Ron Huberman poverty is education, education is the ticket out…8 out of
100 is not doing our job.”
Future leader of
Chicago public
school District
By: Emma Watson
Ron Huberman held a lecture at the University of Illinois
Wednesday to discuss his five-step plan to get the Chicago
Public Schools back on their feet.
“We need to focus on future success and getting students
out of poverty by education,” said Huberman, the recently
appointed CEO of Chicago Public Schools.
Huberman has been part of many forms of city government
including the mayor’s chief of staff, the president of The
CTA, and assistant deputy superintendent.
During his speech at the Future of Chicago Lecture se-
ries, a hundred plus packed into a UIC lecture classroom
as Huberman revealed his five “levers” to boost perfor-
mance. For a successful future in CPS his “levers” include:
Performance Management, Human Capitol, Competitive
Marketplace for Services, Safety & Security, and Portfolio
Management.
According to Huberman eight out of 100 kids in Chicago
public school district will ever enter or graduate from a
four-year college.
According to the Chicago Public Schools Office of Perfor-
mance the dropout rate in 2008 was 12 percent.
“Especially when you look at one of the greatest deter-
minants of future success and getting our students out of
“When you take a look at the high school level … we have
not seen the kind of change we would like to see.”
As for safety and security within the schools, Huberman
said that this is the greatest battle of the CPS district.
“Fundamentally, we learn that there are 10,000 kids in ter-
rible trouble in the Chicago Public School district.” Huber-
man said.
The new plan he recommended taking the controllable risk
factors of violence in the high school level and we break-
ing it down to solve the problem of violence. Various risks
include: Academic performance, attendance, in- school
behavior, special -education, and homelessness.
In one analysis, Huberman presented various factors that
could affect the likelihood of a student in the CPS to be in-
volved in shooting, and then target the groups at most risk.
Factors included attendance, performance, and homeless-
ness, in addition to the error of being marked special educa-
tion.
“The high risk group … have a 20 percent greater chance of
being shot in the next two years, think about that-a greater
than 20 percent chance of being shot.” Huberman said.
Huberman also suggested, “Interventions will be deter-
mined based on need…hire paid mentors from the commu-
nity to problem solve and support these kids in new way.”
Secondly, Huberman discussed human capitol and finding a
better way of placing the system’s $1.8 million budget.
“Schools need to have the ability to administer the money
better that the central offices, accountability on principles
and teacher whom have a closer relationship.” Huberman
said. “The money should follow the students.”
Huberman discussed new standards when hiring within the
system.
“Right now there is no minimum standard to teach in Chi-
cago Public Schools,” Huberman said. According to Hu-
berman talented teachers equal high performing students,
and talented principals equals high performing schools.
“We need new screening procedures that create a new mini-
mum bar.”

Huberman believes that, “Competitiveness down to the

school level will produce better results.”

In regards to performance management and standardized

testing determining so many factors for the up coming year.
Huberman questioned whether standardized testing should
be such a large determinant in the up coming year.
In response to Wednesday’s lecture one UIC student was a
little skeptical.

“I think today went really great, he answered a lot of ques-

tions, there was a lot of innovative ideas, whether or not
he’s going to put them into actual programs seems like it’s
a little unpredictable at this point. “ Beth Phillips a UIC
student said.

Unfortunately, for the Chicago Public School district the

end of the day, “ We structurally don’t have the dollars to
fund the programs that we should, and our budget shrinks
every year.” Huberman said.