Perhaps few of Chicago’s glitterati or powerbrokers would be inclined to send their children to a Chicago public school, but they’re clamoring to get into one themselves.
In what is fast evolving into something of a social and educational phenomenon, the city’s elite are flocking to volunteer to be principal for a day at the public schools next Tuesday.
And if the burgeoning list of participants is any indication– at least one CEO, entertainer, media celeb, socialite or other notable will be in each of the 559 elementary and high schools (plus nine transition centers)– the event has become something that the city’s moguls would hesitate not to be involved in.
So far, 677 people have signed on, meaning some schools will get two principals for a day.
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Surely, it would be hard to remember an event of this magnitude that has wedded such vastly different worlds: the often-aloof realm of business and commerce with what until recently was considered a scourge on the city, its impoverished, mismanaged, woefully underperforming school system.
Based on a similar program in New York City and overseen locally by venture capitalist Martin J. “Mike” Koldyke, former School Finance Authority chairman, the event is seen as a way of showcasing progress in the city schools to the city’s most influential citizens. Ultimately, organizers also hope to develop some long-term commitments of support, a goal that will no doubt be in the air at a concluding party at the Field Museum.
A few of the participants will return to their alma maters, but many others will set foot in a Chicago public school for the first time. All will get an eyeful of the challenges and rewards of running a small business whose product is educated children.
The children themselves will get a shot at rubbing elbows with some of Chicago’s biggest names: actor John Mahoney of “Frasier” fame; sports honcho Jerry Reinsdorf; megabucks lawyer Philip Corboy; Bears Coach Dave Wannstedt; CEOs Christie Hefner of Playboy Enterprises and Gene Silverberg of Bigsby & Kruthers; attorney-author Scott Turow; two members of the wealthy and powerful Crown family, Lester Crown, chairman of Material Service Corp., and his son, James, general partner of Henry Crown & Co.; promoter and Oprah’s significant other Stedman Graham; Gov. Jim Edgar; U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin; and, of course, Mayor Richard Daley himself.
For the record, Michael Jordan was willing but ultimately had another engagement: the NBA playoffs. Oprah Winfrey “just declined,” said Brittany Riordan, director of the Principal for a Day program for Working in the Schools, the sponsoring organization.
The idea of principals for a day has the potential to mark a pinnacle in public support–and public relations events–for school reform since Daley’s executive team took over the system almost three years ago.
One organizer called the list of volunteers the most impressive array of Who’s Who in Chicagoland since the Democratic Convention here in 1996.
But the event also has risks. Organizers of an identical program in New York’s public schools say the event carries a “loose-cannon factor,” wherein an intemperate celebrity or executive can make headlines with a faux pas. For example, the real principal can give the visitor the cold shoulder, or the executive can offend a principal by refusing to drink the school coffee–both of which did happen in New York.
And some honchos may participate just to have a cocktail boast.
William Davis, 54, chairman and chief executive officer of R.R. Donnelley & Sons, acknowledged that there surely will be at least one notable who visits a school “and then goes home and says, `I did it.’ “
“I hope that most of us will say we are more aware of the schools. I’m hoping for a lot more people with some thoughts on how they can be engaged and make a difference,” Davis said.
For many executives–this will come as relief to struggling students–the event will be an occasion to finally end up on the other side of the principal’s desk.
“I’d like to be in the principal’s office for one day where I’m not getting yelled at,” said Douglas Colbeth, 42, a product of New York public schools and president and CEO of Spyglass Inc. in Naperville, which provides Internet technologies and services for corporations.
“I was one of those what I call `adventuresome’ kids. Isn’t that a nice way of explaining it?” Colbeth explained.
Participants also spoke of more complicated concerns. Corboy said, “I want to do a little comparing between Chicago Public Schools and the parochial system to see if we can learn something from kids who are not in our (parochial) system,” said Corboy, a product of “inner-city Catholic schools,” who does a lot of work with the Chicago archdiocese.
Graham, a product of New Jersey’s public schools whose Athletes Against Drugs program already works with students, said of the upcoming event: “This shows interest, which translates into giving young people hope because somebody cares enough to come into their school.”
As for Bulls and White Sox owner Reinsdorf, working in the schools is the “No. 1 civic activity” of his sports organizations, he said: “I like this (event) because it will get some people involved who don’t know what’s going on in the schools. They will have their eyes opened.”
Turow, a graduate of Philip Rogers elementary school on the North Side, says spending a half day in the schools is a minimal commitment:
“I wish I could do more. One of the things I admire about the present mayor is he has clearly recognized that the schools are really the future of the city. No matter what the inequities are in the society–and they are vast–there is no single means of more effectively reducing those unwanted distances than through the educational system.”
“This brings me back to my roots,” said Greg Josefowicz, executive vice president and general manager of Jewel-Osco and one-time public school kindergartner. He hopes to return to Smyser Elementary School on the Northwest Side, the same neighborhood where he started his Jewel career 30 years ago as a bagger in a grocery store.
“I just hope they don’t ask me to do anything real challenging. The thought of dealing with grammar school kids. . . .”
As for Koldyke’s expectations: “Whether it is a feel-good issue or much more substantial than that will depend entirely on how seriously these people take it. I hope that when they see these kids, they will rediscover the importance of public schools and they won’t be able to leave it alone.”
At the very least, the principals for a day will spend four hours in a public school and learn “that most Chicago public schools are excellent and that these kids are worth saving,” said Beverly Tunney, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.
Chicago organizers say they didn’t set up the day to wring cash from corporations. But that has been the result in New York. Since the first event in 1994, schools have seen donations of millions.
It was just over a decade ago that then-U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett pronounced Chicago Public Schools the worst in the nation. That declaration hardly came as news to Chicago’s civic and corporate leaders. Unable to hire Chicago public school grads into their businesses, worried about the brain drain to the suburbs, and concerned that the dismal schools were threatening the future of the city, many of them already had joined the education summit put together by Mayor Harold Washington shortly before his death in 1987. But they weren’t racing to see who would be the first to actually spend time in a public school.
Dean Buntrock, chairman emeritus of Waste Management, hasn’t been inside a public school in 20 years. He sees the principal for a day event as a chance to “get a firsthand feel” for the institution that has been the source of so much frustration.
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“The Chicago business community has for some time been very anxious to support some strong improvements, but most of us just write out checks,” he said.
Marshall Rozzi, chief executive officer of United HealthCare of Illinois, has spent some time in the schools. His company, a health benefits firm with 1 million members, has an ongoing relationship with several schools, relationships that it maintains for very practical reasons: “We need an educated employee base. That starts with the schools and the people who will wind up living and working here.”
James Bodman’s Vienna Sausage Manufacturing Co. also hires a number of Chicago public school graduates, but he has a personal reason for volunteering: He figures it will be fun to go back to high school.
“I have clear memories of sitting in the Glenbard High School auditorium in 1957 and 1958 and hearing some middle-aged men talking to me about how important life was and why I had to get good grades and not listening to what they were saying,” Bodman said. He knows he can’t “make a grand difference” in a few hours, but he said he volunteered because “the schools in this city need help. The easy thing is to forget about it and go play golf.”
Deborah Bricker has never been in a Chicago public school. But she is just the kind of person organizers were hoping to draw into the program: She has a keen interest in education, wants the city schools to improve and believes the mayor’s team is working hard at fixing the problems.
Bricker, head of a Michigan Avenue management consulting firm that bears her name, attended “really pathetic” public schools in Hagerstown, Md., and has a college degree in education, but never worked as a teacher. She sends her 12-year-old daughter, Kelly, to the University of Chicago Lab School and never has been inside a Chicago public school because, she said, “no one ever asked me before.”
Bricker harbors no illusions about the current state of the schools. But she has hope.
“I don’t think (the public schools) will work for Kelly, but maybe they’ll work for my grandchildren.”