The former president of the Chicago Board of Education has been tapped to chair the City Colleges of Chicago Board of Trustees, Mayor Richard M. Daley recently announced.
The former president of the Chicago Board of Education has been tapped to chair the City Colleges of Chicago Board of Trustees, Mayor Richard M. Daley recently announced. The appointment of Gery Chico, 53, must now be approved by the City Council. Daley said he chose Chico because he believes he can bring fresh eyes to the City Colleges, which services roughly 110,000 students. The mayor said he has instructed Chico to review the entire funding and curriculum structure of the City Colleges system, so that it better educate students and better train them for tomorrow’s jobs. “As we’re doing throughout government, we must challenge our City Colleges – their leaders, their faculty and their administrators – to rethink its role,” Daley said. He explained that the annual budget for City Colleges is almost $500 million and that the system spends almost $89 million each year on workforce programs alone. Chico served as the mayor’s chief of staff from 1992-1995; school board president from 1995-2001; and as president of the Board of Commissioners for the Chicago Park District in 2007. Additionally, Chico is a board member for the Chicago Urban League. He unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, and for the last six years he has been a senior law partner at Chico & Nunes, P.C. Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender
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