To kick off Season 2 of ExtraOrdinary Districts, we brought together an all-star panel to discuss school district improvement. Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Harvard University’s Ronald F. Ferguson, and University of Michigan’s Nell Duke.
November 18, 2019 by Ed Trust 
To kick off Season 2 of ExtraOrdinary Districts, we brought together an all-star panel to discuss school district improvement. Janice Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Harvard University’s Ronald F. Ferguson, and University of Michigan’s Nell Duke.
The panel, moderated by ExtraOrdinary District creator Karin Chenoweth, had a wide-ranging discussion that went from the need for carefully designed early reading instruction to the moral imperative of equity. Jackson described the need to be “relentless” in giving students the opportunity to learn rather than trying to “fix” students.
Chenoweth situated the ExtraOrdinary Districts podcast in the research tradition of Ronald Edmonds and asked panel members to react to observations made in districts profiled in both seasons of ExtraOrdinary Districts. Duke talked about the need to begin providing opportunity to very young children and what we know gives children the best opportunities for success. Ferguson talked about how educators grope their way along to improvement, making mistakes and discoveries along the way.
The event was held before a live audience at the University of Illinois-Chicago, and was co-hosted by The Education Trust and UIC’s Center for Urban Education Leadership and its Ed.D program in Urban Education Leadership.
