As you may know, last month, Noble Academy had a proposal before the CPS board to move their high school campus from 17 N. State Street  to 640 W. Irving Park Road. After hearing from elected officials and community members in the areas covering Amundsen H.S., Lake View H.S., Senn H.S., Sullivan H.S., and Uplift H.S., Noble Academy officials announced that they will be withdrawing their plans to move their high school campus to Uptown. I want to thank Michael Milkie, the Noble Network of Charter Schools CEO and Superintendent, and the CPS Board of Education for listening to and understanding the concerns of hundreds of neighbors across many wards, the neighborhood high school principals, Local School Councils, and elected officials. A big thank you to all the parents, community members, principals, and neighborhood school advocates for making their voice heard. All said, I sincerely hope that the Noble Academy secures a permanent home for their high school.  

I know that school choice and charter schools are a fiercely debated issues across Chicago. And I have serious concerns about the impacts of school choice to neighborhood schools. That said, I am not reflexively anti-charter nor am I anti-Noble. I will not pretend that I know what is best for all communities. But I do know that we have been working together for four years to build the City's first neighborhood K-12 system; creating a system within a system which links our neighborhood elementary schools to our neighborhood high schools. The overarching goal is to change the narrative around neighborhood high schools by investing in these schools and providing all families with stability and equity. The same stability and equity suburban K-12 systems provide Chicago families as they flee the City to escape  the selective enrollment pressure cooker. And most importantly, all families and students seek this stability and equity- not just those with economic and professional mobility.  

My opposition to Noble Academy had nothing to do with Noble as institution. I opposed the move to maintain the progress we've made on creating a neighborhood K-12.

We've gotten some questions about plans for a neighborhood K-12. See below for answers to frequently asked questions.

What's the problem with the current CPS system?

People move to our community for elementary schools, but move to the suburbs for high schools when their children reach the sixth or seventh grade (sometimes much earlier). Why? Families and students are living in a pressure-cooker. If you live in Tier 3 or 4 of the CPS Tier system, your child has to get straight A's and test in the 95-99% percentile to test into a selective enrollment high school. For many families, the stress is just too much and they move to the suburbs. What do they get in the suburbs? Suburbs make schools the starting point for everything they do. Property values, economic development, and community sustainability is tied to the school districts. So one tax bill nets a family an entire K-12 system. This means there is no stress about getting into the right high school to get into the right college as everyone goes to the same high school. There is more stability and equity for all kids. And this allows kids to be kids and families to live with some peace.

What is #GROWCommunity?

In sum, #GROWCommunity aims to solve the problems created by the selective enrollment pressure cooker. This means, we need to invest in and embrace our neighborhood high schools so we can have a school system which serves all learners.

The #GROWCommunity effort is comprised of parents, community leaders, elected officials, principals, and teachers. The goal is to link the K-8 schools which feed into Lake View and Amundsen as a cohesive system in the same way suburban communities link their schools. To this end, we launched a #GROWCommunity taskforce to help accelerate efforts around a neighborhood K-12. This task force is co-chaired by three aldermen, Mayor Emanuel, and UCHICAGO Impact. Learn more about #GROWCommunity by clicking here. Learn more about the #GROW47 successes by clicking here.

So you're saying that selective enrollment schools are the problem?

I see the average scores of the selective enrollment high schools. They are much higher than neighborhood high schools. Can you say something about that?

For perspective, the average ACT score at Northside Prep is 30.7. That average is held up by policymakers as a triumph of Chicago Public Schools and is then used by national publications to calculate national high school rankings. Many parents and kids use this average score (and those of other selective enrollment schools) in making decisions regarding high school. Interestingly, families who leave for suburbs like Niles, Park Ridge, Morton Grove, Wilmette, etc., leave for schools whose composite scores come nowhere near the average scores of Chicago selective enrollment schools. For example, the average ACT score at Evanston is 23. Maine South comes in at 24.3. Niles West has an average of 21.9. And finally, New Trier has an average score of 27.4. So in the City, parents and kids live in a constant state of stress in the hopes of gaining admission to a selective enrollment school yet leave for high schools that don't score anywhere near selective enrollment schools.

So what are suburban high schools doing differently? Or more simply, why are their scores lower?

The answer is simple. Suburban schools take everyone. Students may get tracked but they take everyone - whereas, selective enrollment schools cream off the top of a system of 370k students. The creaming results in the dramatic differences in scores between City selective enrollment schools and suburban high schools.

So it seems like you're making the case for more choice and more selective enrollment schools?

No. Actually the opposite. We need to invest in our neighborhood high schools. Why? Each year, there are nearly 17k applicants for 3200 selective enrollment slots. To meet demand, we couldn't build selective enrollment schools fast enough. And building more schools and adding more seats is not a solution, especially given the state of CPS' finances. The responsible and right solution is to invest in schools like Lake View, Amundsen, Senn, Sullivan, and Uplift.

Ok. You're throwing out average test scores, policy choices, etc. What about the kids?

I think the debate on charters and selective enrollment are linked. To me, we must link neighborhood schools (and existing charter schools) to their community. This is what every community outside of an urban area does - they build a K-12 system first and everything else follows. In urban areas, policy debates on education center around union/non-union issues, privatization, corporate reform, etc. While these are all worthwhile topics, in my mind, refocusing efforts around building neighborhood K-12 systems cuts across ideology and politics and instead focuses on building whole communities around neighborhood schools. And in the midst of all the various debates involving adults, kids end up having to navigate a system where they have to be perfect to test into a selective enrollment school. This is totally absurd.

When I was going door-to-door in 2010 and 2011, I talked to thousands of you. And most of you brought up the issue related to high schools. And for this reason, I've been working with our neighborhood elementary schools, community leaders, parents, and principals to scale your work and successes from neighborhood elementary schools to the neighborhood high schools. This has been my all-in since 2011 and will continue to be in this term.

And this brings me back to the beginning of this letter. I didn't take joy in opposing the Noble move and I am not celebrating their withdrawal. In fact, I feel conflicted about it all. That said, I opposed the move because so many of us have worked so hard to realize our goal of building a neighborhood K-12 system - and the addition of seats to an area where the community is catalyzing a movement around neighborhood high schools would have been a mistake.

I know there are people on both sides of this debate and I owe you my perspective on the issue.

Now here is my ask of you: we need to continue working together around our neighborhood high schools and change the conversation around selective enrollment. And we can't talk about school choice without talking about selective enrollment. And finally, we need to stop the peer pressure between parents surrounding selective enrollment. If the adults stop pressuring one another, the kids will follow. Together, we can create a neighborhood K-12 system for all learners in our community. All you have to do is get involved with our wonderful neighborhood high schools.

Click here to learn more about the Friends of Amundsen.

Click here to learn more about the Lake View Partners.

The Northcenter Chamber of Commerce's annual Ribfest kicks off tomorrow, Friday June 12th, at 5pm. The festival is held on Lincoln Avenue between Irving Park Road and Berteau Avenue. Please be aware that parking restrictions and street closure on Lincoln Avenue will begin at 5am tomorrow. The festival grounds will be cleaned and reopened to traffic by early Monday morning.

The festival is open today from 5pm to 10pm, Saturday from 12pm to 10pm, and Sunday from 12pm to 10pm. For full information on Ribfest, please visit their website. Please avoid driving through the area, if possible, and take public transit, walk or ride your bike to the festival.