Corruption in Chicago Schools?

It certainly shouldn't surprise any Chicagoan that the admissions process for our city's selective admission schools might be tainted.

For one thing, Marj Halperin, a long-time resident, former journalist (and much more), and parent of two who attended schools in the CPS system, broke this story about, oh...20 years ago? Her investigative report, published in Chicago Magazine (download scan here), detailed the ruses—from creating fake older siblings so the actual children could qualify for the sibling lottery and "principal choice" categories, to giving sizable donations to their school of choice—of many of her (and my) acquaintances, friends and neighbors. Some of Chicago's so-called "best" magnet schools were implicated—Hawthorne comes to mind—and the parents involved were everyday folks, a slice of the city, albeit well-resourced.

For another, this is Chicago, in Illinois, where our politicians from the highest levels on down, set the tone and model the behavior. Where there's a trough, they are grubbing. Is it surprising when we follow their lead? And isn't the toxic combination of access and entitlement ("I know how to get want I want, therefore I deserve to!"), salted with a dash of desperation ("Where will my children go to school?"), likely to foster sorry behavior?

If we care about each other we will push to make the circumstances—too few wonderful schools for all our children—and the kind of debates I hope these parents had with themselves before they made the choice to step over others and around the democratic process of the lottery system, obsolete.

A Vigil for One School’s Survival

It’s nearly beyond belief, that a community would have to beg its local public official to keep its neighborhood high school alive. It’s shocking that she—Alderwoman Mary Ann Smith—can hold up the plans for school improvement that over 2,000 local folks have weighed in on, and that others, including teachers, parents, administrators, and residents, have been meeting nearly weekly (after work, and on Saturdays) to research, consult, brainstorm, develop, and write. So much labor, good will, energy, and hope held hostage by…what exactly?

So here’s how it’s playing out: Senn’s Strategic Planning Committee has developed a plan to strengthen the community school over a five-year period. But Alderwoman Smith wants to close Senn down and install in its place several selective small high schools; this news reached Senn via a leaked document after a year’s work on the strategic plan, with one of Smith’s aides in weekly attendance. Then Senn was turned down for some grant renewals—the word was that they didn’t want to fund a school with an “uncertain future.” Senn’s principal heard from a colleague that Board of Education documents related to Senn were red-flagged—take no action. Chicago Public Schools says it can’t promise to work with the Senn Strategic Planning Committee to improve the school unless Senn is working with Smith, but Smith won’t set a date to meet.

The Organization of the Northeast (ONE) tried to move the issue by making Senn’s future the center of its yearly convention on June 2. Smith was invited but didn’t show. So we took the meeting to her home, and asked her to support Senn. But really, it’s maddening—why should a public school have to plead for survival? Especially, why should it have to get permission to exist from one local official? Except, of course, that’s not what’s really going on—Daley has his plans and Duncan (CPS CEO), Smith, and the unelected Board of Education simply do his bidding. Smith does it by refusing to answer her door, as you see here.

ONE should take the next vigil to Daley’s doorstep.

Fine and Performing Arts High School Coming Soon to Chicago—But Probably Not for You

Yesterday I attended a meeting about a new, still-in-the-works, fine and performing arts high school for Chicago. The meeting was held at the Chicago Community Trust. The school founders want to be part of Renaissance 2010 but aren’t sure yet if the new high school will be a “performance” or a “contract” school. They’d like the flexibility to hire non-certified teachers, but want the school to be “highly selective” (don’t they see the irony in that?). Auditions, portfolios, high scores, the whole screen-out process—that’s what they are aiming for. They only want “talented” students. But what looks like talent is usually just privilege.

Oddly, the school planners said several times that this school would be Chicago’s first and only fine and performing arts public high school. But I work with another one, which my employer, the School of the Art Institute, partners with—the two-year-old Multicultural Arts High School, in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. Maybe this school doesn’t count to the planners because it isn’t selective. Any youth living in the school’s boundaries can enroll, and everyone enrolled makes art and learns to see themselves as artists. In other words, it’s really a public school. A city school. A school for everyone, not just the children of the wealthier, whiter, and more connected than average city families, which are the students who attend Chicago’s selective admission schools.

Maybe it’s a new Oprah syndrome—what DOESN’T she influence? Start a school! Give it your name! Claim its successes—and to make sure you have some, only let in the already successful! It’s a tried and true strategy; read The Chosen by Jerome Karabel to see how well it’s worked for the Big Three—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Those schools thrived for decades by screening out Jews, women, and “pansies,” while admitting wealthy, white, Protestant men. Did I say wealthy? That was the primary criteria.

And actually, wealth will be the primary criteria at the new fine and performing arts high school, too, if, in the end, it is a selective admissions school. Why not just make it a private school, like the Ivy League joints? Then, use our public funds to fully and equitably fund art education for all of Chicago’s public school students, not just for the “talented” few.