CPS Obsessed

12 Comments Add your own

• 1. hopeful  |  March 8, 2010 at 5:19 pm

  It seems to me that the problem is not that they didn’t get enough less wealthy kids, but rather that they did not get enough kids of color. White kids in Tiers 1 and 2 shut out minority kids in those same tiers and that is why they are pulling in kids from poorly performing schools, since those schools are 99-100% minority. I could be wrong, but that sounds like what happened.

• 2. Need to Wait  |  March 8, 2010 at 6:22 pm

  Until all the children are selected and accept placement into each of the SE schools, and their race is finally known, I doubt CPS will publish any information about how the schools break down by race or gender. They still have to wait for some to decline, others to get in on the 2nd round and the principal selection takes place. Then they will add in the 25 extra kids and then maybe they will give numbers.

  Not sure after all that if anyone will be able to tell exactly what happened during the first round.

  I can tell from personal experience that it appears some kids from tiers 3 and 4 that would have gotten in based on last year’s rules did not get in on the first round this year. What seems most interesting is that most of these kids are Hispanic or black. In the past, even though they lived in “wealthy areas”, because of their race, they were selected while this year, race could not be a factor.

  What we may have now is more kids living far away from each other rather than a diverse group of kids that may have lived near each other. Not sure that is the best thing.

  It really hurts that some kids that may live in a one or two bedroom apartment, whose parents just opted to pay rent and live in a good neighborhood (even if they could not afford it) so their kids could be safe, are now forced out of the SE schools because their parents originally made the right choice on where to live (tier 4). These kids deserve a slot in a SE school because they worked hard, studied, did well in school and on all the tests. But, because they had to compete with kids from private schools that live in tier 4, they were shut out.

  Maybe CPS needs to create SE schools that have a requirement that you cannot live more than X miles from it? I hate seeing kids have to travel such long distances to school or to visit friends.

  I know CPS was just trying to maintain diversity, but only time will tell what they really received.

• 3. mom  |  March 8, 2010 at 8:37 pm

  No–I think there were just more seats this year for non-minorities and so white kids who would not have gotten in in the past got in with lower scores and then those who had slightly lower scores complained because they didn’t get in.

• 4. Mayfair Dad  |  March 9, 2010 at 10:27 am

  Remember only 15% of all applicants get accepted, so 85% of applicants’ parents will be dissatisfied. Blogging allows the dissatisfied parents to share their dissatisfaction 24/7.

  We need more SE-quality high schools dispersed all over the city. Kids should not have to travel across town to receive a college prep education.

  The Tier system looks good on paper, but using the imprecise, out-of-date census information compromised its effectiveness. Huberman further compromised its integrity by cherry picking students outside of the process to color-correct admissions at a handful of elite schools.

  Since 7th grade report cards determine the trajectory of your child’s life, there needs to be a uniform grading scale in place. Another glaring miss by Hubie & Co.

  The Select 100 public relations stunt does nothing to address the real problem: King (94% black); Brooks (85% black); Lindblom (78% black). What is the plan to diversify these schools? Or is it O.K. for schools in predominantly black neighborhoods to have predominantly black student populations?

  Why is this about race anyway?

• 5. Justanaunt  |  March 10, 2010 at 10:40 pm

  I don’t think it was about race but CPS competence, or the lack thereof. Where did the “admission test” come from? CPS says it was “nationally normed” but there is no information where it came from. It was statistically impossible to get into the “elite” schools without doing extremely well on that test.

  The data on which they relied for their “tiers” is, at least as disclosed, incomplete. Question. Can you get a four digit “socioeconomic score” from two digit percentiles on their disclosures?

  If CPS would release the census tracts for the 1st offer letters, we would have a better source for checking whether children who lived in areas which have been recently gentrified are disproportionately included in the alleged “tier 1″ or “tier 2″ admissions.

  CPS has not explained how their “tiers” were based upon an assumed population of 540,000 children age 5-18 in Chicago, yet they only have 407000 PreK to High School and their capacity at neighborhood schools & other schools could not accomodate that number. Where are the “missing” children?

  I think we are all being snowed. No disrespect is intended in any manner to the children who tried so hard or to ignore the fact that a child who managed to achieve despite hardships ought be rewarded. It is simply wrong for 8th grade children – regardless of their “tiers” to be put under such pressure.

  Just some thoughts.

• 6. Anyone get a SE high school letter today?  |  March 11, 2010 at 12:17 am

  I’m not sure where the test came from but I’ve heard that in the pst it is similar to ISAT’s. My son scored about the same on the SE test as he did on EXPLORE, Lincoln Park IB, Catholic School –maybe a few points higher on the SE test because he’d had some practice. but he was in the high 90′s on all of them. Not a great student but an awesome test taker.

• 7. cpsmama  |  March 11, 2010 at 4:38 pm

  In the past when deseg guidelines were used, cut-offs for SE schools were not posted by CPS, only average scores. I assume that this was as a well-intended protection for some minority students who were perceived to have gotten in with lower scores than some non-minority students.

  The publishing of the cut-offs by tier doesn’t have this same effect because there are (theoretically) students of all races in each of the 4 tiers. Of course, there are still some students with higher scores than admitted students- based on tiers rather than race. But, socio-economics is not as obvious as race.

  It is obvious that the socio-economic tier method failed to result in sufficient low-income minorities being admitted to most SE schools.

  I think Mayfair Dad raises a good point- why is it OK for SE schools in predominantly black neighborhoods to be 75- 100% black? Why doesn’t CPS pay the black SE schools $250,000 each to take 100 non-black Tier 3 & 4 kids who didn’t get into any SE school ?

• 8. cpsobsessed  |  March 12, 2010 at 12:26 am

  I’m gonna guess that CPS does not think it’s fine that those schools are 75%-100% black. I’m sure they’re not purposefully keeping Caucasian kids out. I’d bet they’re not applying to those schools at a high rate.
  I hope I’m wrong.
  Another thing to keep in mind is that CPS is only 9% white.
  So in theory, each of those schools should have 39% white kids which I’m guessing isn’t true.
  I see Northside College Prep is 35% white and 32% Asian which is clearly skewed.

• 9. chicago parent  |  March 12, 2010 at 9:06 am

  The schools on the south & west side (King, Lindblom, Brooks & Westinghouse) all admitted a substantial portion of low income students (e.g., from tier 1 & tier 2 neighborhoods) who in past years probably would not have been admitted. I say this because the average scores dropped year to year & this would be due to a different student mix of kids, which I’m guessing is due to a different economic mix.

  I don’t know about the racial characteristics of these tiers — because as you all know now — it’s really not about race anymore, but I’d guess looking at the neighborhoods that a large portion are probably non white who were admitted to these schools. If this is true, non white, low income students were big winners under the new system, not losers. They’re just not making a big noise about it. The other big winners are students with top academics — that made the scores at north side schools jump — Jones, Payton with Northside & WY, & LT staying rather flat. The losers are middle income parents who do not have stellar academics & do not want to go to the south & west side schools listed above.

• 10. Mayfair Dad  |  March 12, 2010 at 4:47 pm

  “Why doesn’t CPS pay the black SE schools $250,000 each to take 100 non-black Tier 3 & 4 kids who didn’t get into any SE school ?”

  Cpsmama, I like where you’re going with this, but do you think CPS would give me a voucher worth $25K so I could send my kid to St. Ignatius instead? My freckle-faced angel gets a nosebleed if he travels south of Cermak Road.

• 11. Curt  |  March 12, 2010 at 4:52 pm

  Okkk…. so to reiterate what chicago parent said, a lot of low income students attend lindblom, brooks, westinghouse, and king… so this whole tier thing was stupid. The main problem here is that there are thousands of students in the CPS that qualify for admission to SE schools, there just arent enough spots for them. I think the smartest thing to do would be creating two more SE schools, bringing the total to 10, and pumping more into the GOOD magnet programs at schools like lincoln park, von stueben, morgan park, etc. We already rank 49 in education funding…we cant go any where but up, right?

• 12. somos americanos  |  March 18, 2010 at 1:53 pm

  This is not rocket science. You don’t need to see the data.

  It’s not a surprise that affluent, mostly white families have moved into historically poor areas. Real estate boom, anyone?

  Little wonder that the outcome of lotterying kids based on decade old data that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the actual applicant is not yielding the “desired” results.

  Told you so.

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed