136 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019
than students from less affluent fami-
lies. This is not surprising, considering
that students from well-to-do families
tend to be able to afford tutors and test
prep courses.
Achieving equity in CPS — which, in
the racially driven context of Chicago,
essentially means giving nonwhite kids
the same access to quality education as
white ones — has become something of a
crusade for Jackson. Even more so than
changing policies around sexual abuse,
it is a long-haul endeavor with no easy
fixes. She’s impatient with what she calls
“chic cocktail or coffeehouse chatter”
about equity. “It is impossible to close
the current gap between Chicago African
American students and their peers in one
fell swoop,” she says. “If we did that, peo-
ple would be in here, investigating every
test we administered.”
In her estimation, change has to start
on a classroom-by-classroom basis.
Jackson has told teachers and principals:
“If you walk by a classroom and can rec-
og n ize t hat it ’s a n A P cla ss because it on ly
has a handful of black kids in there, that’s
an issue. You have the power to change
that. If AP selection is based on teacher
recommendations, consider if you are
only picking a certain group of kids. Or
maybe you’re selecting more males than
females. Those are issues we can start to
address right away.”
Last year, during a routine meet-
ing, Jackson and members of her staff
hatched the idea to create the Office of
Equity, now a $1 million line item in
the district’s 2018–19 budget. Equity
offices are a growing trend among school
administrations (check out Oakland,
California, or Jefferson County,
Kentucky), but now Chicago is the larg-
est city with one. Headed by Maurice
Swinney, a former principal at Tilden
Career Academy on the South Side, the
office is tasked with addressing issues
like how the $1 billion earmarked for
new school campuses and improvement
of existing facilities — announced with
fanfare by the Emanuel administration
last summer — can be distributed more
equitably. (Last year, a WBEZ studyshowed that some proposed changes
skewed significantly toward white
schools on the North Side.)
Additionally, Jackson has launched
Great Expectations, a mentoring pro-
gram designed to encourage black men
and Hispanic men and women to pur-
sue leadership roles at CPS, where they
are significantly underrepresented.
(Currently, less than 10 percent of dis-
trict administrators are black men.)
And at the end of March, CPS revealed
its five-year plan. Overseen by Jackson
and based on input from more than 2,100
parents and community members, 150
business and higher education partners,
5,700 educators and principals, and
2,000 students, it focuses on locking
in hard-won academic gains, achieving
greater financial stability through bet-
ter budgetary planning, and, not least of
all, restoring the public’s trust in CPS.
“If you go back and look at past strategic
plans for CPS,” says Jackson, “we did not
call out equity as a moral imperative. We
do that now.”
For some, Jackson’s words ring hol-
low. “I have respect for Dr. Jackson as
a teacher and as a principal,” says Jitu
Brown, a national organizer for the
social justice group Journey for Justice
Alliance. “But she is not working for the
communities as head of CPS. Her job is
to bring educational justice to the neigh-
borhoods, not close schools and bring in
gentrification.”
Bobbie Brown, the Englewood local
school council chair, hasn’t passed
judgment yet. “I’m willing to give her a
chance, but if she doesn’t do something
good, right away quick, she’s got to go.”
In the face of such skepticism, Jackson
points to a number. “We now have 1,500
applications for this neighborhood
school,” she says of Englewood’s new
STEM high school. “There haven’t been
1,500 people saying they want to go to
school in Englewood for decades.”
One new school in one struggling
neighborhood isn’t going to transform
the whole district, but even Jackson’s
harshest critics may ultimately have to
acknowledge that it’s a start. CSATURDAYSEE THE LINE-UP
chicagolighthouse.org/centerstage