Dorothy Shipps: School Reform, Corporate Style

A member of the 2000 class of Carnegie Scholars, Dorothy Shipps, currently Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Education at the School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, CUNY, was Managing Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research from 1996 to 1999. It was during this period that she became convinced “nothing is more important for educators than to master the politics of urban schooling,” and “urban school politics is fundamentally about power.” In other words, it’s not really about the students. In 2006, she published School Reform, Corporate Style: Chicago 1880 – 2000, which traces the development of the modern school system from its formative stage, beginning in the 19th century, through racial upheaval and political sea changes to the recent reform movements Shipps sees as yielding poor results. How could so many powerful, civic-minded corporate activists have achieved so little, she asks? The author’s careful research reveals why political reform agendas fail to affect the teacher-student relationships at the heart of performance improvements. For this reason, the lessons of Chicago can, and should, have far-reaching affects.