At Mayor Daley’s Tech Summit this morning, Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman urged local technology leaders to support the Chicago Academy for Advanced Technology (CAAT).
An innovative new high school in Chicago, CAAT opened this fall with a class of 150 high school freshmen – all “future leaders in technology,” according to Mr. Huberman.
“We are going to learn how you integrate technology into the curriculum. . . . We can learn from this school and then take what we learn and implement that technology in all schools,” he said.
Located near the UIC Medical District, CAAT is a CPS contract school operated by the Center for Polytechnical Education, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to linking education and workforce development.
Mayor Daley also praised CAAT, noting that many young people “know more about technology than most adults.”
“We have to really capture them in school. The old way of just throwing out the books and them sitting in the classroom — many times is not working. But, technology does work with a lot of students and we have to figure that out.”
Hosted at Microsoft’s Chicago headquarters, the Tech Summit united almost 100 leaders and entrepreneurs from the local technology industry. The event also featured two other City of Chicago initiatives, Tech Corps and Digital Excellence.
