City magnet school admissions get makeover
CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS | Families with kids already in will have a better chance of getting another admitted
A greater share of prized Chicago magnet school seats would go to the brothers and sisters of current magnet students -- as well as to neighborhood kids -- under a long-awaited magnet admission plan expected to be unveiled this week.
And for the first time in Chicago, the income level and other socio-economic factors in a child's neighborhood would play a role in whether that child is admitted to a magnet school, sources say.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
The process for gaining entry into the "jewels'' of the Chicago Public School system is undergoing a massive overhaul.
A judge's September decision to throw out a nearly 30-year-old desegregation consent decree also has thrown overboard the process of using race to decide magnet school admission. Instead, CPS officials want to join about 60 other school districts nationwide that use various socioeconomic factors to create diversity in schools.
However, the new policy is also expected to be more family and neighborhood friendly, sources say.
This school year, more than 25,000 students applied for seats at 37 elementary magnet schools that used race, sibling status and address to decide admissions, data obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times showed. Only 12 percent of all applicants won admission, the data indicated.
And although siblings of existing students had a much greater chance of winning magnet seats, their entry under the old admission policy was not a lock. Only 45 percent of open seats were set aside for them under the old process.
That's been one of the worries of Kay Ragozzino, who lives in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood. Her oldest child, Dante, is now a first-grader at Andrew Jackson Language Magnet. If Dante's 4½- year-old brother, Marco, doesn't win the Jackson admission lottery, Ragozzino said, she may have to consider the unthinkable -- moving out of the city.
The logistics of two working parents trying to transport two kids to two different schools would be "untenable,'' said Ragozzino, an education researcher and wife of a University of Illinois at Chicago professor.
"If he [Marco] were not to get in, everything would be on the table,'' Ragozzino said. "It would be extremely hard for us to leave, but not having two kids in the same school would make leaving the city something we'd have to consider.''
However, under the new proposal -- which still faces a series of public hearings and board approval -- siblings would get first dibs at all open magnet seats, not just 45 percent of them, officials said.
Siblings already are faring well in winning entry-level magnet seats with 92 percent winning admission for this school year. The new proposal should boost those numbers even higher, especially at the most competitive schools.
After the sibling lottery, sources said, half of the remaining seats would go to neighborhood kids -- up from a current threshold of 30 percent in most magnet schools.
And the other half of the seats would be decided based on socioeconomic factors -- the most complicated part of the equation.
According to sources, CPS officials hope to look at annually updated census tract data reflecting several socioeconomic variables of the area in which applicants live. That could include the area's median family income; adult education level; percent of single parents; the level of owner-occupied homes; and the percent of children living in homes where a language other than English is spoken.
Median income would not be divided into poor vs. non-poor, but rather be into about four gradations, each carrying different levels of weight, officials said.
Officials are hoping that socioeconomic barometers will help magnet schools stay racially diverse -- one element that Ragozzino now finds especially appealing.
With greater sibling and neighborhood student bodies, Ragozzino said, her sons might be able to go to school with more kids from the neighborhood, and then come home and play with them.
"It's better for communities and families,'' Ragozzino said of the new policy. "It's terrific news.''