Chicago School Reform

School-Based Management through Local School Councils

In 1988, the Illinois General Assembly enacted the Chicago School Reform Act (P.A. 85-1418). The Reform Act had three central components: (a) a set of goals that established that Chicago students should achieve at levels comparable to other students across the country, (b) the system's resources should be reallocated toward the school level and should provide compensatory funding for schools educating higher numbers of low-income students, and (c) a system of school-based management through the establishment at every school of local school councils (LSCs). In turn, the LSCs had three major responsibilities: (a) to hire and fire the principal, (b) to establish a spending plan for the school, and (c) to adopt a school improvement plan designed to improve student achievement.

LSCs were established at every school, adding about 6,000 locally elected school officials and doubling the number of minority school board members across the nation. This was a significant reconnection of local schools to local communities in a large urban area. At the school level, LSCs functioned in diverse ways, with a quarter or more adopting a strong democracy mode of operation. However, the largest group (more than 40%) operated with consolidated principal power, with parent and teacher members mostly bowing to the desires or dictates of the principal. A few schools fell into adversarial politics, and perhaps a fifth of the schools displayed combinations of these political styles. The Consortium on Chicago School Research, which produced this categorization, also suggested that about a third of the city's elementary schools had entered into significant restructuring, while another third were making improvements that were not necessarily cohesive or likely to be long lasting. Within 5 years, about 80% of the schools had changed principals. Schools with entirely low-income enrollments had about $1,000 more per pupil to spend than did schools with fewer than 30% low-income students. At the average elementary school, that meant about $459,000 in supplementary funding ($689,000 in the average high school), which could be used at the discretion of the LSC. Schools used these funds in very different ways, with some concentrating the money on instructional programs and adding teachers, while others focused on social support programs for students or on enhanced school security.

During the 5 years following implementation of the 1988 Reform Act, student achievement improved slightly in the elementary schools but dropped sharply in high schools. Between 1990 and 1995, the percentage of elementary students (3rd through 8th grade) reading above the national median increased by 3 percentage points (from 23.5% to 26.5%). Meanwhile, the percentage of high school students (9th and 11th graders were tested) reading above the national median fell from 30.6% to 23.6%; it would drop to 20.5% in 1996. However, financial decisions by the board of education led to a fiscal crisis in the fall of 1993, which was resolved by a temporary relaxing of the board's debt restrictions for 2 years. The fiscal crisis undermined confidence in the board of education established by the Reform Act and resulted, in 1995, in amendments to the act that gave political control of the Chicago Public Schools to Chicago's mayor. While LSCs continued in existence, other provisions in the amendments gave the central administration powers to hold schools accountable for low student achievement and to restrict the powers of the LSCs in such schools.

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