Dear Friends of The Fund,
In 2016, we resolved to make Chicago the best city in the country to lead a public school. While we’re not quite there yet, we made key strides to our goal.
To start, we helped expand the Chicago Principals Fellowship to 25 members, including five charter school leaders. We also conducted our fourth Summer Design Program, connecting 48 principal-led school teams with experts from around the country.
This fall, we became a founding member of The Chicago Principal Partnership (The Partnership), a collaborative, citywide effort to ensure a great principal in every public school. You can learn more and join our efforts and those of our partners (including many of you!) by visiting ChicagoPrincipals.org.
Finally, with feedback from 73 percent of Chicago’s public school principals, we unveiled our 2016 School Leadership Report, The Right Match: A Strong Principal in Every Public School, which provides recommendations for improving principal hiring and placement and features profiles of six schools and organizations already doing this work well.
The report garnered ample media coverage, including an editorial by The Chicago Tribune, pieces by the Chicago Sun-Times and WTTW, and mentions on CBS, NBC, Fox, WBEZ and WGN Radio. We also joined Chicago principals Nate Pietrini and James Gray on their podcast, The Ed Couple, to discuss the report.
Though proud of this progress, we know we have more to do to reach our goals. We look forward to the work ahead, and we hope you’ll join us.
Wishing you a joyful holiday season,
The Fund Team
PS: We’re taking next week off, but check back on Friday, January 6 when we return with new posts!