Spots at top CPS magnet schools are fiercely competitive, but critics argue the process quietly advantages kids from higher-income neighborhoods who have access to tutors and prep courses. Is selective enrollment a meritocracy or a rigged game?
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Add your commentBorn and raised on the South Side, went to Robeson, watched every single one of my cousins' kids get passed over for Payton or Northside while kids from Lincoln Park and Lakeview swept those spots. You want to tell me that's a meritocracy? Come say that to my face at a family cookout. The test literally measures how much money your parents spent preparing you for the test. That's not merit, that's a receipt.
I taught 7th grade at a CPS school in Englewood for eleven years. I watched brilliant, creative, funny kids get scores that didn't reflect who they were at all because they froze up on a standardized test or because their home situation was chaotic during testing season. One of my former students is now at UIC on a full scholarship. The selective enrollment test would have told you he wasn't worth the seat. The system isn't evil but it is blunt and it is missing real kids every single year.
Selective enrollment schools were literally created to keep middle-class families FROM fleeing CPS entirely. You get rid of them tomorrow and watch the private school enrollment numbers in this city go through the roof. Sometimes an imperfect system is holding together something bigger than itself. That's the conversation nobody wants to have.
That tier system comment above is partially right but also kind of misses the point? Yes tiers exist. But within each tier you're still competing, and a kid in a Tier 1 neighborhood who happened to get a $3,000 private prep course still scores higher than a kid in the same tier who didn't. The tiers address geography. They don't address the tutoring economy that's grown up around this test. Those are two different problems.
ok genuine question for the people defending the system — if it's so fair, why does the demographic breakdown of Northside College Prep look almost nothing like the demographic breakdown of Chicago as a whole? that's not a gotcha, I'm actually asking. numbers don't lie even when the policy sounds nice on paper
lol my uncle still swears Walter Payton High School is named after the Bears legend and that's why the football team there is so dominant. someone please tell him it's actually a performing arts and academic school and the football program is... not the point. anyway yes the system is rigged, but also my family needs a basic Chicago civics lesson first
I moved here from Houston two years ago and honestly the selective enrollment obsession in this city is something else. Parents here treat the NWEA like it's the SAT for seven-year-olds. I've been to birthday parties where the gift table had workbooks on it. WORKBOOKS. For a seven year old's birthday. Chicago has a unique kind of anxiety around this stuff that I've never seen anywhere else.
My daughter got into GEMS without a single tutor. We're a one-income household in Portage Park and she just... studied. Used Khan Academy and library books. So maybe stop making excuses and encourage your kids to put in the work? I'm tired of people acting like effort doesn't exist.
The tier system CPS uses already accounts for neighborhood socioeconomic status so wealthy kids from rich neighborhoods actually get FEWER reserved seats. People always leave this part out when they're ranting online. Tier 1 neighborhoods get just as many guaranteed slots as Tier 4. Look it up before you post.
Honest take: abolish the whole thing or keep it exactly as is, I don't really care, but can we please stop pretending that any version of this system where the answer to inequality is "just work harder" is going to fly in 2024? We tried that. It has a track record. The track record is not great.
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