Our education initiatives focus primarily on topics related to creating the workforce that will make Chicago globally competitive in the 21st Century.
Chicago Public Schools / Career and Technical Education (CTE)
Starting in February of 2006, CCA began working with the Chicago Public Schools to define a strategy for career and technical education (what used to be known as “vocational education”) so that those who enter the workforce directly from high school are on a path that leads to careers, rather than dead-end jobs.
In August of 2006 the results of this work were presented to Mayor Daley. CCA and the CPS leadership team recommended that CPS develop a new approach to career education, based on a network of dedicated career academies, geographically dispersed across the City. Since then, CCA has been working with CPS to increase the number of career academies across the system.
Partners
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Mercer HR Consulting
Community College Symposium
On October 10th, CCA convened a symposium on urban community colleges, the first or only point of entry to higher education for more than 40% of Americans, and the primary educator of African American and Hispanic college students in Chicago. Locally, our City Colleges serve nearly 130,000 students annually, and more CPS graduates attend the City Colleges of Chicago than any other institution of higher education. Still, our City Colleges remain, in many ways, on the periphery. If Chicago is to remain a world-class City, able to attract and retain employers, we need a high performing community college system whose success is high on the agenda of our collective civic leadership.
The goal of this symposium was to identify specific actions that will help Chicago’s civic leadership better understand, demand more from, and support our local community colleges. By bringing together local and national education, business, and philanthropic leaders, CCA launched a conversation that is leading to joint action, improved student success, and, ultimately, economic growth for Chicago.
The symposium led directly to the launch of our Steering Committee to define the role of community colleges in Chicago, and subsequently Chicago LEADS designed to integrate education, workforce, and economic development initiatives across the city.
Support
- Spencer Foundation
- Lumina Foundation
- Joyce Foundation
- Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust
Community College Steering Committee
Throughout the symposium discussion, it was evident that Chicago’s local community colleges, are neither well understood nor recognized by many civic leaders. CCA therefore convened a cross-section of leaders and asked the group to suggest what role they hope Chicago’s local colleges, the City Colleges of Chicago, should play in Chicago.
This question is important not only to Chicago, but also to the nation. What the committee explored was, fundamentally, the expectations of our educational system. As summarized as recently as April 22, in the New York Times:
Matters were simpler 100 years ago, when junior colleges were created to prepare deserving students for the final two years of a university. . . Community Colleges today do far more than offer a ladder to the final years. They train the people who repair your furnace, install your plumbing, take your pulse. They prepare retiring baby boomers for second or third careers, and provide opportunities for a growing number of college-age students turning away from the high cost and competition at universities. And charged with doing the heavy remedial lifting, community colleges are now as much 10th and 11th grade as 13th and 14th.
Two-year colleges receive less than 30 percent of state and local financing for higher education . . . [Yet they] enroll nearly half of all undergraduates.
The Committee, a cross-section of Chicago leaders from the business, philanthropic, and not-for-profit communities, made recommendations on job opportunities across Chicago; challenges the Colleges face; and, most importantly, which parts of the community college mission are most critical for Chicago’s future.
Partners
- Boston Consulting Group
- Federal Reserve Bank
Chicago LEADS: Leading Economic Advancement, Development and Sustainability
Chicago invests more than $300 million in public funds, and about the same in private funds, annually, on workforce development. Roughly two-thirds of the public investment is focused on entry-level jobs, and only about one-third is focused on moving low-wage workers to better paying jobs. Whether this split matches the needs of our residents and businesses, however, is unclear. It is also unclear what return these investments generate overall, for our residents, businesses, and city. What we do know is that low-wage, entry-level jobs are growing faster than jobs that pay family-supportive wages, and that to retain its position as a world-class city, Chicago needs an economy that supports middle class families, and a workforce that can support that economy.
In response to these challenges, the City, in collaboration with CCA and its partners, has developed Chicago LEADS: Leading Economic Advancement, Development, and Sustainability.
Chicago LEADS aims to build wealth in communities, by:
- Increasing significantly the pipeline of skilled labor
- Supporting local business in finding qualified workers
- Enhancing the attractiveness of Chicago as a business destination
While chartered as a two-year effort, Chicago LEADS aims to begin long-term system reform, the impact of which will be felt for decades. The program is designed around three elements:
- Engaging the entire city – including Mayoral and CEO leadership, delegate agencies, private training providers, city agencies that administer funding, and others – around clear, specific, and transparent goals
- Launching pilots – e.g., expansion of a community college bridge program from 25 to 250 students; creation of a transit career academy at the Chicago Public Schools; and development of a nursing faculty pipeline that can solve the shortage of nurses – that demonstrate how different parts of the system can work together to achieve these goals
- Developing systems that collect and analyze outcomes data, and flexible streams of funding that can be used to attract innovative workforce providers, and grow successful programs to scale
Partners:
- Boston Consulting Group
- Bain and Company