Edwin Gilbert Cooley (March 12, 1857 – September 28, 1923) was an American teacher who served as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools from 1900 to 1909.
[1] He started college at Iowa State University in 1872, but had to leave to work as a wagon maker's apprentice.
[2] As superintendent, Cooley sought to combat graft and political patronage in the Chicago schools[1] through more centralized control and promotion of efficiency.
[3] In 1901 he backed a reform bill proposed by a commission headed by William Rainey Harper that would have required a college degree to teach in the school system.
[6] Cooley was subsequently president of the publisher D. C. Heath and Company, then from 1910 to 1915, educational commissioner of the Commercial Club of Chicago.