Career Academies

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS) aim for all high school graduates to be college and career ready. Both parts of this goal—college and career readiness—are critical, as fewer than 10% of all high school freshmen in CPS earn college degrees within 10 years of entering high school.

In other words, most CPS high school students will be entering the workforce within 4-6 years of starting 9th grade. Today, more than 25,000 Chicago public school students participate in Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, but fare on average no better in the labor market than those completing the general CPS curriculum.

Civic Consulting worked with CPS to re-tool CTE and improve the quality of career instruction. CTE focuses on skills that lead to higher paying jobs and engaging businesses to help design the programs. Civic Consulting helped develop four new career academy high schools, one in each of the pilot sectors.

The efforts in CPS are gaining national attention as the President has made career education a key focus of his education agenda.