Chicago's Own Clout Schools
Investigation launched; recalls U of I scandal
Getty Images
How many of you think clout influences admissions to Chicago's best schools?
An investigation is officially underway into whether politically-connected applicants were clouted into the best of Chicago's public schools - and already the words coming out of officials' mouths sound just like those uttered by beleaguered University of Illinois officials facing similar scrutiny.
"Chicago School Board President Michael Scott told the Sun-Times that he's never lobbied to get a student into an elite CPS school," the paper reports.
"Although he's received 'loads' of applications over the years, Scott said, 'I just send them over [to principals]. I don't ask them [principals] to do anything'."
Riiight. Because he has the secret address to our public schools that isn't otherwise available to parents.
And when school officials receive an application from the mayor's hand-picked school board chairman, it never occurs to them that the chairman has a particular interest in that student.
Scott is just performing a mailing courtesy.
In act, principals have built-in discretionary "picks" that are ripe for abuse.
"One key target [of the investigation], sources said, is the 'principal pick' power that principals enjoy at CPS' nine 'college prep'' high schools that admit students based on tests and grades, and at the dozens of magnet schools that admit by lottery," the Sun-Times reports. "At both, principals are allowed to hand-pick up to 5% of their kids."
You have to admit, it's an easier clout system than the U of I uses.
"Entry into magnet schools is supposed to be through randomized lottery," the Tribune reports. "Admittance to selective enrollment high schools and gifted elementary centers is supposedly based on merit.
"But whispers have long swirled that some students get spots in these top-flight schools not by chance or merit, but by whom their parents know or how much money they make."
It's not just whispers, though. Many parents are not only of the belief that this is how the system works, but they play along expecting results.
"Principals at these [premier] schools recount tales of parents begging to get in, organizing fundraisers, donating large sums of money or volunteering to work in the classrooms," the Tribune notes. "Some parents subtly point out that they know public officials or prominent business executives.
"Some principals say they have even gotten calls and letters from elected officials."
Now I wonder where they would have gotten the idea that that would work?
Steve Rhodes is the proprietor of The Beachwood Reporter, a Chicago-centric news and culture review.
Copyright NBC Owned Television Stations
Posted Tuesday, Jul 28, 2009 - 1:19 PM CST
