It was a momentous time in Chicago as 2010 came to a close. Mayor Richard M. Daley, who had been elected to his fi rst term of offi ce in 1989, was stepping down after 21 years. It was, incidentally, the second 21-year period in the city’s history under a Mayor Daley, making this an end to a dynasty — or at least this chapter of one. For those of us in the area’s education community, it had been a particularly diffi cult couple of decades. Of course, educators all over the country struggled during the time that saw the passage of the No Child Left Behind law. But Chicago, along with a few other cities like New York and New Orleans, felt like a fl ash point for the school reforms associated with the intensifying accountability movement.