What does Springfield's selective-enrollment bill mean for Chicago Public Schools?

Sarah Karp/WBEZ file photo

Illinois lawmakers are advancing a bill that would prevent Chicago Public Schools officials from closing any schools or making major changes to selective-enrollment programs until a fully elected school board takes control in early 2027.

The proposed legislation is the latest and most significant backlash to a declaration in December by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Board of Education that it would no longer prioritize selective schools and would refocus resources to neighborhood schools that have faced years of cuts and under-funding.

Johnson and his school board have sought to clarify this spring that the changing priorities don’t mean selective-enrollment schools will face massive cuts or closure, and the intent instead is to provide neighborhood schools with some of the same programs available at selective-enrollment schools.

Board of Education President Jianan Shi has been in Springfield this week pushing for more funding for CPS to fill a massive deficit and help with transportation woes and migrant students. He has also warned lawmakers that the selective-enrollment bill, likely to be called to the full House this week, will have “unintended consequences.”

So what exactly does the bill call for, what is it in response to, and how would it affect CPS?

School closings moratorium

Sponsored by State Rep. Margaret Croke, D-Chicago, House Bill 0303 initially would have prevented CPS from closing any schools with selective programs until Feb. 1, 2027 after the fully elected school board takes office. After lobbying from the Chicago Teachers Union and supporters, the bill has been amended to extend that protection to all CPS schools.

Croke said the bill is in response to the Board of Education’s December resolution and the belief that officials should “wait for democracy” with a fully elected board before making potentially “irreversible decisions.”

Johnson’s administration has not proposed closing selective-enrollment schools. Doing so wouldn't make sense politically or educationally — some of Chicago’s selective schools are among the best in the country. The bill would protect charter schools, however, which face an otherwise uncertain future under Johnson. A current moratorium on school closings expires in January 2025, when a partially elected school board will be sworn in.

Board of Education Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said at a board meeting Wednesday that the bill “in fact is a proposed remedy to a problem that actually does not exist” because school closings aren’t under consideration.

“The small number of selective-enrollment schools in the district are well-enrolled, they are well-resourced, and Chicago Public Schools and this Board of Education will continue to support these schools,” she said.

Admission standards

Perhaps more consequentially, the bill would prevent CPS from changing the “standards for admission” to any selective school.

For instance, CPS reduced the length of the high school selective-enrollment test to an hour last year to improve accessibility, particularly for students with disabilities who may have had trouble testing for three hours previously. CPS would have to halt those types of decisions.

Some families have worried that Johnson's administration could water down the enrollment process, fearing that the test score threshold could be lowered, or testing could be eliminated altogether to effectively end the selective aspect of these schools.

Critics of the bill, however, have warned it could prevent policy changes aimed at another target: diversifying these programs.

For more than a decade, 70% of seats in selective enrollment high schools have been split up among four tiers of students based on socioeconomic factors, and kids in each group compete with each other based on grades and test scores. The remaining 30% go exclusively to kids who earn the most points in the admissions system, and they typically are mostly higher-income kids.

Though he later paused the plan, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez proposed scrapping that 30% in 2022 and applying the tiered split to all selective seats to ensure more low-income students are admitted. There have been long-standing demographic disparities at some selective-enrollment high schools, with Black students, kids from low-income families and those in special education particularly underrepresented compared to the district as a whole. The percentage of Black students in the most selective high schools has declined over the last 20 years.

Todd-Breland said Wednesday that the bill would “codify racial and socioeconomic inequities in our most selective schools.” And she said it would sideline other communities that “regularly come to the Board with requests to examine their schools' admissions and attendance policies” to address overcrowding and other enrollment issues.

Croke reiterated that she “by no means [is] saying that selective-enrollment schools are perfect,” but she believes any big changes should wait.

“Obviously, I do want to point out that still selective-enrollment schools are majority Black and Brown overall,” she said. “But I understand the conversation.

“Those are decisions that still are being made by an appointed, unelected school board,” she said. “I understand that democracy is not convenient, as someone who has to get elected every two years. … But that doesn’t mean that we circumvent it.”

Funding changes

For the past decade, CPS schools have received a set sum per student enrolled, a system that research has shown has sent many majority-Black schools with declining enrollment into a downward spiral.

CPS is by and large a choice district, particularly at the high school level, where about 75% of students don't attend their neighborhood school. Some parents and community organizers have argued more families would be enticed to their neighborhood school if it had better programs.

So CPS has started to roll out revamped budgets this month that set a baseline of offerings at schools and distribute resources not on enrollment numbers but based on the students’ needs in particular schools — like how many are unhoused, living in poverty, learning English or disabled. That’s similar to a system adopted by Illinois in 2017 for distributing money to school districts.

It’s still unclear how selective-enrollment schools are impacted by those budgets because CPS has not publicly released school-by-school information. But it’s likely that the system will redistribute resources to some extent from schools that have been adequately funded to schools that haven’t. The district doesn’t want one school with six art and music teachers and another with zero, so those effectively may be spread out.

That type of plan is CPS’ fastest way to address the art and music teacher example without more revenue to add resources rather than redistribute.

This bill, however, would mean that plan might have to be entirely re-examined if money leaves selective programs for neighborhood schools. The proposed legislation takes away the board’s authority to make budget decisions that result in a “disproportionate decrease in either the total amount or percentage of funds allocated” to selective schools.

Croke said she supports CPS’ calls for more education funding — though it’s unlikely Springfield will grant that request this spring. In the meantime, she didn’t say how CPS could address underfunded schools without redistribution — she simply thinks those decisions should be left to an elected board.

“They have been — unfortunately — I don’t think very transparent or forthcoming with a lot of the decisions that they are making,” Croke said. “And that miscommunication for those decisions I think have led parents and families and citizens of Chicago to have a lot of mistrust about what is going on.”