Innovator Vol. 36 No. 1 - Winter 06: The M Difference
Return to contentsAlumna: Barbara Eason-Watkins
In 1972, Barbara Eason-Watkins, now second in command at the Chicago Public Schools, was a U-M pre-med major when that summer she took a job as a teacher’s assistant at a school for disturbed children. “It was incredible to me--both the neediness of the students, and how much they wanted to learn,” she said. “It turned me around. I decided I wanted to teach.”
Another factor proved pivotal in her decision to change careers. A teacher at the school was married
to Gwendolyn Calvert Baker, then a U-M School of Education professor. Calvert Baker got her excited about possibilities at the Education School, where Eason-Watkins subsequently enrolled.
“She was interested in multicultural education,”
recalls Eason-Watkins. “She helped me focus on the needs of students in urban settings.”
Back then, School of Education students usually did their student teaching in Ann Arbor. But Eason-Watkins wanted to work in a more urban setting. She recalls that U-M provided her and a few other student teachers with a car so they could drive to the predominantly black city of Inkster and do their practice teaching there. “The university allowed us to have an experience we felt was relevant to us,” she said.
Eason-Watkins became chief education officer of the Chicago Public Schools four years ago. Previously she had been principal of a Chicago inner city school, where, during her twelve years there, reported the Chicago Sun-Times, “attendance soared and the number of students who met state reading and math standards doubled.”
Today, Eason-Watkins (whom the Sun-Times named as one of the city’s 100 most powerful women) visits Chicago schools at least two or three days a week. “We feel we’re only able to make progress [in central administration] if we’re in touch with what’s happening in the field,” she says. Although she’s had many offers to work in affluent districts, she’s turned them down. “My commitment has been going to the more challenging communities,” she says. “That’s been true since my days at Michigan.”
