On Chicago's New Public Schools Chief

Rebecca Vevea:

On a sunny morning late last month, Noemi Donoso, Chicago Public Schools' new chief education officer, organized a three-inch-thick binder stuffed with paperwork and district data at a table in her office.

It was one of more than 20 such binders from CPS area offices Donoso has been studying since Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed her to oversee curriculum and instruction for the nation's third-largest school district in April. The post has traditionally been held by former CPS principals and Donoso, an outsider groomed in charter schools, faces responsibilities that her predecessors did not.

A sweeping state education bill passed in May by the General Assembly enables CPS to lengthen the school day and fundamentally changes the process of evaluating teachers. Managing the implementation of those reforms will be Donoso's biggest undertaking, said Tim Knowles, director of the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago and a member of Emanuel's education transition team.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 15, 2011 1:38 AM
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