[Dialogue] Fred Hess Dies

[Charles or Doris Hahn]

>From Doris Hahn-

This came to me via Pam Bergdall. Fred died of
pancreatic cancer Friday, January 27, one day after
his 68th birthday. The following tribute was in the
Chicago Tribune.

G. Alfred Hess Jr.
--------------------

1938-2006

Educator challenged inequity of resources in Chicago
schools

By Jon Yates
Tribune staff reporter

January 30, 2006

G. Alfred Hess Jr. was ordained as a Methodist
minister but couldn't
stop thinking he could help more people if he left his
small
congregation in Shelburne Falls, Mass.

So Mr. Hess resigned from his church and moved his
family to Chicago in
1966. In the years that followed, he left an indelible
imprint on the
city's educational system.

A social activist, devoted family man and skilled
researcher, Mr. Hess
directed the Chicago Panel on School Policy for 13
years and was one of
the architects of the Chicago School Reform Act of
1988. Much of his
research was used to champion the cause of the city's
poorest
children--students who, he showed, were not being
properly served.

"I think he was really driven by a sense of social
justice, that there
was so much unfairness in society and that it was
being pushed under 
the
rug," said John Ayers, a friend and colleague who is
the former
executive director of Leadership for Quality
Education.

Mr. Hess, 68, died of pancreatic cancer Friday, Jan.
27, in his Chicago
home. He died one day after his birthday, with his
wife and two 
children
at his side.

"Every job he took, every project he worked on, was
informed by that
sense that he needed to help," said his son, Randy.
"Even when he was
doing things that were completely secular, he had that
sense of the
ministry. He wasn't proselytizing. He really thought
his role was to
help people."

Mr. Hess, who was born in Trenton, N.J., graduated
from the College of
Wooster in Ohio in 1959, then Boston University School
of Theology 
three
years later. He came to Chicago to work for what
became the Institute 
of
Cultural Affairs, through which he traveled the world
working on
community development projects.

He received a doctorate in education at Northwestern
University in 1980
and quickly made an impact on the city's educational
landscape through
his research.

"He could take the driest stinking data in the world
and say, `This is
what it means,'" said his wife, Mary. "He found ways
to turn data into
action."

His research showed the dropout rate in Chicago's
schools was much
higher than previously stated, that funding was
inequitable to poor
students and that teaching in some of the city's high
schools was
woefully inadequate.

"He's one of the founding educators of the school
reform movement in 
the
late 1980s. He and [others] not only sounded the alarm
about the
failures in the school system, but he was one of the
architects of the
reform movement," said Paul Vallas, former chief
executive officer of
the Chicago Public Schools. "He was a great researcher
and was probably
one the nicest individuals I've ever met."

Mr. Hess helped form the Consortium on Chicago Public
School Research
and went back to Northwestern to teach in 1996.

His son said Mr. Hess was driven to help people but
never missed his
children's soccer games or ballet performances.

"He was fun and gregarious," his son said. "He was
smart so he could
employ wit as well."

Vallas said Mr. Hess' research helped guide his tenure
at the Chicago
Public Schools.

"He was a very inspiring guy," Vallas said. "He'll
achieve a certain
immortality through his work."

Besides his son and wife, survivors include his
daughter, Sarah; and
five sisters, Lou Hardwick, Jane Clark, Bobbie Gibbs,
Dottie Ambler and
Betty. Services were pending.