Direct from Washington, March 2009

Renewed Role for CTE in Chicago

The nation’s third-largest urban school system, which gave the Obama Administration its new Secretary of Education, is taking another look at the advantages of career and technical education.

The Chicago Public Schools has been almost totally focused on getting students ready for college in recent years, just like almost every other school system in the country. Since 2004, the number of students enrolled in career and technical classes has declined 18 percent, but there are signs that school officials believe CTE should make a comeback. A recent issue of Catalyst, a publication that follows education reforms in Chicago, focused on a renewed role for CTE. Former Superintendent Arne Duncan’s big reform initiative, Renaissance 2010, includes two schools that have been reconstituted with strong programs in high-tech manufacturing and the construction trades. Four more career-prep schools will open within the next two years.

The school system has created a new Department of College and Career Preparation, and the mayor, who has control over the schools, is bringing together employers and other stakeholders to work on school-to-work transitions. According to the director of the new department, Greg Darnieder, “our intent is to retool the whole strategy” with the end in mind, whether it is college, the workplace, an associate’s degree program, or an industry certificate.

According to the Catalyst, however, parents are still leery of what they remember as old-style vocational programs. When the district originally made plans to replace a vocationally oriented high school with a new organization, it was going to set up separate vocational and college-prep programs. Parents demanded something else—career programs such as new communications media and a medical academy—that would require postsecondary education.