With a high school dropout rate around 35 percent, Chicago is a city full of out-of-school teenagers. Educators, activists, reformers, and district officials have competing ideas on how to reverse this trend. Yet students’ perspectives are often missing from the conversation on dropout prevention. We talk with young people – two who left CPS without a high school diploma, and one who decided to stay in school – about their ideas to change the system.
Drop-outs
Communities across Chicago are concerned with the city’s alarming high school dropout rate. But what would a comprehensive, district-wide dropout prevention campaign actually look like? And is CPS on the right path to unraveling this problem? We evaluate the big picture with University of Chicago researcher Elaine Allensworth and alternative schools leader Jack Wuest.
