The Economist – Staff Writer
““NO FAMILY should go to the poorhouse because they are giving their kid a crack at the American dream,” said Rahm Emanuel on January 9th. Chicago’s mayor was presenting his plans for education at Kenwood Academy, a high school on the city’s South Side. On the same day in Tennessee, President Barack Obama announced plans to exempt qualified students from tuition fees at community colleges. The White House had taken a leaf out of Chicago’s book, said Mr Emanuel, who last October introduced the Chicago STAR Scholarship, which pays the community-college tuition fees of the best graduates from Chicago’s public-school system. Mr Emanuel wants more students to enroll in a college and take courses (and, if they pass, get credits) while still in their last year of high school, which helps to reduce their tuition costs later. With the help of a donation of $500,000 over three years from General Electric, the programme will grow from almost 2,500 students to more than 6,000 next year. Kenwood Academy has more students in the programme than any other high school in Chicago.”(more)