Chicago To Make Future Plans a Graduation Requirement (thehill.com)

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual's recently approved plan will require high school students show their plans for the future before obtaining their diploma. "Students will soon have to show that they've secured a job or received a letter of acceptance to college, a trade apprenticeship, a gap year program or the military in order to graduate," reports The Hill. From the report: "We are going to help kids have a plan, because they're going to need it to succeed," Emanuel told the Post. "You cannot have kids think that 12th grade is done." But critics say the district may not be able to provide mentoring to help needy students when the rule takes effect in 2020. "It sounds good on paper, but the problem is that when you've cut the number of counselors in schools, when you've cut the kind of services that kids need, who is going to do this work?" Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, told the Post. "If you've done the work to earn a diploma, then you should get a diploma. Because if you don't, you are forcing kids into more poverty."

Comments

Re:Ass-backwards?

[sexconker]

The goal is to keep more cattle in the academia industrial complex because the massive debt they accumulate, and the years they waste not entering the workforce, help the corporate masters strengthen their grip.

Not Consonant with a Free People

[cervesaebraciator]

Those 18 year olds are free men and women. Neither Chicago, nor the State of Illinois, nor the Federal government own them. This proposal, however, presumes too much. One must have a diploma at minimum to participate in much of society. But now this paternalistic body speaks to these young men and women as if to say, "Before you can receive this academic certification, you must prove your willingness to offer years of your life to a corporate master (i.e. find an employer who will deign to accept you), a military hierarchy (with the concomitant possibility of losing your life), or to a bank (in the form of bankruptcy-proof student loans). The wealthy, of course, will be excepted by means of gap-year programs but you, peasant, you must swear fealty."

I cannot deny the practical value of a proposal like this. It's certainly there. But I do deny the right of the state to gainsay an adults freedom to choose either to work or not work, to go to college or to spend a few years mooching off his willing parents, to take on debt or hang out in the basement writing or inventing or starting a business or playing video games.

Re:Not Consonant with a Free People

[Baron_Yam]

It would be better if there was a policy (with funding) that required schools to provide sufficient guidance services to all graduates who request them to help them find that first job, apprenticeship program, or post-secondary institution that will take them. Guidance services that should probably start in their freshman high school year.

"Do this difficult adult thing, kid, or we will hobble your future" is nasty. "Here, let me help you do this difficult thing because that piece of paper alone won't cut it" isn't.

I find this horrifying

[rsilvergun]

and it's the kind of thing that makes me think there's something genuinely evil behind it. There's no benefit here. If a kid doesn't have problems in life they'll be college bound. But a kid who does just got a whole new set of problems to worry about. More friction at home. More fights.

As for 'counselors' my kid just graduated. Her counselors were worse than useless. Overworked. Under trained and under resourced. They knew most of the kids were boned and made no secret of it. And this was in one of the best schools in the city. What I'm saying is any kid that doesn't have amazing parents (or at least rich ones) is screwed. Oh, and speaking of rich parents if you're the kind of rich brat that gets to travel for a year you can easily get exempted from this.

My guess is this is the local businesses looking to get cheap labor from desperate kids who now must have a job to graduate. We'll probably see more 'internships' where you're working full time for little or no pay. I can't think of another reason to push something this awful and this obviously unpopular. If anyone else knows what evil thing is behind this let me know.

Re:Not News for Nerds

[vtcodger]

Education is important, but it's not clear this has anything much to do with education. This is about a probably nutty idea that punishes 17-18 year olds for not having a clear idea what they want to do with their lives. Or maybe it punishes them for having such an idea if it isn't conventional.

My opinion. The kids did the school work. Give them their damn diploma.