Daniel Anello, ’07, is CEO of Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit working to improve public-school access and educational environments. In April 2021, he was awarded a Medal of Honor from the City of Chicago for his organization’s work on the digital divide and initiative Chicago Connected, now the country’s largest free internet program.
I’m in education for personal reasons. My education was transformative for me. At Booth I was a marketing major and worked for Unilever as a brand manager. My time at Booth is what gave me the skills, connections, and confidence to dive into the education arena.
There’s also the racial-equity component. I’m a mixed kid with two teacher parents. I went to a pretty under-resourced and low performing school, and something that came with that was the denial of voice in school decisions and policy. The pandemic has exposed school inequality and made it evident that racial equity and education equity are two sides of the same coin. There’s a reason there are gaps between demographic groups, even when you control for socioeconomics. These gaps persist largely because of societal factors around systemic racism. With the murder of George Floyd and the events last summer, there was an awakening. People of color, we were like, “We’ve been here.” But for many others, it became more front and center.
The pandemic has also brought to light the digital divide in education. Kids First Chicago prioritizes issues through the parents we work with, and when the pandemic hit, the digital-divide issue went from No. 7 on the list to No. 1. Chicago Connected is now the prototype for a number of programs nationally. Once everything’s in person, we’re not going back to thinking the internet isn’t a necessary resource.
When schools started remote learning, there was the notion that if students’ screens weren’t on, they weren’t paying attention. But some kids aren’t turning their screens on because there’s all this stuff going on behind them, or they don’t want people to see how they live. Language barriers were highlighted as well.