The library at Chicago’s Lane Tech High features art deco artwork.
Getting your child into a selective public school in Chicago is a “rat race,” writes Cassandra Kaczocha in Chicago Unheard. Her parents got her into a magnet school for gifted children, and she and her husband did the same for their oldest child. But competing for the most selective school doesn’t fit her family’s values, she writes. They’re opting out.
Kaczocha and her husband want their children to be kind, inclusive, emotionally attuned and resilient, she writes. Academic excellence is less important.
So, three years ago, we switched our two kids from their magnet and selective enrollment schools. We moved to our neighborhood school and began making a concerted effort to switch our focus from accelerated curriculum to the values and qualities we hope to impart to our child.
. . . We shifted our priorities away from grades and test scores toward social emotional learning, restorative justice and social justice, because we want our kids to know that how they treat themselves and others is more important than their ability to do math two grade levels higher.
In seventh grade, their son’s teachers began preparing students to compete in the high-stress race for a seat at a top high school. Their oldest was considering applying to a selective school, she writes
Then we went to a high school fair. The Lane Tech selective enrollment table was staffed by a counselor who told us about all classes being honors in order to do well on tests. Our neighborhood high school’s table was staffed by students who talked about being part of a community and the opportunities the school provides for finding students with similar interests. Lane Tech’s materials talked about average test scores and college acceptance rates. Our neighborhood high school’s materials talked about academic programming to suit a diverse range of students and their college completion rates.
. . . (Their son) saw how one school was focused on an end goal and one was focused on the journey.
He’s leaning toward going to the low-stress neighborhood high school. “We couldn’t be prouder,” writes Kaczocha.
That’s fine for her family. Excellent students have the luxury — I guess I should write “privilege” — of choosing a friendly, low-stress school over a school focused on college prep. Parents who are college graduates usually know how to prepare their children for college success, even if the high school does not. I don’t think opting out of the academic rate race is a good choice for less advantaged families.
Two pieces in Chalkbeat discuss the fierce competition for slots at selective high schools. I’ve heard that it’s harder — and more stressful — than getting into college.