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Despite warnings from his political consultants, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley chose to take control of Chicago Public Schools in 1995, he said. “I knew if I didn’t take responsibility, what type of city would we have? Rich and poor, and the poor would be uneducated,” Daley told students in a class on leadership led by Marvin Zonis, professor emeritus of business administration at Gleacher Center on September 23. “I told the unions I was not going to keep the status quo. It was the best decision I made for the city.”
Daley’s administration pumped $4.6 billion into CPS, instituted charter schools that created competition among the city’s public schools, and made Chicago the only city in America that closes non-performing schools, he said. “The key to success in the city of Chicago is improving the schools,” Daley said.
One of Daley’s proudest achievements is a Chinese language program that teaches Mandarin to 7,000 students from elementary through high school. “I truly believe someday there will be two languages in the world – Chinese and English,” he said. “That is the language I hope to have as the second language of the city of Chicago. If we want to be a global city, we have to understand what’s taking place with globalization.”
Another key decision Daley made came in 1999, when his administration took over the Chicago Housing Authority, he said. Daley called public housing a “good idea at the beginning” but said it failed because the federal government prohibited residents from working or getting married. “Basically, it ended up being single mothers on welfare,” he said. “When we took over, I told CHA residents, ‘Everybody has lied to you in the past. They said they’re going to improve your life.’”
Instead, Daley asked them what they wanted. “They said they wanted job training, alcohol and drug counseling, child care, and new housing,” he said. In response, the city created social networks that have been privatized to provide the best services, Daley said. “We need to continue to mentor them,” he said of public housing residents. “We are creating mixed housing that is affordable for everyone. I think it will be a great change for the city of Chicago.”
Daley prides himself on relying on the business community to assist with improving the quality of life in Chicago, “because they have to be part and parcel of the city,” he said. Local businesses matched the $250 million in tax increment financing funds used to build the world-renowned Millennium Park, he said. “When you said you were from Chicago, people used to talk about Al Capone and then Michael Jordan,” Daley said. “Now it’s Millennium Park.”
The mayor shared some “tricks of the trade” in how he manages such a wide-ranging agenda despite the tug of disparate influences throughout the city, including his first-ever veto of the City Council’s Big Box ordinance creating a minimum wage for large retailers. “You have to have good advisors and not tell anybody who your advisors are,” Daley said. “For example, with the Big Box, I talked to many people in the community. You have to look at the issue and be comfortable with your decision. You have to talk to people along the way.”
—Phil Rockrohr