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Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process since deseg decree scrapped
By: Sarah Karp / September 29, 2009
A few more things about the sudden lifting last week of the desegregation consent decree: Starting Thursday, Oct. 1, parents can apply for a spot in one of the city’s top elementary or high schools. The application window closes on December 18. Race will not be used as a factor in this year’s admissions process for magnet and selective schools, meaning that parents will be applying without knowing what criteria will be used. “It cannot be the same,” says CPS attorney Patrick Rocks.
A few more things about the sudden lifting last week of the desegregation consent decree:
• Starting Thursday, Oct. 1, parents can apply for a spot in one of the city’s top elementary or high schools. The application window closes on December 18.
• Race will not be used as a factor in this year’s admissions process for magnet and selective schools, meaning that parents will be applying without knowing what criteria will be used. “It cannot be the same,” says CPS attorney Patrick Rocks.
• For this year at least, officials will probably rely on socioeconomic status (as determined by a student’s address and neighborhood income level) to maintain some diversity in admissions.
• Last Friday, CEO Ron Huberman appointed a transition team of CPS officials. Lead by Kathyrn Ellis, a staffer from the CEO’s office, the team will include officials from the Office of Academic Enhancement (including its head, Abigayil Joseph), the Office of School Demographics and Planning, and technical staff. All the computer software that currently runs the selection process will need to be reprogrammed this year, says Rocks.
• The district faces a grim budget picture in the next fiscal year, and that will be a major factor in decision-making on busing and staffing for magnet and selective schools. Until 2006, the federal court used a formula to determine how much the district should spend on both; since then, spending has declined from $100 million to $85 million.
• Once the district gets through this year’s admission cycle, it will go through a more lengthy process, including public hearings, to determine the future.
Meanwhile, parents and students are trying to digest the news.
At Franklin Fine Arts Academy, Pat O’Grady and Jolanta Serges, mothers of kindergarten students, said they like the school’s diversity: 36 percent black, 31 percent white, 13 percent Latino and 11 percent Asian.
“It’s really important for the school to reflect the real world,” Serges says.
But a good education is still the major reason most parents gave for choosing Franklin. Tom Scholle notes the school’s high test scores, focus on arts education and parental commitment.
“I work at a high school where parental involvement is so low that at report card pick-up, [participation] is about 10 percent,” he says. “Here, you know the parents are involved in the education process. You have to sign up for your report card pick-up conference, because almost every single person who’s here has to talk to the teachers.”
Students are quick to note the importance of diversity.
“In the work force, it’s not just one race. You work with different people, so it’s good to have that in school too,” says Simone Laws, a sophomore at Jones College Prep. “At my old school, it was pretty much all African-American and Mexican. That’s not like in the real world.”
At Whitney Young, freshman Katherine Joblowski says that students who go to non-integrated schools are at a disadvantage because “they don’t understand how to interact with people who are different.”
Her former school was all-white, Joblowski says, and “when people saw someone of a different race they didn’t know how to react, or how to act around them. I’ve learned more about different cultures here and I’m friends with a wider range of people.”
Interns Margaret Rhodes and Maren Handorf contributed to this story.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Please note that the application deadline is December 18th, not December 19th.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Simone Laws is not a sophomore at Jones College Prep.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Utilizing census info to determine admissions is nothing other than shear laziness on CPS' part. Why not have parents provide income info? We have to do it if we apply for a child care subsidy and numerous benefits program, why not CPS? I don't recall what the Supreme Court said about using race plus other factors--but that would seem the best route to go if possible. Or how about looking at parents educational level? Come on CPS--this is one of the laziest efforts I've witnessed in a system that routinely puts bureaucratic expediency over the best interest of children.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Utilizing census info to determine admissions is nothing other than shear laziness on CPS' part. Why not have parents provide income info? We have to do it if we apply for a child care subsidy and numerous benefits program, why not CPS? I don't recall what the Supreme Court said about using race plus other factors--but that would seem the best route to go if possible. Or how about looking at parents educational level? Come on CPS--this is one of the laziest efforts I've witnessed in a system that routinely puts bureaucratic expediency over the best interest of children.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
The magnet and selective enrollment schools will soon mirror Chicago's segregated neighborhoods, which is what opposition to the desegregation decree wants...Also, I would say an education at Franklin is average at best. While the arts program and diversity are uncommon in CPS, I would hardly call the curriculum challenging.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
I think the use of census data is fine initially. At open house this year, I noticed a single (white) father in a security uniform trying to manage several children. He was either on his way to or from work. Given his uniform, I suspect that he was part of the working poor. I would rather see his children get a preference than the children of doctors or professionals who happen to be African-American.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
has anyone seen the application for selective enrollment high schools? It was supposed to be available today. Does it still have the boxes for racial/ethnic designations?
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
I told my 8th grade son that race was apparently not a factor in this year's selection process and that address/neighborhood income was now going to be a factor. He asked if that wasn't really the same thing? To a large extent, he is correct.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
What is the mission of CPS? To impose racial integration through a school admissions formula based on skin color, or to provide an excellent education to all children from every neighborhood, regardless of race?
If every CPS neighborhood school offered a challenging, engaging, college prep curriculum, serving the needs of all students including the academically capable, there would be no need for magnet schools.
Yes, poverty exists in Chicago, and the only way to break the cycle of poverty is through education. But why should poor children have to travel across the city to a magnet school to obtain a quality education when it should be available to them at their local CPS school?
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
ARe you proposing that selective enrollment schools be closed?
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Really at the elementary school level unless there is busing provided some of the very best magnet schools on the north side will within a few years become very white. CPS can come up with various plans for social economic or geographic enrollment categories; they will mean nothing for low income working families who can not take off time to transport elementary school students. One of CPS’s big arguments for ending the consent decree was that busing cost them too much for the amount of desegregation that actually took place relative to the overall size of the school system. If you read the decision the logic of that argument was accepted by the court. I have a hard time believing that busing to these schools will not be phased out over a period of time.
At the high school level any geographic enrollment policy that is adopted by CPS will likely have what is called “disparate racial impact†against academically qualified white students who are resident within Chicago and I suspect eventually it will be struck down by the courts. Let me explain what I mean by disparate impact within this context.
I am going to use Payton Prep as my example, CPS adopts a new selective enrollment policy that effectively uses the existing selective test scoring system but within geographical pools using census tracks. If any of these pools lack white students who qualify for Payton, because there are virtually no white students living in that geographical area, and other areas have numerous high scoring white students who have higher scores than the minority students from the other geographical areas admitted to Payton then these qualified white students can argue that they have experienced reverse discrimination due to the effect of this new CPS policy. The important legal concepts involved here are de jure and de facto discrimination.
The critical case law here would seem to be Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007). The Seattle School District allowed students to apply to any high school in the District. Since certain schools often became oversubscribed when too many students chose them as their first choice, the District used a system of tiebreakers to decide which students would be admitted to the popular schools. The second most important tiebreaker was a racial factor intended to maintain racial diversity. If the racial demographics of any school's student body deviated by more than a predetermined number of percentage points from those of Seattle's total student population (approximately 41% white and 59% non-white), the racial tiebreaker went into effect. At a particular school either whites or non-whites could be favored for admission depending on which race would bring the racial balance closer to the goal. No distinction was made between various categories of non-whites; Asian-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and African-Americans were all treated solely as "non-white" for purposes of the tiebreaker.
The Supreme court prohibited assigning students to public schools solely for the purpose of achieving racial integration and declined to recognize racial balancing as a compelling state interest. In a 5-4 opinion delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, five justices held that the School Boards did not present any "compelling state interest" that would justify the assignment of school seats on the basis of race. Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a concurrence that presented a more narrow interpretation, stating that schools may use "race conscious" means to achieve diversity in schools but that the schools at issue in this case did not use a sufficient narrow tailoring of their plans to sustain their goals. Four justices dissented from the Court's conclusions. One very critical factor in this decision that is relevant to the current situation is that the Seattle school system had no evidence of de jure discrimination against minority students.
Now CPS is legally in the same situation as federal court has determined by ending the consent decree that de jure discrimination in the system is over. From the Court's persepective CPS may have no compelling state interest to create an enrollment policy for Payton that has disparate racial impact against academically qualified white students. I would suspect that the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity, which advocates eliminating race and ethnic considerations, would take the case of a highly qualified white student who is denied admission to Payton over lesser qualified back students who are admitted on the basis of geography. I think that given the current composition of the Supreme Court that such a case could be won.
It is my opinion that in order for any such new scheme to work Payton would need to cease to have a test in system. Then a geographically based selection system would face no challenge. CPS however may still adopt a system that will be eventually struck down, they will do this to provide political cover for the Mayoral controled Board of Education. Then they can say we tried but failed.
Rod Estvan
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Wow.... That's depressing.
To Mayfair Dad: I totally agree with you but are you willing to put your kid's education on the line while CPS gets around to improving every neighborhood school? If the answer is yes, congratulations, you are in a serious minority. Most CPS parents in my experience do not want to risk it or put in the hours of work personally to improve a school.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Am I proposing that selective enrollment/magnet schools be repurposed as neighborhood schools? At the elementary level, yes, it is the best long-term solution. The two-tiered system we have now works well for the few but horribly for the many. When 50% of the students coming out of the current system do not graduate high school, that tells me the system is broken.
I think we DO need selective enrollment High Schools - more of them, in every area of the city. At some point we need to separate the kids who want to succeed from the kids who are legally compelled to attend school. High School seems like the right time to do this.
Being a poor kid in a bad neighborhood is an accident of birth, but by high school you are old enough to make decisions about the trajectory of your life. Selective enrollment high schools serve as a goal to aspire to.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
I disagree that high school is the right time to separate out students (the ones who will behave enough to learn versus the ones who won't behave). If you visit any CPS school not on the top 50 list, you will find severe behavior issues at the middle school level if not earlier. This is my biggest problem with neighborhood schools. The behavior is deplorable, and it prevents learning from occurring.
If magnets end, and my children's magnet turns into a neighborhood school, it isn't so bad. We are lucky to have an great school in an great neighborhood. (though, if they made everyone go back to their original neighborhood schools, we'd sell our place or rent it out and leave for the suburbs. No way will we go to our local school in Rogers Park!)
I think many folks may leave the city because of this issue. Really, who is going to send their kids to a school where the 6th graders simply ignore their teacher altogether? Or to a school where fistfights break out each day in class or in the hall? Based on my years of teaching experience, this is the norm for most of the city. Sure, everyone is excited about free preschool, or the cute little kindergarten classes, but do they really understand what goes on in the older grades? I don't think so. By high school, it is far too late.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
I disagree with your analysis Rod because the criteria would be income--not race.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Your geographic admission example is not race based, it's geographic. That's an entirely acceptable criteria. CPS could, under Supreme Court precedent, implement citywide regional admission zones for each selective enrollment school. True, the plan would need to be other than race based, but it's not CPS' fault that the housing patterns are what they are.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
All I can say is to show disparate racial impact white parents of students who are adversely impacted may not need to show that CPS intended in any way for it to happen, or that CPS is responsible for housing patterns, only that it happened. Second if CPS is using census tracks as the basis for enrollment in selective schools they are geographically based. In Chicago geography equals race for many communities.
In relation to income based admissions. The CPS will not use real income data for admission because it would be far to difficult to require parents to submit their tax returns as part of an admissions process for a public school. It would require CPS to verify all statements regarding income, that will not happen. So what CPS will likely do is use income track data and maybe give preference to or set aside pools for students living in low income tracks.
If you look at Chicago's census data it is very obvious that low income census tracks equate to racial minority communities. I suspect that the Court will see this scheme for what it is, which in the case of Payton Prep is to create seperate testing pools for some minority students.
I hope every one reading this does not think I want white families whose children with high scores are denied admission to a school like Payton to litigate the issue, but I suspect the conservative Center for Equal Opportunity will find more than a few white parents to litigate this issue. I believe that the CPS scheme for using income/census track data is just a stop gap measure to calm minority communities in Chicago. This way when the court strikes it down and CPS selective schools become 80% white and asian they are not to blame. This a smart move on the part of Pat Rocks CPS general counsel. Maybe by the time such a case would get to the Supreme Court its composition will have changed and the CPS scheme will be upheld. But right now I do not think so.
Rod Estvan
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
Anyone can sue. But the criteria here is economics, not race. That is not subject to the same level of scrutiny as racial criteria. Diversity of income is a legitimate goal and census tracts are a reasonable method of acheiving this goal--especially in view of the short period of time in which to act here.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
I also think Rod's analysis is flawed here.
First, for the same reason others have mentioned: courts have upheld socioeconomic status as a consideration in admissions. (And, frankly, the SCOTUS has upheld race as one of several factors involved, too.)
But what really gets me is this line: "The CPS will not use real income data for admission because it would be far to difficult to require parents to submit their tax returns as part of an admissions process for a public school."
Eighty-five percent of CPS students qualify for free or reduced meals--the single most used criteria of low-income in schools. The audit rate on these applications is something like 1%. No one checks them. No proof of income is required. If the parent/guardian chooses to lie on the applications, it is highly unlikely they will be caught.
Further, since the federal funds follow these low-income children, it's not in CPS' interests to clamp down and investigate them.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
If you work for CPS, don't lie on the lunch form. You can get in big trouble.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
The thing about the lunch forms that drives me crazy is this: many schools directly instruct parents to lie on the forms. That way they get extra funding for having so many poverty level kids. Yes, I have seen and heard this with my very own eyes. One of our neighbors, who owns 2 condos and 2 cars is in head start. Neither of their kids are at risk. I know them very well. They lied on their forms so they could get free preschool. And since they are a minority family, noone blinked an eye. This whole income thing is going to be a huge mess. Honestly, I am so sick of CPS. I think we are going to move to the suburbs.
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
If CPS were to use free or reduced luch eligiblity as a selection pool for schools like Payton then that pool would be overwhelmingly black, Hispanic, with smaller numbers of asians who are recent imigrants. The number of white students eligible for free or reduced lunch in CPS has to be relatively small. There were in November 2008 36,318 white students and I would be shocked if even a quarter were low income. At grade 8 77.7% of students are considered to be low income.
If CPS were to create two pools based for Payton then as Danny said about 80% of the students would be picked from the low income pool and about 20% from the pool above the low income cut off. Since all educators know that there is a high correlation between income and test scores we have to assume huge numbers of highly qualified white students would not be selected along with a number of highly qualified higher income minority students. If enough higher income minoirity students are denied admission based on a scheme like this then any argument for disparate racial impact for white students would not fly at all with the court. So this type of admissions system could meet the court's current standards.
But lets get back to the real world, currently Payton has 71.6% of its enrollment above the low income line. My daughter who graduated two years ago from Payton and who is white had a family income 535% above the low income level and she was far from being one of the more wealthy students in her graduating class. Basically such a scheme based on using free and reduced lunch eligiblity would totally flip the situation at Payton around. It seems clear that the academic qualifications for the low income pool would be lower than those for the smaller above low income level pool. Payton would rapidly academically decline with falling ACT scores.
Neither the white, black, or Hispanic middle class of Chicago would support creating testing pools of low income student vs. non-low income for selective high schools. It will not happen. What we will get will be some sort of census track based system which will give black and Hispanic middle class enclaves within largely lower income tracks an edge for admission into these schools in order for these school not to become overwhelmingly white and Asian. This type of system creates of basis for highly qualified white students to claim disparate racial impact if they are denied admission.
If CPS were actually serious about creating a social economic based admissions system for a school like Payton it could simply create two pools based on students eligible for free and reduced lunch and those above that cut off. But that will not happen.
The solution for the selective schools of course is simple, those with the highest scores get into Payton, etc. If the school becomes largely white and asian that is what it is. Do I like that possiblity, no I do not. But based on the history of other cities where similar cases like Chicago's were ended by courts this is likely over the long run once various schemes created by CPS are tossed out by courts.
Rod Estvan
Chicago school officials begin work on new admissions process si
IF CPS goes through with this they will be swiftly kicking themselves in the ass quite quickly. As a recent Payton graduate I can tell you this will change the school tremendously and I know it will have a similar effect on almost every college prep high school. It was bad enough when people did not get in because they happened to be the wrong race. I am not racist but I know from talking to Payton student that many non white or non asian students on average scored almost 100 points less on the scale that they used for admission when I applied to the college prep high schools. Those same students did not do as well as those who scored higher than them in both school work and standardized tests such as the ACT. The majority of Payton is upper middle class and when all of that changes so will the standards of the school. There is no way they can mold students to do the same thing they have successfully done for years when you are giving them a completely different group of students. The schools need to be based solely on academics. The advantages that I got from the school were because no one was holding us back in class, although this was not always true. What made it seem like no one was holding us back was these other students had worked so hard to get in to the school that they had a drive to do well. If they drive in compromised at all the school will crash and burn in ways I can't even imagine. The drive lead the students to be well rounded in both school subjects and life in general. The level of intellect compared to other high schools and now my college is so extremely different in the best way possible. I miss not having any airheads in my classes but most of all I miss the amazing conversations and debates that would arise when you put a group of intelligent and driven high school. I would hate to see such amazing institutions turn into mere high schools. I am proud to be a Payton alumnus and don't want that pride taken away by lowering the standards of such a school.
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