HR0452 98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0452 LRB098 12393 MST 46768 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are pleased to recognize Chicago Tribune reporter Gary Marx on receiving the Education Writers's Award for his series with David Jackson on truancy; and

WHEREAS, The Education Writers Association has given a top award to a 2012 Chicago Tribune series that used internal Chicago attendance data to reveal a devastating pattern of school absences in grades K-8 that disproportionately affects African-American youth and children with disabilities; while Chicago officials for years published upbeat attendance statistics, the newspaper found roughly 32,000 elementary students missed at least a month of classes in a year, while thousands more simply vanished from the attendance rolls; and

WHEREAS, Chosen from among hundreds of submissions across the country, the series won first prize for investigative reporting among large newspapers; and

WHEREAS, Days after the publication of the series in November 2012, State lawmakers began working on reforms aimed at saving thousands of children from isolation and failure; and

WHEREAS, Gary Marx is an investigative reporter with the Chicago Tribune; he started at the Tribune in 1988; he has been the paper's South America correspondent (1990-1994), covered criminal justice, and served on the foreign staff based in Havana, Cuba from 2002-2007; he has covered numerous armed conflicts and U.S. military operations including Iraq, Somalia, Hati, and Colombia; and

WHEREAS, Gary Marx is a 2-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting; other national awards he has received include the Heywood Broun Award, the IRE FOI Medal, the Education Writers Association Grand Prize, and a National Press Club Award; for his abroad work, he has received the Overseas Press Club Citation, the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, and the Inter-American Press Association Human Rights Award; and

WHEREAS, Gary Marx began his journalism career in 1983 with the Christian Science Monitor and later joined the Orlando Sentinel; he has a bachelors of arts from Harvard and a masters degree from the London School of Economics; in 2001, he was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford and in 2008 he was a visiting Fellow at Notre Dame's Kellogg Institute of International Studies; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we recognize Chicago Tribune reporter Gary Marx on receiving the Education Writers's Award for his series with David Jackson on truancy and thank him for his efforts in investigative journalism to uncover those stores that need to be told; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Gary Marx as an expression of our esteem and respect.