- Chandler West/For Sun-Times Media
- “Literally less than a handful” of neighborhoods were right for Obama College Prep, Mayor Emanuel told reporters when he announced plans for it on April 24.
For a school that won’t begin rejecting students until 2017, Obama College Prep has already ticked off a lot of people. Why? Location, location, location.
In order to save Stanton Park, the city is now considering other sites in the neighborhood, Burnett told me ten days ago. Presumably he’ll learn which one was chosen before ground is broken.
Hispanics are the largest racial or ethnic group in CPS—the citywide enrollment is 45 percent Hispanic, 40 percent black, and just 9 percent white. But there’s no selective enrollment high school on the largely Hispanic southwest side.
Burnett thinks Obama Prep can help make the Near North Side more socioeconomically diverse, especially with the 30 percent stipulation. The school will be an amenity to help draw market-rate buyers to the mixed-income developments. Drawing them hasn’t been easy, and the mixed-income developments can’t succeed without them.
The centrally located selectives—Payton, Jones, and Young—are indeed socioeconomically diverse. They’re a combined 40 percent low-income, according to our calculations of CPS data. They’re also quite diverse racially—an aggregate 31 percent white, 27 percent Hispanic, and 22 percent black. And their students are excelling academically: U.S. News & World Report rates the three schools second, third, and fourth respectively among public high schools in Illinois.
A selective enrollment high school in far-south-side Riverdale, or in Englewood, with its high crime rate, isn’t likely to attract middle-class or white students. But there are neighborhoods on the south and west sides that could attract them, especially given the demand for the selective enrollment high schools.
