After Decades of Reform, Has Chicago Finally Learned How to Fix Education?
Some promising signs suggest the city may be turning around its troubled school system. It offers lessons for other struggling districts.
June 27, 2018 • The phone call Janice Jackson had been waiting for came in early December. She was going to be named interim CEO of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). A protégé of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, she would be taking over the third largest school district in the nation. She was also getting the job she had predicted for herself since her days as a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A month after her appointment, the city closed the deal by dropping the word “interim” from her title.
William Henry Hastie, A Legal Trailblazer Friday, February 19, 2021
February is Black History Month. The commemoration began as Black History Week in 1926, the brainchild of historian Carter G. Woodson. President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling on the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
For Black History Month this year, we focus on Judge William Henry Hastie, whose life and accomplishments shine as an example of what Professor Woodson had in mind. Hastie is a giant in American history: an architect of the strategy that ultimately ended legal segregation; the first African American to serve as a federal judge in a District Court; and the first African American to serve on a federal Court of Appeals. Still, he rarely receives the recognition he deserves.
Last Sunday, January 31, marked the 100th anniversary of an incident at Mallow Railway Station that led to the deaths of three innocent railway workers, the single loss of life among railway workers during the War of Independence and Civil War.
The incident, known simply as The Mallow Shootings , was outlined in short video posted on YouTube presented by rail historian Peter Rigney of the Irish Railway Records Society.
He explained how on the evening of January 31, 1921 RIC district inspector Captain William H King was walking near Mallow Railway Station, (where the Cork County Council office are now located) when he was fired on by an IRA ambush party.