- Politico has a look at Chicago’s fast-approaching mayoral election, in which incumbent Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces off against four challengers. Even though he leads his closest opponent, Cook County Commissioner Jesus Garcia, by nearly twenty-five points, Rahm still can’t seem to consolidate the necessary support needed to avoid a runoff. At issue is his sweeping education reform agenda, which has been credited with the closure of a raft of failing schools, the expansion of pre-K to more low-income kids, and a record spike in the high school graduation rate. Teachers’ unions and their backers are having none of it, throwing their support behind Garcia after having gone on an infamous weeklong strike at the beginning of the mayor’s term. Let’s hope Rahm sticks to his guns and broadens the growing network of Democratic figures agitating for reform.
- The Windy City isn’t the only place handing out more caps and gowns. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. high school graduation rate reached a record 81 percent in 2013. It’s a terrific development, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan lost no time in trumpeting it as “a vital step toward readiness.” If you want to understand the causes of the increase, look no further than a certain oft-badmouthed piece of legislation that’s currently up for renewal: No Child Left Behind and its associated reforms arguably did more than anything else to propel students toward the commencement podium. As Johns Hopkins Professor Robert Balfanz recently told the Senate education committee, federal accountability turned around America’s graduation rates from a modern low of 71 percent in 2001 to its present-day peak.
- One great way to keep kids engaged and persisting through high school is by making room for earlier emphasis on career and technical education. On that front, some heartening news out of Wisconsin: Republican state legislators have crafted a proposal to allow the state’s sixteen technical colleges to authorize and run their own charter schools. The legislation would allow students to attend the affiliated charters over four years, earn their diploma, and then graduate from the authorizer college after a year with an associate’s degree. It’s exactly the kind of innovative approach the country needs to broaden the pathways to fulfilling careers.
