Movers And Shakers (Chicago IL)

C. Allison Jack, most recently part of the Governor's education brain trust and before that a charter schools guru at LQE, is making the big move to the Chicago Board of Education, where she'll be helping shape and administer Renaissance 2010 efforts.

No word on her official title or portfolio, but best wishes to yet another brave soul willing to try and do good working from within the beast. Perhaps all of us involved in education reform should be required to do a stint working in a big-city bureacracy. (I did mine in 1995-96 at the NYC Board of Ed. It was short but illuminating.)

Speaking of Renaissance 2010, Crain's Chicago Business recently-posted "Who's Who in Education" includes one notable error and several questionable -- or at least arguable -- calls:

First off, I guess no one told Crain's that John Ayers had been pushed out at LQE and is now headed to the Center on Law and Poverty. Or perhaps Crain's decided that John should still be on the list, and they may be right.

Ayers is not the only seeming snafu. The Nonprofits version of the list also includes Don Stewart, who is no longer running CCT, as I understand it, the job having been passed to the fast-moving Terry Mazany. Is there that much of a production lag at the paper, or did this list come out long ago and I just didn't hear about it until recently?

Second, it seems like the list is mostly made up university presidents and biz school deans, which is a strange and arbitrary measure of influence. What about the Civic Committee's Eden Martin, one of the big forces behind Renaissance 2010, or Phyllis Lockett, the newly named head of New Schools for Chicago? What about Michael Scott, Board President, and Barbara Eason-Watkins, Chief Academic Officer? I'm sure there are others -- aren't there?

There are things to like, of course: It's a list, they're always fun. Messrs. Duncan and Vitale are there, appropriately (though again it makes you wonder why Michael Scott and Barbara Eason-Watkins aren't). I like the inclusion of Nicholas M. Wolsonovich, supt. of the Catholic schools, and the inclusion of the DeVry guys Ron Taylor and Dennis Keller -- what a Chicago story that is. And it's interesting to learn the financial size of the institutions represented -- who knew that the annual budget for Governors State ($65M) is roughly half that of Chicago State ($125M), for example?

Thanks to Teach and Learn (www.teachandlearn.org) for the heads-up.