Annenberg ignored criticism from conservatives that he was wasting his money on public schools—he believed that government had a responsibility to educate its citizens and that the nation could not walk away from its public schools. [1] Annenberg also ignored criticism from within the education and philanthropic worlds that after five years the Challenge had not produced measurable reform—he hoped that good would come of his gift, but was realistic and doubted he would ever see any concrete, measurable results. [1] For Annenberg that was not the point—his goal was to spur communities and other donors into action—and in that he was not disappointed, with the Challenge raising an additional $600 million from foundations, businesses, universities and individuals. [1]
On June 12, 2002, the Annenberg Foundation released its final report on the Annenberg Challenge to the press and an audience of education leaders and policymakers at a luncheon in Washington D.C., a few blocks from the White House, with Annenberg's wife, Leonore, on hand to represent her 94-year-old husband. [4] [86] The keynote speaker was the George W. Bush administration's Secretary of Education Rod Paige, who had been Houston superintendent of schools (1994–2001); in 1997, Houston had become the last of nine cities to win a large urban Annenberg Challenge grant over five years. [86] Paige said he had witnessed the good that came from Annenberg's gift and had no doubts about the Annenberg Challenge's accomplishments. [86] The June 2002 final report listed nine lessons learned over the course of the Annenberg Challenge. The first two were: [4]
An August 2003 final technical report of the Chicago Annenberg Research Project by the Consortium on Chicago School Research said that while "student achievement improved across Annenberg Challenge schools as it did across the Chicago Public School system as a whole, results suggest that among the schools it supported, the Challenge had little impact on school improvement and student outcomes, with no statistically significant differences between Annenberg and non-Annenberg schools in rates of achievement gain, classroom behavior, student self-efficacy, and social competence." [59] "Breakthrough Schools", which received special financial and professional support from the Challenge between 1999 and 2001, a time during which the Challenge began withdrawing funds from other schools, "began to develop in ways that distinguished them from other Annenberg schools and sustained or strengthened aspects of teacher professional community school leadership, and relational trust while other Annenberg schools did not." [59]
Walter Hubert Annenberg was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and diplomat. Annenberg owned and operated Triangle Publications, which included ownership of The Philadelphia Inquirer, TV Guide, the Daily Racing Form and Seventeen magazine. He was appointed by President Richard Nixon as United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, where he served from 1969 to 1974.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and provides approximately $260 million annually in grants and impact investments. It is based in Chicago, and in 2014 it was the 12th-largest private foundation in the United States. It has awarded more than US$7.92 billion since its first grants in 1978.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, commonly known as the Hewlett Foundation, is a private foundation, established by Hewlett-Packard cofounder William Redington Hewlett and his wife Flora Lamson Hewlett in 1966. The Hewlett Foundation awards grants to a variety of liberal and progressive causes.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois, is the fourth-largest school district in the United States, after New York, Los Angeles, and Miami-Dade County. For the 2020–21 school year, CPS reported overseeing 638 schools, including 476 elementary schools and 162 high schools; of which 513 were district-run, 115 were charter schools, 9 were contract schools and 1 was a SAFE school. The district serves 340,658 students. Chicago Public School students attend a particular school based on their area of residence, except for charter, magnet, and selective enrollment schools.
Bernard Joseph White is president emeritus of the University of Illinois and professor emeritus of business at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is dean emeritus of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business and professor emeritus of business administration at the University of Michigan, where he also served as interim president, and Wilbur K. Pierpont Collegiate Professor of Leadership in Management Education. He is the author of The Nature of Leadership and Boards That Excel: Candid Insights and Practical Advice for Directors. Boards That Excel was named Governance Book of the Year for 2014 by Directors and Boards.
Chicago State University (CSU) is a predominantly black (PBI) public university in Chicago, Illinois. It includes an honors program for undergraduates, and offers bachelors and masters degrees in the arts and sciences. CSU was founded in 1867 as the Cook County Normal School, an innovative teachers college. Eventually the Chicago Public Schools assumed control of the school from the county and it became Chicago Teachers College (CTC). Northeastern Illinois University began as a branch campus in 1949. In 1951, the State of Illinois began funding the college, and assumed control in 1965, transforming it into a comprehensive state college. In 1967, it became Chicago State University. CSU is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts.
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communication school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990.
Houston A+ Challenge, now Texas A+ Challenge, is a not-for-profit public-private partnership based in Houston, Texas.
The Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) at the University of Pittsburgh is an interdisciplinary center focused on describing, understanding, improving, and researching various aspects of human cognition and learning in order to improve and reform instruction and training in schools, the workplace, and informal environments.
The Center for Arts Education (CAE) was a nonprofit organization in New York City, New York, in the United States. It promoted arts education in the public schools and between 1996 and 2008 spent nearly $40 million. In 2020, it was folded into Partnership with Children.
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, controversy broke out regarding Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former leader of the Weather Underground, a radical left organization in the 1970s. Investigations by CNN, The New York Times and other news organizations concluded that Obama did not have a close relationship with Ayers.
Robert L. King is an American higher education leader and former Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at the U.S. Department of Education. He previously served as president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. Other notable positions include having served Monroe County, New York Executive and as Chancellor of the State University of New York. On July 11, 2019, He was confirmed by the United States Senate as Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education.
The Woods Fund of Chicago is a private independent foundation in Chicago, whose goal is to increase opportunities for less-advantaged people and communities in the Chicago metropolitan area, including the opportunity to shape decisions affecting them.
Thomas G. Ayers was president (1964–1980), CEO and chairman (1973–1980) of Commonwealth Edison.
William Charles Ayers is an American retired professor and former militant organizer. In 1969, Ayers co-founded the far-left militant organization the Weather Underground, a revolutionary group that sought to overthrow what they viewed as American imperialism. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Weather Underground conducted a campaign of bombing public buildings in opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The bombings caused no fatalities, except for three members killed when one of the group's devices accidentally exploded. The FBI described the Weather Underground as a domestic terrorist group. Ayers was hunted as a fugitive for several years, until charges were dropped due to illegal actions by the FBI agents pursuing him and others.
McCormick Foundation is a Chicago-based nonprofit charitable trust established in 1955, following the death of "Colonel" Robert R. McCormick of the McCormick family. As of 2010, it had more than US$1 billion in assets.
Gery J. Chico is an American politician, Chicago lawyer, public official and former Democratic primary candidate for United States Senate.
Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs the Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. In 2010, Cowan was named president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a position he held until July 2016. In this role, Cowan was commissioned with the task of turning the 200-acre estate of Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore into "a venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine." Since Sunnylands reopened in 2012, Cowan has helped to arrange a series of meetings and retreats there. In 2013–14, President Barack Obama convened bilateral meetings at Sunnylands with President Xi Jinping of China and with King Abdullah II of Jordan. In 2016, President Obama hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the site, where they released the Sunnylands Declaration. Prior to his time at Sunnylands, Cowan was appointed by President Bill Clinton as Director of Voice of America.
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University is an education research and reform institute at Brown University. Its mission is to "understand the causes and consequences of educational inequality and to reduce this inequality through innovative, multidimensional, and research-informed approaches." The institute was established in October 1993 as the National Institute for School Reform and renamed the Annenberg Institute for School Reform in December 1993 following a gift from the Annenberg Foundation.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}
: |work=
ignored (help)The author has been an active participant in the Chicago school upheaval for many years. He has written widely about Chicago schools, and from September 1989 to June 1990, he served as assistant deputy mayor for education in Chicago, responsible for educational activities for local school councils. He is currently chair of an activist coalition, the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools (ABCs).
A new organization, tentatively dubbed the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, would be created to review applications from schools and offer technical assistance, according to a "concept paper" submitted last June to Annenberg's advisors by a working group. The group continues to meet and has no formal requirements for membership. For more information, or get involved, call Anne Hallett at the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform. In addition to Hallett, participants to date include: Patricia Anderson, principal of Sullivan High School; Arnold April of the Chicago Arts Partnership for Quality Education; John Ayers and Karen Carlson of Leadership for Quality Education; William Ayers, professor of education, University of Illinois at Chicago; Carlos Azcoitia, former principal of Spry Elementary and now head of the Office of School Reform; Penny Brehman and Jane Rosen of the Golden Apple Foundation; Tony Bryk of the University of Chicago's Center for School Improvement; Sheila Castillo of the Chicago Association of Local School Councils; Warren Chapman of The Joyce Foundation; Jessica Clarke of the Chicago Urban League; Marie Cobb of the Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore; James Deanes of the Parent/Community Council. Others are Pat Ford of the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Pat Harvey, Executive Assistant to Supt. Argie Johnson; Fred Hess of the Chicago Panel on School Policy; Sokoni Karanja of Centers for New Horizons; Coretta McFerren of WSCORP; Ken McNeil of CityWide Coalition for School Reform; Don Moore and Joan Slay of Designs for Change; Joy Noven of Parents United for Responsible Education; Camille Odeh of Southwest Youth Service Collaborative; Eric Outten of Schools First; Francine Pope of Teachers Task Force; Millie Rivera of Latino Institute; Madeleine Talbott of Chicago ACORN; and Steve Zemelman of Illinois Writing Project.
Moves: Outgoing University of Illinois president Stanley Ikenberry, already on a state education task force, gets introduced this week with ex-Northwestern president Arnold Weber as members of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge board, which will administer a $49.2 million effort to help Chicago school programs.
{{cite web}}
: |author=
has generic name (help)When she eventually leaves her $55,000-a-year job as executive director of Chicago Cities in Schools for a $36,000 Senate salary, she will be acting out her conviction that a public podium can be used for the better promotion of the public good.
Today, she is executive director of Chicago Cities in Schools, a student dropout intervention program that she helped found. Meanwhile, she has taken the time to serve on another push for education known as the Algebra Project Advisory Committee.
She is also founding executive director of Chicago Cities in Schools, a student dropout intervention program. In her two terms in the Illinois Senate, Palmer has contributed significantly to school reform.