Three families tell why they ditched CPS

[pstokely]

"Why is the Chicago public school enrollment overwhelmingly low-income? Because when push comes to shove, the city's middle-class parents often shove off for the suburbs."

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/cps-alternatives-suburbs-magnet-selective-enrollment-lowincome/Content?oid=11046489

[frazzled]

1. Honey, that train left the station probably 3 decades ago

We lived here in the 70s, when we were in graduate school, and the "white flight" was already well in progress back then. We moved back 30-some years later, and it's just general "middle-class flight," no matter what race or ethnicity.

I live in a building where people have babies, which is great, but then I wait to see how long they'll stay before they move. Usually three or four years at most. Our neighbors waited until their two boys were 7 and 5 before they moved to the suburbs, which I thought was pretty good, considering it was a fairly tight space for four people.

Of course, they said it was to move close to family and to have a yard for the boys, and that part is probably true. They said they liked the public school the older boy was in ... but I wondered if school hadn't played some part.

On the other hand, we met a family who moved from the suburbs into the city just so their kids could go to Whitney Young for high school (that's a selective enrollment school, where Michele Obama went). Other friends of ours sent their (Korean-born) son to private school through 8th grade, and then sent him to the public high school (I think Jones Prep).

So it works both ways.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. In the '70s,

about 20% of my Arkansas high school class had come from the Chicago area.

[pstokely]

3. Only the academic 1% can get into those places

what about the 99%?

[frazzled]

5. That's not really true

Yes, there is an entrance exam, but entry is allocated through a "tier" system, based on socio-economic status. So you can get a much lower score if you're very low income group. You just have to be smart for your neighborhood, and that definition changes based on economic factors.

For the past three years, CPS has been using a socio-economic Tier system to select students for all of its selective admissions schools. Currently, thirty percent of seats are allocated to students with the highest academic performance citywide – regardless of their "socio-economic status". The remaining seventy percent are allocated to each of four socio-economic Tiers, with each Tier receiving 17.5%. Students compete for this portion based their academic performance in comparison with other students in their Tier.

Use of the Tier system has led to significant gaps in the academic achievement required for admissions between students from different parts of the City of Chicago. There is a particularly large gap between admissions scores of Tier 4 (the highest socio-economic Tier) and Tier 1 (the lowest socio-economic Tier) – in the more competitive schools.

In the most recent admissions year, there was a 49 point gap between the average score of an admitted Young Tier 4 and Tier 1 student – flat with last year's 51 point gap. The existence of a gap between admissions scores of this magnitude means that students with markedly different academic levels are being accepted to a school.


http://selectiveprep.com/8th-grade-program/selective-enrollment-high-school-profiles/whitney-young.html

[Chan790]

4. Interesting...

it's not just a phenomena of Chicago or inner-cities.

In my upper-class suburban CT hometown growing up, enrollment in the public schools drops 50% from 8^th grade to 9^th grade. It's one of the best public school districts in the state...but the HS enrollment is entirely made up of the less-wealthy and the kids that couldn't get in for academic or disciplinary reasons to Kingswood-Oxford, Exeter, Avon Old Farms, Loomis-Chafee, Miss Porter's Academy, the various local religious-prep and parochial schools, etc.