This is a guest post from Jennifer Davis, NCTL's Co-Founder and President.
Chicago’s children deserve better. The majority of the city’s public school students today are not being prepared for success in this increasingly competitive global economy. Without dramatic change, it is unlikely that Chicago students living in poverty today will even have the chance to live a middle class life. That is unacceptable.
Like other major U.S. cities, Chicago is working to ensure equal educational opportunities for all of its students, many of whom start school well behind their suburban counterparts. While progress has been made recently, there is a long way to go. The city’s schoolchildren score lower on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (in fourth-grade reading and math and eighth-grade math) than do children in other large cities, and only 57.5 percent of Chicago students graduate from high school. Without a high school diploma, students are doomed to low wages and few options.