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Illinois School Board Journal
September/October 2006

Collaboration builds vo-tech charter idea

by Eileen Quinn Knight, Patrick M. Knight and Terry Stirling

Eileen Quinn Knight is a professor of education at St. Xavier University, Chicago; Patrick M. Knight is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Illinois-Chicago; Terry Stirling is associate dean of education at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.

Sometimes you need to break the mold in order to build something different. That's the premise behind a 2-year-old charter school in Chicago that was forged with a unique collaboration between higher education and local trade unions.

ACE Tech High School, which opened to students in August 2004, represents a model of innovative relationships and recognizes the importance of both academic education and the needs of industry. In addition to providing an excellent academic program for urban students, it also hopes to fulfill a growing need for a well-trained labor force by teaching students the skills required by construction trades, engineers and architects.

According to a Construction Industry Institute survey, 75 percent of contractors in the United States are experiencing a shortage of skilled labor, a situation surveys say will only get worse. The U.S. Department of Labor predicts the construction industry will need to attract 240,000 workers each year just to replace those leaving the workforce or retiring.

Exacerbating the situation is a shift in the culture from a workforce that is attracted to manual labor to one that is attracted more to technology. ACE Tech wants to teach both skill sets while also involving stakeholders in all aspects of school support.

In 1997, the School of Education at St. Xavier University was asked to assist the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 134 in improving instruction for that trade. As the university and the union collaborated on more effective teaching strategies and enrolled instructors in college courses so that they could obtain certificates in vocational education, a bigger issue emerged: a lack of minorities from the urban section of the city were applying to the IBEW apprenticeship program.

John Donahue, director of the IBEW-NECA Technical Institute, approached the university with this concern, which ultimately resulted in the application for a charter school that would specifically teach construction trades classes to minority urban students.

At the same time, as a response to closing 60 urban schools, Mayor Richard Daley proposed his Renaissance 2010 program for Chicago Public Schools. Renaissance 2010 will create 100 new schools over a six-year period. Of three elementary schools closed in 2002 (Dodge, Williams and Terrell), two reopened in 2003 as contract schools with national partners and local business leaders as part of new transition advisory councils (TACs). TACs, which serve as liaisons between the public school system and the community, are meant to ensure that the new schools offer high-quality educational options that reflect the community's needs and interests.

In 2004, Terrell reopened as the Architectural, Construction and Engineering Technical Charter High School, or ACE Tech. Its mission: to provide students the highest levels of instruction and academic achievement combined with exemplary character development that will prepare them for post-secondary and apprenticeship education and lifelong learning success.

"This model will generate competition and allow for innovation," Daley said of ACE Tech's opening. "It gives parents more options and will shake up the system."

The inaugural freshman class had 140 students, and classes began with seven teachers, most of whom held masters degrees. The school also had an executive director, a chief education officer and a business manager.

While the school is supported by Chicago Public Schools with $6,000 funding per pupil, it also receives donations from each member of its Board of Directors, who are committed to both the financial as well as educational issues of the school. This atypical school board has full construction industry representation: trade union officials, contractors, construction managers, architects, engineers and a university professor.

In addition to pledging $10,000 each in financial support, the board members each plan and promote a fund-raiser. This is in addition to attending monthly board meetings and holding a position on a standing committee.

While this represents much more involvement than the majority of public school board members in Illinois, this board has a vested interest in the information that the students are learning. The students who come out of the school are being prepared for jobs in their industries.

The hope is that this commitment of resources and time by these individuals, their organizations and their companies will sustain ACE Tech and provide students with the mentoring that will prepare them for success in subsequent training programs and colleges.

While the need for a well-skilled workforce and more minority representation is easy to document, formation of ACE Tech was not without controversy. Part of the dissention, however, came from opposition to the Renaissance 2010 plan as a whole, not the specifics of this school.

The Chicago Teachers Union and Chicagoans United for Education, a coalition of 20 different labor, community and parent organizations, led a labor rally against the Renaissance 2010 plan. Their disapproval of top-down reform included concerns about privatization of Chicago Public Schools and charter schools in general, the displacement of union workers and the closing of 60 public schools.

The IBEW, along with other trade unions that share a vested interest in ACE Tech, is caught between support for a school it sees as beneficial to union interests and support for members of the teachers union.

While there is currently not enough research to show whether such a charter school will promise better laborers in the workforce, the ongoing tension may resolve itself as students and more minority workers are prepared for skilled labor positions.

Ultimately, the desire of the board is to create and sustain a faculty that is excited and enthusiastic about teaching. In addition to participating in inclusive interviews, all teachers participate in a retreat at the beginning of the year.

During the retreat, issues of learning theories as well as a character-building program for the students were studied. The teachers took the time to create the beginnings of a learning community with similar ideas, theories and philosophies, even though the makeup of the faculty is as diverse as the city itself.

Students benefit from small class size, more opportunities to engage with teachers and the possibility of knowing everyone else at school — a real community of learners.

Each week, students participate in "Friday Alive!" — a presentation that features the history of one of the trades and how those workers spend their day. Afternoon projects help students understand the essence of the job of a particular workforce. For example, electricians might teach students how to create both serial and parallel circuits and how to bend pipe.

The activity does not try to coerce students into a particular trade but rather to provide information early enough in their high school career so they can make good choices.

The charter school also provides benefits for parents. Because ACE Tech is smaller and more centralized, parents find bureaucratic procedures much easier to navigate.

Parents commit themselves and their students to ACE Tech through a contract that is signed when the student enrolls. The agreement emphasizes good communication, with teachers available to parents both by e-mail and cell phone on a daily basis. As a result, attendance at parent night, open house and report card pickup has been about 95 percent — a significant difference from some larger counterpart high schools.

Even though demand for construction workers is high, the board plans to keep enrollment at ACE Tech under 600. This will allow for a more personalized, collaborative educational environment, both for students and faculty who enjoy the teaching and learning that takes place in an atmosphere of much less anxiety than a larger school setting.

The university will provide ongoing mentorship for teachers and staff to help them maximize their talents, while the Board of Directors takes a more active role by taking pride in their own particular aspect of the construction industry. All of this allows students to observe a plethora of adults who are happy and dedicated to their everyday work.

Plans for the future also include establishment of grant programs to assist with school expenses, as well as encouraging students to enter local and state competitions in writing, architecture, engineering and other aspects of construction work.

But most of all, ACE Tech wants to "break the mold" in making a good education accessible to economically challenged urban students.