Turning 10 Years Old

Daniel Anello marks ten years at Kids First Chicago in January 2025. He reflects on our mission, the lessons we've learned, and the work that still lies ahead.

By Daniel Anello | January 29, 2025 |
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Ten years ago this month, Kids First Chicago launched with the idea of “giving parents the microphone.” The idea was guided by the insight that parents will do anything in their power to give their children the best opportunities available to them to thrive. Parents are truthtellers when it comes to the education of their children. And yet, for the most part, Black and Latine parents have been intentionally and systematically boxed out of education decision-making in urban districts like Chicago.

In 2015, we started with a laptop and an idea. But it was far from popular. Much of the work in education at that time centered on helping individual children do more and find better options. The idea of Black and Latine parents advocating for their children was a hollow view of mass mobilizations – activating parents in large numbers to protest or take specific positions for or against things, usually things that others wanted parents to stand up for. It was uncommon for parent advocacy ten years ago to think about centering parents' interests and deeply engaging them in designing solutions.

What did they want for their children? What dreams did their children have that they would do anything to help come true?

Our approach has always been rooted in the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Recognizing parents simply want what is best for their children; what if we engaged them, supported them, and authentically brought them into their children’s education? Wouldn’t they naturally push for changes that were rooted in what was best for their children? What group would be more inspired to drive positive transformation than a parent fighting for the betterment of their own children?

This work has always been deeply personal for me.

As a parent, I knew the power of that kind of motivation. Fighting for accommodations for a child with a disability had surfaced something raw and primal within me. My wife and I would learn anything and everything we could to protect my son and ensure he had whatever was required for him to succeed. We faced significant resistance and often didn’t know what to do next. These systems are not built for parents. But something organic in us meant we would not relent until his school provided the things he needed. It felt surreal that this same kind of innate parent power and voice had been so subdued in Chicago, given what it could mean for positive child-centered systemic change.

So, what have we learned in ten years?

  • Activating parents in a manner that centered them was easier said than done. We had to build trust with families first. That takes time, working in service to, and in deference to the needs and desires of families. It requires decentering the institution, scrapping any preset agenda, and just being human. This work has been about building authentic friendships with people.

  • We had to be proximal, listen, and truly be in community with families. We had to demonstrate that we weren’t there to do what so many others had done in the past –extract ideas, tokenize, and try to exploit their voices to push our own agendas or political ideology.

  • The strongest forms of oppression usually involve limiting access to information, to people, to opportunities. By simply helping parents obtain the information, resources, and access that so many of us take for granted, they easily found their voices and power. Their authentic truths cut through any political noise.

  • Our model works, and it works at scale.

The evidence is clear – engaged parents drive student and school success.

We know now that one of the most critical factors in student outcomes and a school’s success is parent engagement. The schools that rebounded the fastest from pandemic-driven learning loss were those with stronger parent-school relationships. All of this evidence should be enough for us to quadruple down on parent engagement. However, I feel like we are still just scratching the surface.

Positive change at scale will happen if we can push ourselves in these partnerships –to cede some power, open schools up to parents in a more vulnerable way, help parents better understand what is happening, and then ask them what they want. We need to commit to a reorientation of the school-parent relationship. With a mindset shift, we believe we can improve student outcomes at scale and drive even more positive change in our communities.

We have seen the approach of investing in people work magic over the past ten years. We believe centering parents can unlock a viable path to finally closing the Achievement Gap.

More broadly, we believe that centering those most proximal to our challenges – truly building relationships with them, ensuring they are positioned to inform direction and lead change, and then helping them do what they deem needs to happen to fix society's problems – will close nearly every gap if we are open to doing it.

Thank you to everyone who has and continues to believe in what we are attempting to do at Kids First Chicago. In ten years, we’ve accomplished big things but we have so much more work to do. We would not be where we are without the believers, partners, and supporters who gave our approach a chance to take shape. Thank you.

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