Charles M. Payne

Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago

Charles M. Payne is the Frank P. Hixon Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. His interests include urban education and school reform, social inequality, social change and modern African American history. Payne is the author of several books, including the award-winning “I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.” His newest book is “So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools.” His current book project is entitled, “Schooling the Ghetto,” an analysis of the last 50 years of debates about urban schools. He is the co-founder of the Duke Curriculum Project, one of the founders of the Education for Liberation Network, and he served as interim director of the Woodlawn Children’s Promise Community in Chicago. He has a bachelor’s degree in Afro-American studies from Syracuse University and a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University.