Educational Inequality in Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools (CPS), a system notorious for underfunding, low graduation rates, and weak academic programs, has implemented a tier system for their Selective Enrollment (SE) program in attempt to increase diversity in Chicago’s top schools. The goal of the tier system is to provide low-income and minority students with opportunities for success at SE high schools that they could not receive from their neighborhood high school.1 CPS places every part of the city into one of four socio-economic “tiers” based on each area’s median income, median education level, home-ownership rates, single-parent family rates, rates of English-speaking, and neighborhood school performance. SE high schools give 30% of their seats to their highest-performing applicants, regardless of their tier. The remaining 70% of spots are filled by offering enrollment to an equal amount of high-performing students within each tier. For example, imagine a school has 1000 seats to fill. 300 of these seats are given to the highest scoring applicants, then the remaining 700 are filled by offering enrollment to the top 175 Tier 1 students, the top 175 Tier 2 students, and so on. 2

What defines each tier (2)

Map of Chicago's tiers (2)

This system appears to offer students from lower-income backgrounds similar opportunities for success that those from higher-income backgrounds have, however, inequality is still prominent within this system. Of the SE schools, the best ones are located on the city’s north-side in neighborhoods with high concentrations of white, upper-class families. Northside College Prep is ranked as the best public high school in Illinois3, and is in a Tier 4, north-side neighborhood.1 The second best, Walter Payton College Prep, is located in a Tier 2 neighborhood, however, is surrounded by Tier 4 neighborhoods. The 3rd, 4th, and 6th best public high schools in Illinois are also CPS SE schools, and are located in Tier 4 neighborhoods. After these top 5 SE schools, we see the schools on the city’s south and west sides, which all have much lower statewide rankings. The next best CPS SE schools are ranked 9th, 20th, 46th, and 87th in Illinois, with the final two not making the top 1003.

Upwards of 90% of students attending CPS SE high schools graduate, even from the lower ranked schools. However, college readiness varies greatly. Northside College Prep has a college readiness score of 93.0/100, whereas King College Prep, which was ranked 87th in Illinois, has a score of 25.9/100.3 What does this mean for the high-performing students applying for high school and living on Chicago’s south and west sides? They must choose between commuting up to 2 hours using the city’s public transportation or attending a school with much lower rankings that provides significantly lower chances of college preparedness.

While this system provides opportunities for some low-income students and allows for some integration of the city’s top schools, it is largely unsuccessful. Northside College Prep currently has 1,069 students enrolled, 60% of which are from minority backgrounds and 38% of which are economically disadvantaged (“Minority background” is defined as “belonging to all ethnic groups besides white, non-hispanic and “economically disadvantaged” is defined as “receiving free or reduced price lunch”). These top schools offer enrollment to a relatively diverse group of students, however, these students suffer with long travel times, lacking academic support at home, and feeling that they do not belong. King College Prep, one of the lowest-performing CPS SE high schools, on the other hand, has 796 students enrolled, 99% of which are from minority backgrounds and 77% of which are economically disadvantaged. Even with this system, minority and low-income students are disadvantaged.

This is a part of a larger problem within the CPS system. Even King College Prep is a SE high school, and Chicago’s non-SE schools are often worse. There are some charter, magnet, and neighborhood schools which receive decent ratings and offer International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP) programs, however, these schools are also generally found on the city’s north-side. Non-SE and south-side schools receive less funding and lack strong academic, arts, and extracurricular programs, leading to low ratings.

The Chicago Public Schools system is known for its many shortcomings. CPS has attempted to offer better opportunities to high performing students from all backgrounds through the tier system in Selective Enrollment high schools which have better teachers, receive more funding, and accept students mainly based on academic performance. Despite these efforts, CPS fails to provide the necessary means for success to low-income and minority students. The south and west sides of the city, which are home to many low-income and minority families, lack good schools, while they are plentiful on the north-side. The SE program attempts to provide better educations to high-performing students from the south and west sides as well as from the north-side, but fails to remedy the larger problem at hand.

1) "Access and Enrollment: Selective Enrollment High Schools." Chicago Public Schools. October 13, 2016. Accessed March 21, 2017. http://cps.edu/AccessAndEnrollment/Pages/SEHS.aspx.

2) Eder Derek, Forest Gregg, Juan-Pablo Velez, and Josh Kalov. "Chicago Public School Tiers an Open City app" Chicago Public School Tiers. 2012. Accessed March 21, 2017. http://cpstiers.opencityapps.org/about.html.

3) "Chicago Public Schools District." A Worldwide Report US News. 2017. Accessed March 21, 2017. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/illinois/districts/chicago-public-schools-110570.