ABSTRACT
Chicago’s school accountability policies and centralized regulation of schools have become a model for urban school districts in the United States and a prototype of Bush’s national education policy. Chicago’s 1995 school reform law gave Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley control of the schools. Daley appointed his budget manager Paul Vallas to be CEO of Chicago public schools (CPS) and his chief of staff Gery Chico to head the CPS Board of Trustees. Promising efficiency, sound fiscal management, improved academic achievement, and equity, Vallas and Chico established a corporatist regime focused on accountability, high-stakes tests, standards, and centralized regulation of schools. As a result, thousands of primarily black and Latino youth have been retained in grade and sent to mandatory remedial programs and basic education transition high schools. Over one hundred elementary and high schools in black, Latino, and immigrant communities have been put on “probation” under strict central administration oversight.
