Findings from a UIC Great Cities Institute report on unemployment in the city are cited in Chicago magazine’s profile of Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education, and his current efforts here to create an employment program for young African American men.
When he left President Obama’s cabinet last December, after seven years, Duncan, 51, had no shortage of options. But whatever he did next, one thing was nonnegotiable: It would be in his hometown of Chicago, where he spent his childhood playing pickup basketball and later served as CEO of public schools. After all, the city, his nest, is in crisis. Murders are at a 20-year high, and a staggering 46 percent of black men ages 20 to 24 are both out of work and out of school, according to an often-quoted study by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute.
