July 8, 2017

Chicago mayor puts draconian limits on high school graduation

Jezebel - Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made Chicago Public Schools the first big-city system to require a job, a college acceptance letter, gap-year program enrollment or enlistment in the military as a condition of graduating from high school. Aside from the obvious issues with the school system potentially withholding a diploma even if a student earned it, detractors say Chicago doesn’t have the resources to pull it off, mostly because of the mayor.

In 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported that the financial issues faced by CPS were largely the fault of Emanuel, who delayed making payments to teacher pensions or searching for new revenue streams, and dropped fiscal responsibility measures implemented in the mid-’90s, when the state gave Chicago’s mayor control over the district following emergency state management. The Tribune notes Emanuel was just one in a line of mayors who failed the needs of CPS, but his decisions have put the district in a difficult position to implement this new requirement.

3 comments:

Bill Hicks said...

Emmanuel--Obama's gatekeeper at a time when the latter might have been able to turn the country around. Hell isn't hot enough for either of them.

Anonymous said...

Rahm Emanuel is a congenital creep.

He was a creep as Obama's chief of staff and he is still a creep, without hope of change.

Only in America would a person of his character be voted into office.

Anonymous said...

I'm getting so fed up with the infantilizing of young adults. Will Chicago schools help seniors achieve something from this laundry list of extras, that should be well beyond the scope of school requirements for graduation? Probably not. I get the feeling this is in part a ploy to force young men of color into the military, because they may have problems getting the other requirements covered, especially without help from the schools.

All Emmanuel is doing is guaranteeing the graduation rate will go down in Chicago. Attendance in high school by juniors and seniors will drop as these students either go get their GED, or head off early to community college, because getting a HS diploma is now too much of a hassle, especially if the program is underfunded.