The proposed changes to Chicago Public Schools admission procedures are coming under heavy fire from aldermen on the City Council's Education Committee this morning.
The plan will govern admissions for the 2010-2011 school year. It comes in the wake of a federal judge's decision to release the school district from court supervision over desegregation.
It also requires district officials to review decisions of principals at academically selective schools who admit students whose test scores aren't high enough. It also eliminates discretionary admission at magnet schools for one year.
Those discretionary moves have become the subject of an investigation over whether politically connections have marred the admissions process.
"Everything here that i see is basically going to be downtown's discretion, not the principal's discretion," said Alderman Anthony Beale. "You may not know what the principal is looking at. Maybe the parents passed away or the kid had the flu during the test. To review it is to take authority away from the principal.
Katie Ellis, the CPS project manager who presented the proposal, said the principals would still have discretion, but that district officials would review each pick to make sure it hewed to guidelines.
"There have been some abnormalities in the past. The idea is to make sure the process is more transparent," she said.
Beale also accused CPS of rigging the system to place the concerns of North Side parents over those elsewhere in the city.
"It appears that you are trying to change the process because you have a bunch of people on the North Side who can't get their kids into selective enrollment schools," he said.
The North vs. South theme was echoed by Alderman Freddrenna Lyle, who noted that CPS has 16 competitive enrollment schools on the North Side, and 10 on the South Side.
"It's 1951 again," she said, referring to a time when the city's schools were segregated by law.
Questioning from the aldermen continues, though the fireworks may be at an end. I'll update here if anything interesting comes up.
12:41 p.m.
Meeting's over, and the initial post pretty much says it.
It's worth delving into the new admission plan a bit more, though.
Basically, CPS is proposing to eliminate admission guidelines that sought to ensure a racially diverse student body. Now, administrators are seeking to ensure a socioeconomically diverse enrollment, now that some U.S. Supreme Court rulings have cast doubt on race-based admissions.
It's unclear how this will actually play out in practicality. Will some schools end up all white, or all black? We'll be looking to get a handle on those issues before the Board of Education votes on the plan next month.
Windy Citizen 