Catalyst Chicago
Ask Wanda Taylor to give her view on Renaissance 2010, and you get a brief sigh and a “Where do you start?” Her story is a parent’s-eye view of what has happened since Mayor Richard M. Daley and then-CEO Arne Duncan launched the plan in 2004.
Back then, Taylor had two children at Price, a struggling school at 44th Street and South Drexel Avenue in Bronzeville. She and other parents had heard rumors that “something big” was about to happen with schools. But they were “horrified” by Renaissance, Taylor recalls. Where would their children go? What curricula would the new schools offer? Most important, how would parents get their children into the new schools?..