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Like many South Shore parents, anesthesiologist Kaye Davis enrolled her children in a school outside the neighborhood. She makes a 12-mile trip twice a day to drive her two primary-grade sons to and from LaSalle Language Academy, a high-scoring magnet school in Lincoln Park.

If the neighborhood schools were better, Davis says she would gladly forgo the long trip. She's one of a few middle-class parents who signed up for tuition-based preschool at Bouchet Elementary, a neighborhood school. Both sons attended, and her youngest, her daughter, is enrolled there now.

Last year, applicants for Renaissance 2010 schools ran a three-tiered gauntlet to win approval.

First, they faced a team of experts from inside and outside the system. Next, some schools had to sell themselves to a Transition Advisory Council made up of community representatives. Finally, schools competed for startup funds from New Schools for Chicago, the business-backed nonprofit group that is funneling private support for Renaissance 2010 schools.

In May, Chicago Public Schools released a report that for the first time matched up data from its annual Senior Exit Survey with data on where those graduates actually enrolled in college, provided by the National Student Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse verifies enrollments and degree completions at most U.S. colleges and universities for student loan providers, and more recently, for K-12 school districts.