U. of C. prof gets top education officer post in Chicago schools

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

A University of Chicago academic versed in urban school reform — and not a principal from the trenches — will serve as the Chicago Public School system’s new education leader, Interim Schools CEO Terry Mazany announced Friday.

Mazany said he picked Charles Payne, a U. of C. sociologist and author of a book on urban school reform, to serve as interim CPS chief education officer due to his “deep and powerful understanding of what it takes to improve teaching and learning in urban districts’’ and his “sensitivity’’ to the importance of parent and community involvement.

Payne’s top assignment will be to develop a CPS education plan to guide the system after his departure. Mazany said Payne will only stay until he is replaced by the next mayor, who will be seated in May.

However, Mazany’s job was supposed to be interim, too, and yet Mazany conceded for the first time Friday that he would “seriously consider’’ staying on if asked to do so by the next mayor.

Payne’s selection marks the first time since Mayor Daley won control of the city’s public schools in 1995 that officials have turned to someone other than a CPS principal and former CPS teacher to serve as chief education officer.

However, Payne said Friday, “My job is not to teach. My job is to facilitate writing a plan. What do you need to facilitate that process? You need a broad knowledge of what successful districts are doing across the country, and you need some knowledge of good practice. I think I bring those things.’’

Payne, 62, revealed that his predecessor, Barbara Eason-Watkins, “twisted my arm’’ to get him to take her old job, which has sat vacant since Eason-Watkins left July 1 to head the Michigan City, Ind., public schools.

Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals Association, praised Payne’s credentials Friday but conceded that “I’m just worried that by the time he knows what he’s doing, he won’t be here to do it any longer.’’

And Berry noted, “nobody can promise that [Payne’s education plan] will be followed. ... We are very worried about this. ... Everybody is change weary.’’

However, Jackson Potter, staff coordinator for the Chicago Teachers Union, welcomed Payne as an “interim’’ appointment and called him “someone we can work with’’ to write an education plan.

“He’s a thoughtful person. We need more people at the table who think about these issues seriously. He’s one of them,’’ Potter said.

Payne is the author of the book So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools. He has been critical in the past of Chicago’s school closing policy and the multitude of “choice’’ schools created under Daley. CPS has since improved the closing process, Payne said Friday, and “I think CPS realizes ... it’s a much more delicate thing than it looks.’’

He will be serving CPS on loan from U of C, where he is the Frank P. Hixon distinguished service professor in the School of Social Service Administration.

Payne holds an undergraduate degree in African-American studies from Syracuse University and a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University. He currently is a member of the U. of C.’s Committee on Education, an affiliated scholar with its Urban Education Institute, and a member of the steering committee for its Consortium on Chicago School Research.

He has taught at Southern University, Williams College, Northwestern and Duke University. Payne is also acting executive director of the Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community, a CPS effort modeled after the Harlem Children’s Zone that aims to dramatically improve youth outcomes in Woodlawn. Mazany announced Payne’s selection at Fiske Elementary, one of several schools in the Woodlawn Promise Community.