Gentrifiers slow to buy CPS Displaced students paying the price by Dan Weissmann
GENTRIFICATION Gentrifiers slow to buy CPS, displaced students paying the price Chart: Fewer whites use gentrified-area schools Chart: People move in, but don't use CPS schools Chart: Fewer kids, fewer school-aged kids Roscoe Village group works to bridge school, community gap Gentrifiers give public schools a chance How three families are dealing with displacement Overcrowded school serves displaced students Schools in hot areas lose local students Research on gentrification, education Our data sources In this report, gentrifying areas are those with the biggest increases in the number of high-income homebuyers—at least 150 per square mile in the mid- and late 1990s—as determined in the Woodstock Institute study “Who’s Buying Where?” published in November 2001. High income is defined as 120 percent or more of the median income for the six-county metropolitan Chicago area. We then zeroed in on the 136 census tracts that fit this criteria. Using 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census data, we compared changes in population and public school attendance within these tracts to changes in the rest of the city. The Consortium on Chicago School Research provided 1995 and 2000 data on the number of public school students by census tract.	In the last half of the 1990s, young professionals streamed into the city, snapping up high-priced condominiums and urban townhomes. In the hottest areas, mainly on the North Side and in and around the Loop, property values have soared, bringing rents and property taxes along with them. Arguably, if such gentrification has given the city a facelift, it has only added wrinkles to the public school system, a CATALYST analysis of school attendance patterns shows. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has made it clear that he sees public schools as pivotal to keeping these and other middle-class residents from fleeing the city for the suburbs. So far, though, neighborhood schools in the most rapidly gentrifying areas have failed to attract their new neighbors. A CATALYST analysis of the most rapidly-developing census tracts—covering more than 60 percent of West Town, Lake View, Lincoln Park, the Near South Side and several other communities—found that the number of children there who attend public elementary schools dropped 18 percent between 1995 and 2000. In contrast, in the rest of the city, the number of public elementary school students grew 13 percent. The decline in public school attendance in these census tracts is due in part to a decline in the number of residents under 14 years old. During the 1990s, that number dropped 16 percent. The rest of the city, however, posted an 8-percent increase in that age group. “Young professionals don’t have children—they have dogs,” quips Robert Alexander, principal of Pulaski Elementary in Logan Square. The CATALYST analysis indicates that many of the young professionals who did have children left the city when their kids became old enough for kindergarten. That can be seen in the differential rates of decline between children ages 5 to 13 and children younger than 5. For the former, school-age group, the decline was 19 percent; for the latter preschool group, it was 12 percent. Real estate brokers see the people behind these numbers all the time. “I was out with clients today, and [they] asked if schools’ reputations affected the value of homes,” relates Ronald Hollaender, a realtor in Lake View. “And I said no. Because often, the people take off. And it’s a shame, because it doesn’t give the schools a chance to do well.” Neighborhood public schools had particular trouble attracting whites, who made up the largest share of the new residents in the fastest-gentrifying areas. Census figures show that the white population in those areas grew by 14 percent, while school data shows that white public-school enrollment in those areas dropped 24 percent. Two other recent studies conclude that whites are less likely than other groups to put their children in the city’s public schools. One study found that the number of white children enrolled in first grade in 1999 was only about one-third the number that state records showed had been born in Chicago six years earlier. A Loyola University researcher found only 53 percent of white families who had children in the early 1990s were still living in the city in 2000. Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, is undaunted by the numbers and says he believes gentrifiers will come around and use public schools. “My assumption is that they don’t have school age children yet,” he says “but someday they will. And the question is, as single yuppies get married and have children: How do we make sure that these neighborhood schools are schools of choice for them?” He’s pinning high hopes on “magnet cluster” programs in neighborhood schools and says he’s paying particular attention to the preschool programs installed last year in some schools that were losing enrollment to gentrification. Offered for a fee, the classes are aimed at middle-class families. Duncan says he’s encouraged by enrollment so far but acknowledges that the program’s test is yet to come. “The challenge and the opportunity for us is, once [parents] are done with that program, will they stay at the school for kindergarten?” One researcher thinks it’s a hopeless cause. The people who are moving into gentrifying neighborhoods have “no intention of sending their kids to the public schools,” says Tracy Cross, president of a real-estate consulting firm that has studied the reasons upper-income residents leave the city. Most of them leave because they can get bigger homes for their money in the suburbs, he says. Schools aren’t even their first consideration, he adds. “The city has done well in attracting people in the [early] stages of family formation,” Cross says. However, as their children reach school age, they move out of the city to the suburbs. “That’s just fact,” he adds. However, some gentrifiers who have expressed interest in using public schools have raised the suspicions of principals. For instance, a community group in the rapidly gentrifying Ravenswood area has approached Waters Elementary, whose student body is primarily Latino, about forming a partnership. “We keep asking them, ‘What is your agenda?’” says Principal Thomas Revollo. “They keep saying ‘It’s time for our children to come to this school.’ What I say to them is, ‘You mean it’s time for white children to come to this school.’” “We’re working on that one,” says Duncan. “We’re trying to smooth things over.” Page 2 -->
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