134 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019
(Continued from page 95)
Janice Jackson
she recalls. “He’s saying, ‘See, it’s her.’
And I felt self-conscious. I thought, Can
I order a drink now? Are my kids eating
good food so I don’t look bad?”
Her family has done their best to
adjust. Over the past two years, Price has
had to learn how to cook. “On a skill level
of 1 to 10 — well, he’d tell you something
else, but he’s about a 6. And he’s pro-
gressing.” Sometimes Jackson will walk
him through dinner prep via FaceTime
from her office.
The two met at a bowling alley in 2005,
introduced by a mutual friend. “He’d
give you some TV version of a romantic
story, but it wasn’t like that at first. My
friend called me up later and asked me
to go out with him just one time. So I did.
And he is so funny and kind and he is not
intimidated by me.” Over time, Jackson’s
mother pointed out that Price was the
first person Jackson would call with good
news, and the first person she’d call with
bad news, too.
The two got married in 2017. “Despite
the fact that he hasn’t worked in this
environment, and he didn’t go to col-
lege, he gives me good advice. Because
he understands people, and he tells me
the truth.”
THE FALLOUT FROM THE SEX ABUSE
scandal was still thick in the air when,
just as the 2018–19 school year was get-
ting underway, Emanuel announced he
wouldn’t run for reelection. Overnight,
Jackson appeared to be a lame duck.
When a new mayor was elected, the
thinking ran, the current CPS chief
would be out.
During the mayoral campaign,
Jackson became a political hot potato. In
a televised forum with runoff candidates
Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot, the
opening policy question posed by the
moderator was whether Jackson should
keep her job. “I was in my kitchen and
my husband was in the basement with
the sound on the TV turned up loud so
I wouldn’t miss the beginning of the
debate,” says Jackson. “I remember
walking halfway down the stairs and
thinking, Am I really the first question?”
Preckwinkle expressed support for
Jackson, but Lightfoot was more cir-
cumspect, citing “the epic failure of
leader sh ip by R a h m Ema nuel a nd Ja n ice
Jackson,” adding, “I’m willing to hear
her out, but she is going to have to dem-
onstrate to me that she understands she
made a mistake and rectify that with the
parents and the teachers and the kids.”
This statement backed up a previous
one Lightfoot had made: that Jackson
hadn’t moved quickly enough to fix the
problem. A few weeks later, a Tribune
editorial noted that the high degree of
criticism of Jackson “raised the odds of
a departure.”
Jackson offered to meet with both
candidates. Four days before the April 2
election, when the outcome looked cer-
tain, Lightfoot arranged a meeting in a
conference room in the Boyce Building
on Dearborn. The implication was that
Jackson would need to make a very com-
pelling case to keep her job. Both women
brought their chiefs of staff along, but
before the meeting started, Jackson
asked if she and Lightfoot could talk one
on one. “And she was open to that,” says
Jackson. “I think she respects people who
are as direct as she is.”
Of what transpired at the meet-
ing, Jackson says, “We just launched
in. It wasn’t combative. I explained my
decision-making to her, and she asked
probing questions. She listened to me,
and I listened to her.” Jackson admitted
to Lightfoot that she was upset by some
of the criticism lobbed at her during the
campaign. “I disagree that my response
was an ‘epic failure.’ I explained that
this was a problem so monumental
that it deserved more than a piecemeal
response. And that takes time. I didn’t go
in there and try to BS her. That’s not my
style. I didn’t hold back anything, either.
We had a real dialogue.”
Gradually, Jackson began to win
Lightfoot over. “I knew we had turned a
corner when we started talking to each
other about our kids.”After Lightfoot took office in May,
she announced that Jackson was stay-
ing on. When I sought an explanation
from Lightfoot, I received an emailed
response: “In our short time together,
Dr. Jackson has impressed me both as
a passionate advocate for our students,
and as a visionary leader for the role of
public education in our city. She and her
team have rightly received universal
praise from families and staff alike for
their creativity, energy and dedication,
and I look forward to continuing our work
toget her in creat ing a school system t hat
nurtures our children and inspires them
to learn, grow, and thrive.”
Now that the sex abuse scandal and
the drama of the election are largely
behind Jackson, chronic challenges like
regulating charter schools and placat-
ing the teachers’ union have returned
to center stage. Jackson regards char-
ters with a gimlet eye, having seen how
their unchecked spread can cannibalize
neighborhood schools in struggling parts
of the city. “But I also think school choice
is important. We would never question a
middle-class family’s choice about where
they were going to school. Why would we
want to take away a poor family’s choice?”
As for the teachers’ union, which has
said it’s readying for a possible strike in
the fall, Jackson insists real progress can
be made only if the district secures more
money. “I wou ld love to do v a r ious t h i n g s,
but we can’t afford to do that unless some
rich uncle shows up. So we need to figure
out a happy medium. Help me prioritize
and help me get there.”
In the meantime, Jackson has been
aggressively touting the good things hap-
pening in Chicago schools. Graduation
rates and most test scores are climb-
ing. Illinois schools will be getting an
additional $375 million in state money
for their next fiscal year, most of it to be
distributed in “tier” funding, meaning
the poorly funded systems — namely,
Chicago’s — will get a greater share
(around $66 million for CPS). The top
five Illinois high schools in U.S. News
& World Report’s most recent rankings
were all Chicago public schools. And a