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Almost three years after Illinois lawmakers required a committee to drive academic progress for Chicago’s Black students, the new group will hold its first meeting Thursday evening.
The committee is tasked with overseeing the rollout of the district’s Black Student Success Plan, a five-year blueprint unveiled in February 2025 to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of the district’s Black students, who make up roughly a third of the student body. The effort became a target of the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion push and remains under federal investigation.
Most of the 15 members of the Black Student Achievement Committee were named in July. Some see its role as helping to flesh out the plan, which spells out goals such as reducing punitive discipline and increasing the number of Black male teachers but offers little guidance on how the district will meet them. The committee will also hold district leaders accountable for making or failing to make headway.
Some advocates have been frustrated with delays in launching the committee and with what they see as the plan’s tentative implementation pace. Last spring, the Trump administration withheld federal dollars for magnet school programs from Chicago Public Schools and demanded the district scrap the plan, but the district sued successfully to have that grant reinstated.
The committee now begins its work at an uncertain moment: Some of the plan’s supporters hope that deep Republican losses in last week’s midterms might signal that anti-DEI initiatives no longer resonate with voters, allowing the district to forge ahead more confidently.
Then again, the administration could dig in during its final two years. Meanwhile, the city’s first fully elected school board takes over in January as CPS faces intense financial pressure that could hobble new initiatives.
In any case, supporters say it’s time to ramp up the plan’s rollout. Michilla Blaise, a committee co-chair, said she feels their sense of urgency “like a 10-ton weight.”
“Advocates were banging their pots and pans and saying we need to get to work,” she said. “They are unhappy it took us this long to get up and running.”
She said the delays were due in part to a push to get the initiative right, including reopening an application process earlier this year when she and others heard from residents who’d missed the deadline. About 500 people submitted applications, the district said.
Blaise and Jitu Brown — two West Side board members and close Chicago Teachers Union allies — were tapped to help select the committee members and lead it. Blaise, an appointee of Mayor Brandon Johnson, kept her seat in last week’s school board election. Brown, a longtime advocate who ran unopposed in 2024, was defeated.
Jessica Biggs, the board president-elect, will appoint a new school board member to co-chair the committee. Blaise said she hopes Brown can stay involved in some capacity.
At the 6 p.m. Thursday meeting in district headquarters at 42 W Madison St., the main priority will be introducing the new committee and setting the stage for its work in 2027, Blaise said.
“I’d like for folks to get to know each other,” she said. “The more cohesive we are, the faster we can move through things.”
The committee also will get an update from district officials on CPS’s work on the plan so far. That included hosting a conference on Black student unions at Chicago high schools earlier this fall and lining up philanthropic backing for the effort to recruit more Black teachers.
Former CPS principal Gerald Morrow, a senior at the selective enrollment school Whitney Young, and a junior at Westinghouse, another selective high school, are new to the committee.
One of the committee members, longtime community leader Valerie Leonard, says advocates want the committee to helm the district’s efforts to help Black students, who face significant disparities in graduation, discipline, and other outcomes. She is troubled that the committee is stepping in roughly a year and a half into the plan’s rollout.
But she said she is focused on its next steps, in particular on making sure it is tracking the district’s progress. She said the plan’s goals are valid, but Black families also want to see growth in math and reading outcomes and evidence that the district is expanding access to academic opportunities, such as advanced courses.
“I don’t want to see data weaponized to tell people they are inadequate,” Leonard said. “But when you throw away accountability altogether, that’s problematic. How do you measure whether you are moving the needle?”
Dwayne Truss, a West Side community advocate and former school board member, said the committee is starting its work in a more forgiving national environment.
“Nationally, people have said, ‘Let’s get away from these culture war distractions that don’t solve our economic dilemmas,’” he said. “‘Don’t waste our time bringing superintendents out to Washington for soundbites.”
He was referring to CPS Superintendent Macquline King being summoned to defend the Black Student Success Plan and the district’s trangender student policies on Capitol Hill earlier this year.
Blaise said even at the height of the federal scrutiny of the district, the plan’s supporters were undeterred. She hopes that its work will spawn additional similar efforts in other districts across the country.
“This committee is being watched nationally,” Blaise said, “not just by people who are angry about it, but also people who are inspired by it.”
Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.
Mila Koumpilova 2026-11-12 00:22:08
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