CPS looks to improve neighborhood schools, backs off changes at selective enrollments and charters

Chicago Public Schools officials are doubling down on their commitment to strengthening neighborhood options from preschool through high school, but they’re backing off from making policy changes that would significantly alter the admissions criteria or funding for selective enrollment, magnet or charter schools.

District and Board of Education leaders laid out their vision for CPS on Monday in announcing their highly anticipated and “transformative” five-year strategic plan that sets a blueprint for how the school system will make decisions moving forward. The school board is set to vote on the 47-page plan, called "Together We Rise," later this month.

The goals they set out for CPS include for every student to have access to a well-rounded education that includes art, music and sports even if they attend their neighborhood school rather than a highly touted one. They want more students to be multilingual, including native English speakers.

They want children's success to be measured not only through academic achievement but also by their social and emotional progress and well-being.

And they want the district to be responsible for ensuring the right practices are in place at all schools — from quality teaching to robust support for families — that will lead to good outcomes for kids rather than simply demanding high test scores.

Avoiding the thorniest topics around selective enrollment, magnet and charter schools is likely to go over well with critics of Mayor Brandon Johnson and his appointed school board. There has been consternation and protest — and even proposed state legislation — following a board resolution last December that vowed to move away from school choice in favor of neighborhood schools, causing some to think selective enrollment or charter schools could be negatively affected or on the chopping block.

Board of Education Vice President Elizabeth Todd-Breland said there was never an intention to close or make drastic changes to charters and selective enrollment schools. She said one reason the board and district left those alone altogether is that they heard from parents about how much they valued their schools.

Officials also likely don’t want controversy around those choice schools to distract from the ongoing fight to get more funding from the state legislature.

The district and board tried to thread the needle by promising more investments in neighborhood schools so that families would see them as viable options, too.

Right now, they said, the stakes are too high and put too much pressure on families: Many kids heading into high school feel they simply have to get into a top-rated school to have a good education, or else they’ll find themselves stuck in an under-resourced school with few offerings.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said the plan to turn neighborhood schools into quality options families feel comfortable sending their kids to is vastly different from CPS’ strategy in the past, which envisioned magnet, selective enrollment and charter schools as the main lever for giving students access to quality schools.

“Success is not felt equally across our district,” Martinez told reporters in a briefing Monday. “We know that our student experience varies widely based on where you live in our city and what school you attend. And we know that far too many of our students experience barriers to their success — these barriers are driven by deep-rooted structural racism [and] socioeconomic inequality that has impacted our public education for too long.”

An important change in the new strategic plan is the scrapping of school ratings, which was proposed last year and will be fully implemented soon. Rather than each school getting a score based on test scores, attendance and other end results, CPS will instead assess the front end of education at each school: What programs are offered, what resources are available, what’s the quality of the teaching and more. If the proper elements are in place, the outcomes will follow, officials said, calling the idea a “trailblazing” one for other cities to follow.

But they said students will still take state-mandated annual standardized tests, and one of the goals of the strategic plan is to increase the number of third through 8th graders who are proficient in reading and math by 20%. About 25% are considered proficient in reading and 18% in math, according to 2023 state test data.

Todd-Breland said there have been “many reforms over the course of many CPS strategic plans” and yet there remain gaps in the opportunities available to kids based on where they live in the city, their race and their socioeconomic status — and those necessitate these changes.

“We acknowledge that past policies and practices did create important pockets of opportunity and important gains for some students, and we will continue to support pedagogical practices, policies and educational models that are working and are creating opportunities for young people in our district.

“But islands of opportunity are not enough,” she said. “This plan really requires more of us.”

Todd-Breland said that includes continuing to support education in all school types, including magnet, selective enrollment, contract, option and charter schools. But neighborhood schools will specifically be targeted for investment because they’ve been left behind by past policies.

One of the key problems preventing that type of transformation is funding. It would appear impossible to maintain existing resources in selective and magnet programs while improving all neighborhood schools to the level required without more money. Officials said they’re hopeful the progress CPS students have made in recovering from pandemic learning loss can help convince lawmakers that more resources will help supercharge those gains in all schools.

There’s also the reality that there have been many promises, plans and visions set out for CPS over the years, but executive-level turnover — from the school board to district leadership and the mayor — often leaves goals in the dust: Those who set them often aren’t there to see them through.

But officials said these types of changes to key systems should be long-lasting. Martinez pointed to student-based budgeting, which was in place for more than a decade despite fierce criticism. And the Board of Education plans to change the structure of its meetings to focus on updates toward the main goals.

Sarah Karp covers education for WBEZ.