Richard Daley and other Mayors of Chicago.

        Some gains that RMD had as a Mayor to Chicago was the NKO projects and securing a better education system by fighting for full control over the public education system within Chicago to the Mayor's office. RMD got full control in 1995, he appointed Paul Vallas to take the CEO position at the head of the school board. Some people weren't so enthused at this change of power to the mayor, which gave him the ability to appoint who he thought would best fit the job. The first thing that changed in Chicago when the balance of power was shifted to the mayor's office was that it placed low-scoring schools on probation and retained students at grades 3, 6, and 8 based on their scores on standardized tests. Eighth graders were subjected to taking standardized tests and the scores determined if they would graduate to high school or not. This control over the CPS had its down falls, a lot of students in 1997 were held back and retained to the 8th grade and this policy would be to hold back any student that couldn't pass the exam. Most students were held back almost 3 years in the same grade and eventually dropped out after their second year as an 8th grader. RMD took steps to put schools with low scores in probation periods where they would have to get the students back on track and in to passing scores for the tests or would face closure. Most of the schools and students facing these issues were mostly African American and Latino communities in Chicago.

        NKO faced the same issues that plagued Chicago schools city wide. NKO was determined not to fall in the same categories as the rest of the failing schools. As Patillo points out in her reading, the gentrification in NKO would help the schools get better and have a fighting chance for the community to survive and rebuild. Middlemen in the NKO community helped bring this change full circle. These middlemen would come in to NKO and revive the community with new construction of housing and to attract the middle and upper class families back to the neighborhood they would introduce a hand full of new schools that were charted and privatized so only students with good records and grades would get admission. Before the takeover of CPS "the four year graduation rate at the high school was only 58 percent. Twenty three percent of the students there were chronically truant." The percentage of students graduating high school is remarkably low and needed to get a positive boost.

        The takeover would help schools in these kind situations get better funding and more attention by the school board, to insure that the kids in NKO get the proper education and skills to go out and fight for jobs in a global economy. NKO and other areas in Chicago got the reboot order where the neighborhood would change by attracting middle and upper class families back in to the city limits by attracting them to better housing and better schools, Patillo states "The consolidation of power under Mayor Daley meant that the same city leadership that was transforming public housing and enabling the resurgence of home buying and building in NKO was also addressing the poorly performing schools. All three endeavors were in the service of making Chicago an attractive place to live and work, especially attractive to the middle class." The NKO project for schools was a dramatic change for the community since it would shut down operations of the old school system and reopen as new schools, "the closing of Shakespeare Elementary School, to be reopened as two separate schools- Ariel Community Academy and the North Kenwood/Oakland Charter school- and the closure of Martin Luther King Jr. high school, to be reopened as Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep High School." In result to the changes of schools and structures, students that couldn't get admission in to these schools were sent to Price and Robinson school and any high school students that were rejected admission were forced to attend a nearby low performing High Schools.

        The change in NKO brought about a lot of issues that the community had to address, most of the discomfort came from the low income families still living in NKO that were subjected to send their kids outside the community because the admission process was so hard that it pretty much excluded them from even trying to enroll their kids in the new schools. "The first hurdle for admission was scoring at or above the national average on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in both reading and math- a minimum of 229 in reading and 231 in math... qualifying to apply is only the first step in an admissions process that also requires a separate entrance exam, seventh grade report cards, and attendance records." This jumping of loop holes was not set up to make it easy for students that didn't care for the education process and was for the families that wanted better for their kids. Most of the students who attended the new King College Prep weren't even from NKO, "In the first freshmen class, 13 percent of the students were from elementary schools in Hyde park and Kenwood, and 24 percent were from the Bronzeville area, the black communities to the west of North Kenwood-Oakland."

        This idea of changing the school system had been a purgative of RMD during his tenure in the mayor's office. The more over sweeping changes that RMD had for Chicago was to close down schools all over the city that weren't meeting expectations. A new initiative was introduced under the leadership of Arne Duncan and RMD which would privatize schools and would change how the schools structures and operations, " More recently, Daley and Duncan have introduced the Renaissance 2010 initiative, which links school closures to the creation of 100 new schools, many of which are expected to be charter schools operating independently of the CPS administration" 

        RMD had a lot on his plate during his years as a mayor, he had made great strides forward in changing Chicago in to a city that would be recognized in the global sphere as a city that can do and achieve the most for its residents. The Daley administration did a lot of visual changes to the city to bring an updated look to a city that not only functions as a well oiled machine but also looks the par with its appearance, "the Daley administration has put a tremendous emphasis on beautifying the cityscape through a myriad of physical enhancement techniques: tree-planting (the mayor boasts of having authorized the planting of 400,000 since 1989), streetscape improvements such as median-strip plantings and the placement of thousands of bicycle racks on commercial area sidewalks, the cultural thematizing of local commercial districts (Greektown, Bronzeville, Boystown, and so forth), the renovation of dozens of neighborhood playgrounds." These projects and many others helped bring people back in to the city and invest in neighborhoods that would have potentially lost more residents to nearby suburbs. In a negative look at the changes being made to the city, it drove out the African American and Latino groups out the city and further west and south to Chicago heights and other cities outside of Chicago due to the gentrification of the city. RMD also made big changes to the expansion of O'hare Airport, which was one of his bigger projects that he was successful in.

        Overall RMD has left a big foot print for our current Mayor Rahm, who has been diligently working towards his own campaign goals that he has promised to the city of Chicago. Regardless of who Chicago will have as mayor for the next 50 years the current trend the city is heading in is due to the hard work and dedication of the RJD and RMD. Both Daley mayors have put Chicago on their back and have made this city into what it is now. Some might not agree with the way things are currently in Chicago and have tried to take RMD down from his mayoral position but as time has gone only RMD could remove himself from office by retiring.