CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago Public Schools have named a University of Chicago professor as the new chief education officer.

At a news conference Friday morning, interim CPS chief executive officer Terry Mazany named Charles Payne to the post.

Payne is the Frank P. Hixon distinguished service professor at the U of C's School of Social Service Administration. He focuses on school reform, urban education, social inequality and change, and Africna-American studies.

He is also the author of several books on education, activism and the Civil Rights movement, and recently published the volume So Much Reform, So Little Change about persistent failure in urban school districts.

He was also the founding director of the Urban Education Project in Orange, N.J., which is focused on broadening educational experiences for urban children.

Payne holds a bachelor's degree in African-American studies from Syracuse University, and a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University.

The chief education officer post at CPS has been vacant since Barbara Eason-Watkins resigned last year.