In 1947, nineteen-year-old Barbara Sizemore graduated from Northwestern University and left a job at Woolworth's to become a substitute classroom teacher on Chicago's South Side. Twenty-six years later, she was appointed superintendent of the Washington, DC, school system--the first African American woman to hold such a position in a major city. In 1992, she was appointed dean of the School of Education at DePaul University in Chicago, after a truly exceptional career in education that spanned more than five decades. ... Walking in Circles: The Black Struggle for School Reform, told in Sizemore's own voice, is at once an autobiography, a history of educational activism, and a presentation of experiences, perspectives and insights. The book offers a detailed overview of an extraordinary person committed to finding a way to offer quality education to the Black children growing up in America's cities. --Publisher description.