Mayor Emanuel, Chicago Public Schools and Northwestern University Team Up with Apple to Support Computer Science Teachers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Chicago Public Schools, Apple and Northwestern University today announced a new collaboration to offer free professional learning to teachers across Chicago. Through this unique partnership, teachers will receive the training they need to effectively bring coding, computer science and problem solving into their classrooms for success in the 21st Century workplace.

“When you combine the brainpower of Chicago Public Schools, Northwestern University and Apple, the possibilities are limitless,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “This partnership will support Chicago teachers, spark the imaginations of Chicago students and accelerate the record academic gains we are experiencing across our city.”

Chicago Public Schools, Apple and Northwestern University will establish a Center for Excellence at Lane Tech College Prep High School, which will serve as a teaching and learning hub to introduce and train teachers in Apple’s Everyone Can Code curriculum. This collaboration will help expand opportunities for local teachers, giving them new expertise to share with their students and providing them an opportunity to be trained on Apple’s Swift programming platform.

“There’s no better place than Chicago Public Schools – the first urban school district to make computer science a graduation requirement – to see the benefit that computer science instruction is having on students,” said Dr. Janice K. Jackson, CEO of Chicago Public Schools. “Our innovative collaboration with Apple and Northwestern will prepare more educators to lead 21st Century classrooms and help ensure Chicago students have the resources, support and high-quality instruction needed to become tomorrow’s leaders.”

Apple will develop the teacher training, collaborating with Northwestern University faculty to leverage decades of research and experience, and professors from Northwestern will lead the sessions. The Center for Excellence will bring together teachers from throughout the Chicago area to gain expertise in the Everyone Can Code curriculum, a free program designed by Apple to help students of all ages and backgrounds learn how to code, starting with basic coding concepts and advancing to tools for building fully functional apps.

"We strive to bring Northwestern's research, teaching, and service missions together in our local communities to make lives better in our hometowns of Chicago, Evanston and beyond,” said David Figlio, Dean of Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy. "By collaborating with visionary companies like Apple and the education experts in the Chicago Public Schools, we have the chance to do something transformative for Chicago and the world.”

In addition to free professional learning sessions at the Center for Excellence, participating educators will also have access to in-school coaching and mentorship opportunities to ensure they are comfortable teaching the complete Everyone Can Code curriculum. Apple will provide iPads, Macs, carts and accessories to support the hands-on learning at the Center for Excellence.https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif

This effort is an extension of an existing collaboration between Apple and the City of Chicago to bring coding opportunities to Chicago’s nearly 500,000 students through a citywide expansion of Apple’s Everyone Can Code program. Apple launched the largest citywide implementation of Everyone Can Code in Chicago last year, an initiative to provide community-wide coding education programs to students around the world. Students who complete the curriculum in Chicago will have the opportunity to participate in a combination of paid and unpaid internships at some of the city’s leading businesses.

Apple also recently announced it will expand its support of the City of Chicago’s One Summer Chicago Program. As part of One Summer Chicago, the City’s Department of Family and Support Services partnered with CPS and Apple to create the One Summer Chicago CS4ALL Technology Program. Last year, one hundred students from Gage Park, Amundsen, Austin College and Career Academy, Solorio and Julian learned Swift Playgrounds in its first year. This summer the program is expected to expand to 200 youth, providing them with a pathway to paid internships at major corporations.

Mayor Emanuel and CPS launched the Computer Science for All (CS4All) initiative for grades K-12 in 2013 in order to prepare CPS students for the jobs of the future. Since the launch, several large urban districts have replicated a curriculum and model similar to Chicago's. In doing so, CPS became the first school district in the country to elevate computer science as a core requirement for high school, separate from math and science.

Chicago Public Schools serves 371,000 students in 646 schools. It is the nation’s third-largest school district.

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