[Dialogue] Fred Hess Dies

[Lucia Ann McSpadden]

Fred was one of the people who drew me into E.I. and inspired me with
his integrity and wisdom.  Later I met him at Anthropology meetings
where we had energizing and disturbing conversations about education of
poor children.  I will miss him and am blessed to have known him.

Shan McSpadden 


Lucia Ann McSpadden, Ph.D.
Coordinator of International Student Support 
Adjunct Faculty
Pacific School of Religion
1798 Scenic Avenue
Berkeley, CA  94709
1-510-849-8250
1-510-845-8948 [fax]
lmcspadden at psr.edu
check our website at www.psr.edu
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:Dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Charles or Doris
Hahn
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 2:54 PM
To: Dialogue
Subject: [Dialogue] Fred Hess Dies

>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.



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