Oh No!

CPS changing assessment test for selective enrollment high schools

WAH! I have so many feelings about this. First of course is complete sadness and frustration, under no circumstances should it become harder to get into the selective enrollment magnet schools in this city. The admittance system for these schools has been a mess years, creating incredibly unequal high school experiences in Chicago. I have direct experience with this. I was lucky enough to attend a selective enrollment magnet school between 2002 and 2006, Northside College Prep. However, my younger brother was not a very good tester and did not get into a selective enrollment high school. He went to Mather High School, just a few blocks away from Northside. We had drastically different high school experiences, I can't even tell you. From the physical spaces that we were in, to the amount of security around us, to individual freedoms I had access to and he did not, too different for words. And it all came down to an arbitrary combination of academic statistics deciding who was better qualified for a magnet school. I'm certain that if my brother had had access to Northside, he would have done just as well academically as I did. Our different high school experiences have had lasting affects on our lives. So now, the use of a completely new test to decide the academic fate of 7th graders, one that has so many potential new problems (the article discusses a range of problems including the fact that the new test is administered on a computer with no ability to go back and review your answers), it just feels like we're digging ourselves into a deeper, messed up hole of education inequality in Chicago.