Chicago Public Schools may shake up magnet schools with new policy

Azam Ahmed & Joe Germuska:

The number of outside applicants being offered a seat would drop at nearly every Chicago magnet school next year under new admissions criteria to be voted on Wednesday, according to a Tribune analysis.

By giving greater priority to siblings of current students and applicants who live within 1 1/2 miles of each magnet school, the policy could reduce the offers extended to other applicants by about 14 percent overall.

In some schools, the reduction is far greater. At Drummond Elementary, where the acceptance rate hovers around 3 percent, offers to students outside the neighborhood would drop almost 55 percent. At Black Magnet on the South Side, where just 1 in 10 students is accepted, 32 percent of the offers would dry up.

Some observers say the policy will undermine the essence of magnets, which were created nearly 30 years ago to integrate schools in the nation's most segregated large city. By raising the number of students from the neighborhood who can attend, magnets once meant for all public school kids would increasingly become de facto neighborhood schools.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 15, 2009 1:01 AM
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