Next fall, five of the world’s biggest tech companies will each partner with a CPS high school to provide students with a STEM-based education. Principal Douglas Maclin at Chicago Vocational Career Academy told me that, since the announcement, he has had to dedicate a staff member solely to answering calls from parents who want to enroll their child in his STEM school.
I want students, parents and employers to have that kind of confidence in all our schools, from kindergarten to college. While riding the L last fall, I met a young man who was commuting from his classes at Harold Washington College to his night job at a Target warehouse. I am confident that he is doing all the right things to earn a good job. He should have confidence that his diploma has economic value to employers.
That’s why we started our Colleges to Careers program that partners leading companies with Chicago City Colleges. Each college will become a center of excellence in each of the fastest-growing sectors of our economy. We are updating their campuses and updating their concentration to vocation-based training, so that both our students and employers have confidence in the City Colleges curriculum.
As a result of our emphasis on education, the best companies in the world have growing confidence that Chicago’s work force will continue to have the depth they need to locate and expand here. Since I took office, about 25 leading companies have brought nearly 15,000 jobs to our city. Full article at
Chicago Sun Times