Education Lab Commentary: Corporate help for CPS? Here's how it can work
Chicago Tribune / December 12, 2018
By Arne Duncan and Dale Erquiaga
No matter how hard educators try, they don’t have the means to ensure educational opportunity, let alone future success, for every student.
We learned this important truth in our past lives as education officials, and it’s a reality that teachers and principals face every day in Chicago, where 3 in 4 public school students are economically disadvantaged and neighborhood violence, though declining, remains devastatingly high.
What it will take to improve all students’ chances is complex, but it’s not a mystery. In Chicago and across the country, school districts, private social service organizations and corporations are joining forces to create the scaffolding every student needs to do well in school and in life. For Chicago Public Schools — America's fastest-improving urban school district — we believe such an all-hands-on-deck approach to education will accelerate progress even further and sustain it for decades to come.
Chicago’s corporations can be the spark for that leap forward. Many of them have built a generous legacy in Chicago already, and we challenge those forerunners and other local businesses to underscore even further their commitment to the students and future of this city. At a time of shrinking education budgets, they have the opportunity to pick up the slack and help write education history.
