Chicago’s New Direction: Leading the Race to the Top in Global High-Performance Manufacturing (cont.)

Austin Polytechnical Academy

DeCardy Diecasting, which has been manufacturing high-precision parts in the Chicago area for nearly 100 years, is one of the Austin Polytech partner companies.

Austin Polytechnical Academy will be a small “performance” school – different from a charter school – employing teachers from the Chicago Teachers Union. The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2007 with a freshman class of 140 students, adding one class per year to eventually reach a size of 550 to 600 students. It will be one of two small schools that will occupy the four-story building that was once Austin High School.

Austin Polytech will be a “school of choice” – similar to a magnet school, but without entry requirements – focused on recruiting students from the Austin neighborhood. Residents of Austin, once a stable, working-class community, have witnessed the dramatic loss of manufacturing companies and jobs over the last 25 years. The loss of industry contributed to Austin’s decline, and the neighborhood now has high rates of families and children in poverty (30 percent of residents live below the poverty line). In addition, less than two-thirds of the population over age 25 has completed high school (the national average is around 85 percent).

So far, 23 companies have signed a letter of commitment with the school to provide general support (such as funding or equipment); work exposure for freshman students (e.g., field trips to the companies, or visits from company representatives to classrooms); internships and summer jobs for students starting in their sophomore year; and prospects for full-time employment upon graduation. Companies, as well as teachers, community members, parents and students, will be represented on the governing body of the school. The school also will employ a full-time industry coordinator to work as an intermediary between companies and schools.

Austin Polytech will be linked generally to careers in modern manufacturing and primarily to the metal-working sector. However, the school will be much more than an update of the traditional vocational education model that typically led to limited economic opportunities. Austin Polytech’s administrative team will promote career paths in skilled production and technical positions, as well as management and ownership of companies – preparing students both for college and for employment immediately after graduation.

The curriculum will be anchored in a pre-engineering program called Project Lead the Way, with a focus on machining. Project Lead the Way has an outstanding reputation in assisting minority students to get placed in engineering schools. Each student will graduate with at least two National Institute of Metalworking Skills credentials and perhaps as many as eight, qualifying them for immediate employment in skilled positions out of high school.

And Austin Polytech is international in outlook, recognizing that key competitive sectors in the global economy can be maintained by understanding and employing international best practices in both production and education.

Toward that end, we have established a working partnership with the Aldini-Valeriani school in Bologna, Italy, an international center for innovation in modern manufacturing. This school was founded in 1844 from the inheritances of two local inventors and has been called the “cradle of entrepreneurship” in Bologna. Bologna’s world-famous packaging industry was essentially built by graduates of the Aldini-Valeriani school, who effectively used their combination of entrepreneurial and technical skills to start the small and medium firms that make up the region’s globally competitive packaging “district” today. Fifteen percent of the school’s graduates end up owning local companies. The school also has traditionally played an important role in technology transfer. Always at the cutting edge, it often brings new knowledge, machinery and technology to the local economy ahead of the businesses themselves.

Leading to the top

Through a determination to lead the race to the top, the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council is mobilizing the talents of residents and students in one of Chicago’s poorest communities to demonstrate the transformative power of a vibrant manufacturing economy.

Perhaps in the near future, headlines will reflect the growth and opportunities that remain in the manufacturing economy, and optimism will replace the resignation that has allowed the decline of this important sector.

For more information, visit the Center for Labor and Community Research Web site at www.clcr.org and the Chicago Manufacturing Renaissance Council Web site at www.chicagomanufacturing. net. For more information on Austin Polytechnical Academy, visit www.clcr.org/austinpolytech/.

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