OPINION: Chicago, It’s Time to Rethink the “Selective” Part of Selective Enrollment Schools

This past Friday, thousands of CPS eighth graders from across the city applied for access to selective enrollment high schools. Many of the schools, which accept only a small percentage of applicants, are <a href="https://news.wttw.com/2019/04/29/us-news-rankings-high-schools-chicago-illinois" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">rated in the nation’s top 100 schools</a> and send graduates to some of the nation’s most prestigious universities. However, access to these schools won’t be equitably distributed across Chicago. In a district that is predominantly Black, Latinx, and low-income, these competitive enrollment schools are <a href="https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/2018-10/Selective%20Enrollment%20HS%20Snapshot-Feb%202018-Consortium.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">disproportionately white and wealthy. White CPS students are </a><a href="https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/2019-06/GoCPS%20A%20First%20Look-May2019-Consortium%20and%20Chicago%20Fed.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">more than three times as likely</a> to attend a selective high school as their Black and Latinx peers, and students from the top income quartile are more than twice as likely to attend as students from the lowest income quartile. <a href="https://toandthrough.medium.com/its-time-to-rethink-the-selective-part-of-selective-enrollment-schools-1bad5c8322a6">Click Here</a>