Comments on: Admissions policy community meeting this Thursday evening

By: hopeful

hopeful — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 04:40:30 +0000

It appears from the website osae or something like that, that the board has approved the proposal with one small change. Instead of 50% of remaining spots going to proximity kids, after siblings get as many as are available, only 40% will. The other 60% goes into the general lottery.

By: Y

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:01:32 +0000

I also attended the meeting on Thursday. I think the proposed high school SE process is a lot cleaner than the previous arrangement. In the new scheme, the students are sorted by their total score and then starting at the top, 50% of the slots are offered to students based on their highest ranked school that still has spots open. This is a better process than the old one where students had to make an educated guess on what school to list first in hopes that they would qualify since their second and third choices would be ignored by those schools. The new process is cleaner. I think there is room to debate whether some minorities will end up with fewer seats due to increased competition from the proposed 50% merit-based selection process.

By: Mayfair Dad

Mayfair Dad — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:19:43 +0000

I was there, along with 50-75 other concerned citizens. The CPS presentation was a fairly dry and perfunctory review of the PowerPoint slides, followed by Q & A. On elementary schools: CPS rep committed to “some form of bussing next year” though no particulars offered after a well-delivered message from the Edison Gifted LSC chair. On high schools: most confusion/interest in how the survey tract information will play out, how the magic algorhythm will ultimately select the one perfect school for your child. Progress? Maybe. Transparency? Nope. Very telling to me when two CPS reps gave conflicting answers on the significance of preference in filling out high school applications.

By: hopeful

hopeful — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:13:21 +0000

Does anyone have any feedback on this meeting? I am assuming this was CPS telling us what they are going to do rather than CPS getting feedback and changing the actual proposed policy.

By: chicago parent

chicago parent — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:20:00 +0000

This should be an interesting meeting indeed. Can someone please ask whether mean test scores & GPAs of admitted students from the various socio-economic groups are going to be published? Otherwise this new system will not be transparent — at least in my opinion.