[Oe List ...] Fred Hess dies

[marilie@att.net]

In 1977 my husband, David and I were teaching at the Village Development school in Maliwada, India.  David and Fred Hess had been classmates at the College of Wooster.  We had been in Maliwada for 2 or 4 days, and who breezes into this small village but Fred.  David and Fred had not seen each other since 1959....the world is so small, especially for those with similar commitments....their passion for educational reform was one of those passions....I am sorry that Fred has died....I am sorry that David is not here to say more about Fred.  Who knows when any of us may meet again.

Marilie Blanchard. living in Santa Fe, associated with EI/OE ICA since 1970.  David died in 1994.




-------------- Original message from Charles or Doris Hahn <cdhahn at flash.net>: -------------- 


> >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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