Is School Choice Failing Kids?

With the end of 8th grade in view for James Baker, three of Chicago's top public high schools turned him away--rejections that caught the straight-A student and his family off-guard.

His test scores fell just shy of cut-offs at Lane Tech and Walter Payton, two elite college prep high schools. He lost out in the lottery for Von Steuben, a popular magnet school on the North Side.

Baker, an African American, had a major advantage over thousands of other minority students, since he lives in Lincoln Park and was guaranteed a seat in that neighborhood's top high school. But Baker and his mother, a well-informed parent who was active in the PTA at his elementary school, felt Lincoln Park's basic classes wouldn't be challenging enough. He tried out for the school's premier music program, but didn't make it.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[anpu]

I've seen school choice here in my town and it is not what people claim it to be. The top public schools have become de facto private schools. Students are selected by their ability to enhance the image of the school. There are some students that fall in the gray area of this new philosophy of choice as made evident by the subject in the article. James Baker will be forced to attend a school that will have certain undesirable academic behaviors concentrated--best students attend other schools. He will have limited academic peers and be exposed to an inferior education.

Public education is a mess. I feel for the young man and his parents.

[BSERIUS]

School choice should be for all kids... Are not the Democrats the party of choice? Or is that only to choose if the child will be alive to go to school