"Equality in misery" is the new plan for Chicago Public Schools, writes Paul Vallas, who lost the race for mayor to Brandon Johnson, a former teachers' union organizer. "Chain students to a failing school system by ending the state private school scholarship program & dismantling public charter & magnet high schools," writes Vallas, former CEO of the district, on X. "Poor families will suffer most."
Chicago's high-performing selective-admissions high schools, magnet schools and other forms of choice reinforce “cycles of inequity” and must be replaced with “anti-racist processes and initiatives that eliminate all forms of racial oppression," the Chicago Public Schools board has resolved.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who appoints the board, wants to focus on neighborhood schools, report Reema Amin and Becky Vevea for Chalkbeat.
"Some selective enrollment and magnet schools lack the diversity of the city, enrolling larger shares of white and Asian American students," they note. Others enroll very high percentages of lower-income, black and Hispanic students.
Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) leaders called the resolution a “step in the right direction” and decried selective enrollment schools’ "deep inequity," reports Hannah Schmid for Illinois Policy Center. "CTU and its allies already killed the Invest in Kids Act, Illinois’ only private school choice program for low-income students, this fall."
A majority of students enrolled in the 11 selective high schools come from low-income families and nearly 70 percent are Black or Hispanic, she notes.
The school board's resolution called for “equitable funding and resources across schools.” But nine of the 11 selective high schools "spend less per pupil on operating expenses compared to the district average and produced higher proficiency compared to the CPS average," Schmid writes.
The CTU has pressured the district to deny funding and facilities to charter schools, which are competing successfully for students, Vallas writes. Black middle-class families have been leaving CPS schools for charters -- or leaving the city.
This from a Chicago News outlet (not the Tribune or the Sun Times for sure), WIREPOINTS, "Chicago officials have announced they want to wipe out selective enrollment and magnet schools – the city’s top performing schools – all in the name of equity. That’s the latest from CPS in a new 5-year strategic plan that calls for a transition away from “school choice” and toward traditional neighborhood schools.
The irony shouldn’t be lost on you. It’s at those top schools where ‘equity’ is actually being achieved in Chicago. More than 70 to 80 to 90 percent-plus of blacks and Hispanics in many of these top, diverse schools can read and do math at grade level – on par with …
We may aspire to equal protection of the law. That leaves the question: "Which law?"
No other equality is possible. Children are not standard. Parents roll a bucket of dice when they put their kids together and some kids come up snake-eyes:
<1-1-1-(1,000)-1-1-1>.
The human and canine IQ curves overlap.
One size and style of shoe will not fit all feet. One curriculum and pace and method of instruction will not fit all brains. Brains vary more than feet.
Only an incredibly stupid, or insane, or malicious, or corrupt Social Justice Head Zookeeper would mandate that the zoo commissary feed the same diet to the gaur, the binturong, the siamang, the hummingbirds, and the manul.
If everybody's somebody, then nobody's anybody. Gilbert & Sullivan
Control the language. Failures can always deflect by attributing their failure to nefarious forces in "the system." Even when there are aspects of the system that contribute to the failure (incompetent teachers?) the people perpetuating the failure (who are never held responsible) always come up with a clever way to make themselves the victim or, even better, the hero.
Given enough attention and resources, even Koko the Gorilla was taught some degree of communication skills. Unfortunately, we can't afford the Koko the Gorilla approach and the trillions in US taxpayer expenditures are not making everyone equal. How about if we start focusing on competition instead of holding back our best and brightest in order to pursue the fantasy that everyone should have equal outcomes in life? A false "equality" is not how evolution works.