Gery Chico's report card May 25, 2001 BY SCOTT FORNEK AND FRAN SPIELMAN STAFF REPORTERS Back when Gery Chico was growing up in the McKinley Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side, a couple of kids once beat up one of his younger brothers on his way home from the corner store. "The next day, the bullies were not around," said Craig Chico, 42. "I told my brother Gery, and he said, `Don't worry. They won't bother you again.' "I don't mean he buried them in cement--they were just kids. But they didn't bother me anymore." Nearly 35 years later, Gery Chico, 45, has had his share of scrapes and scuffles as president of the Chicago Board of Education. But his kid brother insists Chico did not resign Thursday because he is tired of fighting with schools CEO Paul Vallas. "It's not a factor whatsoever," Craig Chico said. At a news conference announcing his resignation, Gery Chico voiced a similar sentiment, calling Vallas "my friend" and saying he hopes they get a chance to work together again. "I don't know of any more productive duo," Chico said. Vallas also played down the behind-the-scenes tensions, which surfaced recently in the soon-to-be-announced, high-level shakeup that's expected to involve the reassignment of Chief Education Officer Cozette Buckney. "This 10-year relationship of ours [dating back to their days together at City Hall] has lasted longer than most real marriages--and there's probably been a heck of a lot less fighting," Vallas said. At the Board of Education's South Loop offices, Chico pointed with pride to what many consider to be a remarkable record of accomplishment: $2.7 billion in school construction and improvements, an end to social promotions, redesigned high schools and bilingual programs, and progress in test scores. But school observers wondered if the other shoe was about to drop: whether Vallas, who came in with Chico and basked with him in the glow of national headlines, would follow. "It's not appropriate for me to talk of what I plan to do, what I'm thinking of doing or what I want to do on the day that Gery's making decisions about his future," Vallas said, only fueling speculation. Chico said he has been thinking about calling it quits for some time because of demands the unpaid job has placed on his three children and lucrative law practice. "When I'm out at the 14th community meeting for the week, and I'm not with my 10-year-old going over the homework or hearing about the dance recital, or I don't make the dance recital, after a while, it takes a little toll on you," Chico said. Three months ago, Mayor Daley used his annual State of the City address to light a fire under his handpicked school team because two-thirds of the students still don't read at grade level. Last week, the board reported that high school reading and elementary math scores were down for the first time in five years. "I'm critical of myself--not [just] them," Daley said Thursday. "When I gave the State of the City speech, I talked about myself. That's my responsibility. . . . You want to do better." Daley said the decision to leave was Chico's but agreed it was time for a change. Daley said he expects to name a replacement in about a week and may look outside the seven-member board. Daley tapped Chico to be head of the School Board in 1995, three years after he had made Chico his chief of staff. Chico is separated from his wife, who lives with their three daughters--Sarah, 16; Alyssa, 14, and Rebecca, 10--in the Northwest Side's Edgebrook neighborhood. But Craig Chico said his brother really is quitting for his family. "He's just a great dad, and his kids always come first," said Craig Chico, who is vice president of Kopico Printing, a Southwest Side company their father owns. Gery Chico lives in the West Loop and grew up on the Southwest Side, the oldest of four boys. His father is Mexican-American, and his mother is of Lithuanian and Greek descent. His father remembers his wife buying Gery jeans when he was about 8 or 9, but the boy was too stocky to fit into them. "He lost weight so he could fit into them," said Jesse Chico, 69. "He was always a very determined young man." Gery Chico loved playing baseball but gave up his boyhood dreams of a professional career at age 12 after he had surgery on his hips because of a bone condition. Chico had pins placed in his hips and missed his freshman year at Kelly High School. He still walks with a noticeable limp. Chico is famous for his imitations. His repertoire includes Desi Arnaz, Popeye, Mr. Ed and Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life." "His kids get a real kick out of that," Craig Chico said. Education experts give Chico's performance mixed reviews. "He's made a major contribution to the city over the last six years," said Fred Hess, director of the Center for Urban School Policy at Northwestern University. "While there have been tensions between Chico and Vallas, the two have really created quite a team by saying schools can't keep operating the way they have." Hess also credits Chico for his school construction projects: "There has rarely been the kind of burst of new facilities and rehabilitation of old facilities as there has been in the last six years." Donald Moore, executive director of Designs for Change, a school reform group, noted that third-grade reading scores--one of Daley's priorities--were down in test results released last week. And Moore argued that the moves to end social promotions and drill students to pass achievement tests "are not working." "Mr. Chico was one of the architects of the current policy," he said. Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education, credits Chico with getting City Hall and the business community working to improve the schools. "However, I think his leadership style, along with Paul Vallas', has been very top-down, very dictatorial," she said. "There has been kind of a disrespect to the parents and the community." She cites Chico's pushing construction of the $44.7 million Northside College Prep high school two years ago, while failing to build new schools to replace overcrowded ones in Little Village and Rogers Park. Critics said Chico rushed Northside Prep--a state-of-the-art facility--so it would be finished in time for his daughter to attend. "I think that's symbolic of what happened under his leadership," Woestehoff said. But Maribeth Vander Weele, a Chico ally and inspector general for the Chicago Public Schools, laughed at the criticisms. "That is lame criticism if that is the worst criticism--that he is building a premiere school that rivals the best in the suburbs?" she said. "That is searching for fodder. "He has integrity," Vander Weele said. "He is respected by many in the system, and he is going to be sorely missed. He left a legacy." -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
