CPS: Taking Race Out Of The Admissions Policy

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By Shanita Bigelow

We want quality and equaleducational opportunities for all Chicago Public School (CPS) students, State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie (25th), State Representative William D. Burns (26th) and Sate Senator Kwame Raoul (13th) wrote, to begin their December 11 letter to CPS CEO Ron Huberman, addressing the new CPS admissions policy, effectively taking race out of the equation.

The federal court has ended the consent decree under which CPS was required to guarantee specific racial and ethnic enrollment goals for magnet and selective enrollment schools. And a recent United States Supreme Court decision cast doubt on the ability of a school system to take race into account in individual cases. But we have grave concerns that your new admission policy will undercut minority enrollment in our high-performing magnet and selective enrollment schools, they continued.

Their concerns have echoed around the city as other community members have also voiced their concerns. The new admissions policy will use socioeconomic status (SES) based on census data in place of the former race-based policy to promote diversity.

We are committed to a fair process for all families who seek admission to our selective enrollment and magnet programs, and we believe that economic diversity in our schools will promote equitable educational outcomes for applicants in all communities of our city. To address a potential burden on families with more than one child in CPS, these proposed policies also ease access into these schools for the siblings of students who are already enrolled, Huberman said in a Nov. 10 press release outlining the, then, proposed policy changes.

The fear for many concerned is that these schools will transform into neighborhood schools, as the initial policy changes included a 50 percent socio-economic and 50 percent proximity lottery, according to a December 16 CPS press release.

In an effort to address these concerns CPS held various community meetings and subsequently changed the 50% proximity policy to no more than 40%.

CPS will monitor the effects of this policy change over the course of the 2010-2011 school year, but that may not be enough to assuage fears.

Currie, Burns and Raoul cited examples of cities like San Francisco, CA and Charlotte, NC that have seen diversity drop significantly since their dependence solely on SES for admissions. They suggest that race continue to be a factor.

Ours is a diverse city. To ensure our continued viability and vibrancy we must continue our commitment to inclusion and equal opportunity Without using race as a factor, we fear that our magnet and selective enrollment schools will no longer reflect the diversity that makes our city great, they wrote.

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