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More quality schools, please

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Families that lie to get their children into Chicago’s elite selective-enrollment schools seldom face serious consequences, leaving parents to assume there is “little to be lost by committing fraud to get into these highly competitive schools,” the district’s inspector general says in an annual report released Monday.

Inspector General Nicholas Schuler’s office found numerous instances of suburban families using fake addresses to get their children into the city’s best high schools. And families in the city were found to have provided false addresses to give their kids a leg up in an admissions process that takes into consideration a student’s socioeconomic background.

While admissions fraud is nothing new in Chicago Public Schools, Schuler said not enough is being done to stop it. He recommended students with false admission records be kicked out of school and their families be required to reimburse CPS for tuition. Because of a lack of clear policies, students guilty of admissions fraud were able to quickly re-enroll at the same school or transfer to another attractive CPS school, the report says. District officials sometimes allow students with fraudulent admissions to stay in schools and graduate.

There should obviously be greater penalties for this fraud, but this also points to the dire need for more high quality public schools. Why are there so few selective enrollment schools in this state? I get that “selective enrollment” means limited numbers, but there is obviously a huge demand than the educational institutions in the city and suburbs are not meeting.

I mean, even the governor knows this from his own personal experience.

* Sun-Times…

“It is widely known that the selective-enrollment application process is highly stressful for students and families, and that it causes no small amount of tears, anxiety and lost sleep,” states the report. “Indeed, some families decided to remain in Chicago, rather than move to the suburbs because of the chance their children might be accepted at a selective-enrollment high school. Those upstanding and hard-working families who follow the rules bear the brunt of the damage caused by enrollment fraud.”

The report highlights two types of residency fraud: families who live in the suburbs but claim to live in the city; and families who live in the city but claim to live in a poorer neighborhood to boost their chances of getting into a top school. As part of the selection process, CPS considers the socio-economic level of the neighborhood where a student lives.

In one case, a student was admitted to Whitney Young Magnet High School based on an application form that said she lived in Bronzeville, when she in fact lived in North Center. When the inspector general’s office told CPS, the girl was kicked out of Whitney Young at the end of her freshman year. The student attended another school, before re-enrolling a semester later at Whitney Young, according to the report.

Discuss.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:38 pm

Comments

Bruce Rauner took a seat for his denied Winnetka-Living daughter, denying a worthy Chicago child.

Rauner, personally, denied one child a chance.

All teachers, especially Chicago teachers should remember that, while all parents in Chicago, struggling to get a quality education for their kids need to keep in mind Bruce Rauner showed he cares more about his kid when it mattered, and not the child he personally denied an opportunity.

So… there’s that.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:47 pm
This seems easy policy to initiate if fraud is detected:

Remove student from that school at the end of the semester (to be fair to the student in question - moving midyear can fundamentally impact a student).

Charge parents under Illinois forgery laws which can go as high as a Class 3 felony (unless a better law applies).

We have zero tolerance in our schools, why not here as well? Or are we okay with creating a generation of kids with affluenza?

Comment by Dee Lay Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:48 pm
> Bruce Rauner took a seat for his denied Winnetka-Living daughter, denying a worthy Chicago child.

Amazing.

I’m sure whoever was responsible at CPS for allowing this transgression to happen was fired, right?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:54 pm
Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seemed to make out “ok”…

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:55 pm
> Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan seemed to make out “ok”…

Well if this is CPS policy, what’s the problem? Your beef is with CPS allowing the clout.

End corruption at CPS, and Rauner’s kid is back in Winnetka, and some urban youth takes her place at Payton, right?

Comment by Anonymous Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 12:59 pm
There won’t be more quality schools if the entire budget in some districts is debt service for banker follies. There also won’t be more quality schools if we aren’t willing to transport students to them, pay teachers to teach and instruct, and give children the resources they need to learn.

Comment by Precinct Captain Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:02 pm
” - Anonymous - ” (Ugh)

Maybe you need to read up how Rauner got his denied Winnetka-Living Daughter into Payton Prep.

She graduated. Please, keep up.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:03 pm
Idealistic approach to the mess.

Vouchers (both public and private schools) and pure lottery enrollment (nonexceptions or preference programs except, maybe, objective score based) for all public schools with a first, second, etc choice. Possible priority for choice of ‘local’ school. Once in a school, guarantee for remains years. Most school funding to ONLY be supplied through the vouchers.

Won’t immediately solve any of the problems but will make it harder to game and should gradually create incentives to improve.

Comment by RNUG Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:03 pm
I worked in two Chicago selective-enrollment schools and two which were not selective enrollment: two were high schools and two were elementary schools. Also I spent years working for a local university - visiting CPS classrooms in which university students were helping. We should look at this demand for selective enrollment as the flip side of most CPS high schools’ marginal success and poor reputations, hence the GREAT push to get into a selective high school.

Comment by Rafa Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:04 pm
OW, I understand Rauner flouting his kid in. Any parent would have done the same if they could have.

What I object to is a system that allows the clouting.

Comment by RNUG Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:06 pm
I am going through the CPS high school process right now with my 8th grader, so any fraud on the part of parents makes me see red. I think CPS should enforce this more rigorously. Also, what example is the law-breaking parent setting for their kid?

I am resigned to the fact that my kid (just like my older kid) will not get in to any selective enrollment high school because he has one B in 7th grade and we live in a Tier 4 neighborhood. How do you encourage families to stay and make neighborhoods better? I moved in 25 years ago to a neighborhood that would have been a Tier 2 or 3 back then and helped improve it and the city. Now, my CPS high school choices are limited as a result. Obviously, I have found a non-selective enrollment high school solution, but not without spending many hours figuring out all the choices and then having my kids have to audition for performing arts programs at different schools.
–one very tired parent.

Comment by 32nd Ward Roscoe Village Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:08 pm
- RNUG -,

With great respect,

Rauner first said his daughter got a perfect score, but the results say otherwise (throwing his own daughter under the bus)

Rauner also said his wife, or he, or he couldn’t remember how a call to Arne Duncan happened.

Rauner also said it was a Proncipal’s Choice, even though the timing could NOT have happened in that way.

- RNUG -, it’s not all about the Clouting Rauner did, which he did. It IS about the lying, the sneaking, the throwing his wife and child under the bus.

Had Bruce Rauner said;

“I did it. It was wrong. In sorry I did it, but who wouldn’t for their child”…

… I’d feel 100% different.

Bruce Rauner never did any of that.

With respect, bud. OW

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:15 pm
OW, got it.

Comment by RNUG Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:18 pm
As a CPS parent, in a Tier 4 neighborhood, with a high school child- I have a very hard time forgiving/forgetting a billionaire, who could easily have afforded a private school, who has his name on a Charter school, and whose fallback position was the public school his daughter was entitled to attend-New Trier , a school most in my community would be desperate to attend.
Somewhere in Chicago is a life unfulfilled, because Princess Rauner had a daddy who could pick up the phone.

Comment by West Sider Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:26 pm
I understand this is anecdotal, but the misrepresentation between suburban and CPS addresses works both ways. I’ve been told by several hs teachers, in upper-middle class suburbs, about a growing number of students claiming “homeless” status within their districts. Basically, students have a 1 year grace period to declare that they are “homeless”, within a district, and they are able to attend suburban high schools, without penalties, for one academic year.

Also, it is incumbent on the district to provide transportation back to these students neighborhoods. Hence, there are several cabs parked outside of these high schools for transportation purposes, funded by the districts.

In summation, people want what is best for their kids and the enrollment process is broken all over. We desperately need to come up with a better solution statewide.

Comment by Jockey Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:37 pm
Huh - I thought the post noted the obvious points about Rauner and penalties for fraud and questioned why we don’t have more selective enrollment schools. One might discuss CTU’s opposition to devoting more resources to such schools (and how much pushback Rahm would have at this point given the reaction to the school closings and the police reform controversey he is embroiled in), research on the impact on the neighborhood schools, race issues as to where these schools have been located and where, if we added more, they would go, proposals to expand the public school choice option that in a very limited trial had promising results, etc.

Comment by lake county democrat Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:42 pm
Oh my goodness, if Rauner didn’t game the system because he could, his daughter would have had to go to New Trier.

The poor thing.

Comment by Cheryl44 Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:45 pm
We don’t need more selective enrollment schools. We need better neighborhood schools.

Comment by Cheryl44 Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 1:55 pm
“We don’t need more selective enrollment schools. We need better neighborhood schools.”

Selective enrollment schools gut resources from neighborhood schools. The city has also managed to put their elite schools in the same areas–largely the North side.

A lot of CPS students are in the Southwest side. They have a choice of a very long commute that many of their families can’t afford and which preclude them working or they can go to Lindbloom, which is still a long way away.

The result is leaving the schools educating the most difficult and expensive kids with the least resources.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:43 pm
Get rid of selective enrollment schools. Empower every CPS high school to provide the same services and level of education these schools provide so every qualifying student benefits.

Comment by Wensicia Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:44 pm
RNUG writes:

=Idealistic approach to the mess.

Vouchers (both public and private schools) and pure lottery enrollment (nonexceptions or preference programs except, maybe, objective score based) for all public schools with a first, second, etc choice. Possible priority for choice of ‘local’ school. Once in a school, guarantee for remains years. Most school funding to ONLY be supplied through the vouchers.

Won’t immediately solve any of the problems but will make it harder to game and should gradually create incentives to improve.=

I think you eliminate a good deal of parents gaming the system and send schools gaming the system through the roof. Your child needs a full time aid and is extremely expensive to educate. My child has no special needs and is relatively cheap. Schools will find a way to get rid of your expensive child.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:47 pm
@dee lay, I thought forgery was signing someone’s else’s name? If not what’s the statute of limitations? I can think of a good test case.

Comment by Sweetness Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:49 pm
“this also points to the dire need for more high quality public schools.”

Which is hard to do when cash gets redirected to publicly funded - and sometimes privately run - charter schools, and the Governor’s appointed charter commission can override a local municipality’s rejection of a charter application. It starves the system.

Comment by Anonymiss Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:49 pm
I think Cheryl44 is kind of on the money here in part…

In suburban schools to some degree there is a ’selective enrollment’ school as it were within the high school. The ’smart’ kids tend to end up in the same classes and don’t have too many classes besides gym with kids who cover the spectrum of students at a high school.

Even out in dogpatch here, besides for one district, the differences between the districts are not so huge that you think your kid may be screwed if they go to one HS vs another, sure one may be better than another one, but the difference isn’t that huge.

Then again, having a large number of kids who live in the district attend private schools saves CPS a ton of money…

Comment by OneMan Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 2:53 pm
CPS is 85% low income. If we want Chicago to have more than just low income residents, we still need these some selective enrollment schools. Resources are distributed equally to all neighborhood schools by student population.

Comment by Tone Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:00 pm
@sweetness -

Signing someone else’s name is one form of forgery. Forgery in Illinois is defined as making or altering a document to make it false where the document is apparently capable of defrauding another, or issuing or delivering such a document with knowledge that it’s been so made or altered.

Oddly, there is no statute of limitations of forgery.

Y’know, all this could also fall under State Benefits Fraud, too (though that’s only a Class 4 felony).

Comment by JoanP Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:04 pm
Vouchers, Vouchers, Vouchers. Vouchers would make public schools compete for students, give parents true options, and save tax payers money. Even if we limited the voucher to $5,000 we could save the taxpayers millions and provide kids safer schools and better educations.

Comment by Groucho Marx Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:15 pm
==Vouchers, Vouchers, Vouchers. Vouchers would make public schools compete for students, give parents true options, and save tax payers money. Even if we limited the voucher to $5,000 we could save the taxpayers millions and provide kids safer schools and better educations.==

And just like at the worst charters, money would start fleeing the classrooms towards landscaping, marketing, free laptops, and other gimmicks to try and attract students.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:23 pm
Willie,

Bruce Rauner owns a home on Randolph Street in downtown Chicago. In the time preceding his daughter’s application, Bruce Rauner formally changed his place of domicile to Chicago and lived in his Chicago residence most of the time. He was a Chicago property owner, taxpayer and resident. He legally and rightfully secured a place for his daughter at Walter Payton College Prep and she had an extraordinary urban education experience. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Chicago Public Schools while his daughter was attending classes. It was well more than the cost of a highly regarded boarding school. CPS students have benefited much from Bruce Rauner’s generosity.

Comment by Muscular Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:51 pm
Lots of people try to get their kids in to their perceived best option. goes both ways suburban to city and city to suburban. That’s what parents do for their children.
Several years ago I was making calls for the annual beg a thon for Northside College Prep.
I was assigned to call a parent in the 630 area code. Not too unusual since you can have parents separated, using their work phones for contact etc.
Turns out I reached a mom in Naperville who was livid. CPS had found her and her student out as living in the suburbs and kicked her student out. Imagine the trip every day from Naperville to the city and back. But they were willing to do it for the perceived value of the education. Needless to say mom did not make a pledge that night.

Comment by Peters Post Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:52 pm
Carhartt,
==And just like at the worst charters, money would start fleeing the classrooms towards landscaping, marketing, free laptops, and other gimmicks to try and attract students.==
Not at the private schools I have been associated with. We don’t even have air conditioning. But the cost per student is 6,500 per student at the private school my kids attend as compared to the published 14,000 per student at CPS.

Comment by Groucho Marx Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 3:59 pm
@Groucho Marx

A $5,000 voucher? Who pays the difference between $5,000 and the full cost of tuition.

The Swedish voucher system might work. But their catch is that no school can charge more than the amount of the voucher.

“The authors discuss some important characteristics of the Swedish system that may contribute to the success [of their voucher system]. First, the Swedish system does not allowing parents to pay additional fees on top of the voucher. Second, there are strong rules about how schools must accept students. They cannot use ability, socio-economic status, or ethnicity. The authors argue that if competition on selection is prevented, schools are more likely to compete on quality.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2012/12/03/lessons-on-school-choice-from-sweden/
would be that poor kids would be o

Comment by Bill White Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 4:01 pm
===He legally and rightfully secured a place for his daughter at Walter Payton College Prep and she had an extraordinary urban education experience.===

Willfully ignorant or blissfully unaware, lol!

Not even remotely close according to the WTTW interview with the IG.

===He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Chicago Public Schools while his daughter was attending classes.===

Money doesn’t cover the lack of honesty, integrity, ethics or morals.

What, had Rauner not donated the Clouting wouldn’t have been ok? lol.

===CPS students have benefited much from Bruce Rauner’s generosity.===

Is Rauner Prep a charter school? Why didn’t Rauner’s Daughter go there? Think on that.

===In the time preceding his daughter’s application, Bruce Rauner formally changed his place of domicile to Chicago and lived in his Chicago residence most of the time.===

Where did the Daughter attend 8th grade? Was it a CPS school or a Chicago address?

If it was a Chicago address, how did the Daughter go where she went for 8th grade? Hmm.

Comment by Oswego Willy Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 4:02 pm
@groucho-
Vouchers would be a nice be fit to wealthy private school parents but would not increase “competition” between public schools. There is no evidence to support the “competition” theory or even the concept. Secondly, it would only benefit those with the means to transport probably don’t have the time. And is likely,at most, to cause movement between neighboring districts as many do not have the time or means for transporting their kids over any discernible distance. Unless you own properties in multiple communities that is.

Comment by JS Mill Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 4:06 pm
It also appears that Sweden’s voucher experiment didn’t turn out so well:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_dismal_science/2014/07/sweden_school_choice_the_country_s_disastrous_experiment_with_milton_friedman.html

Comment by Bill White Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 4:06 pm
Chicago schools already supposedly have competition since each school’s funding is provided on a poor-pupil basis (for the past couple years). Wouldn’t that have the exact same effect?

Comment by Ok Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 4:41 pm
=Not at the private schools I have been associated with. We don’t even have air conditioning. But the cost per student is 6,500 per student at the private school my kids attend as compared to the published 14,000 per student at CPS. =

That’s not really an accurate number. Chicago spends less than half of what New York City spends per pupil on instruction, while spending three times as much on general administrative costs. If you divide the total budget by the number of enrolled students it does come to $14,000 per pupil, but two-thirds of those costs are spent on overhead and administration, rather than instruction—almost the total opposite of New York City’s education system. Having schools compete against each other doesn’t solve this.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 5:19 pm
So, the problem is that it’s much easier to teach a homogeneous group than a heterogeneous group, especially with large groups, which is the norm in Chicago. It takes an experienced teacher to organize and teach a large classroom that has a wide range of abilities, languages, discipline problems, etc.
They used to solve the problem by tracking the kids, but that’s now considered discriminatory.
So, how is selective enrollment any different than tracking? It appears to be tracking on a monumental city-wide scale. How is that not discriminatory?
Either tracking is OK or it’s not. Which is it?

Comment by Sue Monday, Jan 4, 16 @ 6:47 pm
Carhartt

At the end of the day $14,000 is $14,000 and $6,500 is only $6,500. Which is $7,500 less. Don’t see how were wasting money on landscaping and laptops.

Comment by Groucho Marx Tuesday, Jan 5, 16 @ 3:54 pm