Magnet, selective enrollment admissions policy heads to Board of Education

Community input results in changes to magnet, selective enrollment policy

The new policy will rely on socio-economic Census tract data.

December 16, 2009

Input from a variety of outreach efforts has resulted in changes to the proposed new policy for admission to magnet and selective enrollment schools that will be presented to the Chicago Board of Education today.

Chicago Public Schools officials announced a proposal for the new one-year policy last month after an almost three-decade-old desegregation consent decree was vacated by a U.S. District Court judge.

The new policy replaces the former race-based admissions policy for the District’s magnet and selective enrollment schools with one that relies on socio-economic Census tract data. The District’s previous race-based admissions policy was terminated by the recent judicial ruling.

Along with announcing the proposed policy, CPS officials embarked on a substantial campaign of community outreach to more thoroughly explain the proposal and to allow public officials, parents, community stakeholders and others to weigh in on it.

Among those outreach efforts:

Community meetings were held at Andrew Jackson Language Academy and at Little Village, King College Prep, Simeon, Amundsen and Westinghouse High Schools.
Aldermanic briefings were held along with testimony before the City Council’s Education Committee.
Briefings for principals of selective enrollment and magnet schools, as well as for Academic Center coordinators.
Meetings with community organizations around the City.

“The multiple briefings, meetings and outreach efforts allowed us to engage our various communities which provided input resulting in changes to our proposal which will be presented to the Board,” said Chicago Board of Education Interim President Clare Munana.

One concern voiced repeatedly was that allowing magnet admissions based on 50 percent proximity and 50 percent socio-economic lottery will turn those schools into neighborhood schools and restrict opportunities for students who do not live near one of those magnets.

Feedback from the community resulted in further consideration of this issue and a change to the proposal to include a proximity component that will be no more than 40 percent of seats available after sibling admissions, along with 60 percent citywide admissions, with flexibility for the CEO to further review that number.

“We believe that our intention to preserve diversity in Chicago Public Schools is genuine,” said CPS Chief Executive Officer Ron Huberman. “The community meetings provided us with additional feedback and we have used that feedback to help guide us through this important process fairly and equitable.”

Community input prompted officials to review their initial plan for selective enrollment admissions and make changes. Instead of a 50-50 split in admissions between rank order and rank order of applicants within a socio-economic group of census tracts, the new split is 40 percent rank order and 60 percent rank order within the socio-economic groups.

The new policy includes sibling preference for magnets, and some questioned whether that might limit diversity at some magnet schools.

The sibling preference is largely driven by the recognition that parents sometimes find themselves in a position of having children attending different schools in different parts of the city. Officials believe that a sibling preference will ease that burden, and that in this one-year policy, accepting all siblings will preserve the levels of socio-economic and racial diversity that are currently found in magnets.

Another concern brought forth to District officials was that the process of designing the new policy was rushed.

Because the judge who vacated the consent decree provided no transitional time, the District had to create a new admissions policy for next school year and do so in time for families to investigate and pursue their school options.

District officials emphasize that the policy being introduced is for one year and they intend to reopen public discourse this spring and summer once data on first-year admissions is available. “This will allow us to see what happened under the new policy and to course-correct and discuss any potential changes to the system,” Huberman said.

“The dialogue we have had throughout the city has allowed us to further explain our intentions for this one-year policy. It also has provided valuable feedback from our many communities. We have taken this feedback into account and used it to make changes in our proposal. We will continue to engage with stakeholders to assess this initial admissions policy.” Huberman said. To do this, CPS will appoint a review committee early next year to review input and engage community stakeholders around future plans.