Chicago Public Schools

Chicago Public Schools, commonly abbreviated as CPS by local residents and politicians, is a large school district that manages over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago Public Schools is currently the third largest school district in the United States, with more than 400,000 students enrolled in the school district. It is led by CEO Arne Duncan. The position of CEO of the CPS was created by Mayor Richard M. Daley after he successfully convinced the Illinois State Legislature to place CPS under the mayor's control.

CPS is a vast system of primary,secondary, and disability schools confined to Chicago's city limits. This system is the second largest employer in Chicago.^[1] Some schools are new construction, some appear gothic in architecture, and others are deteriorating from years of lack of attention.

Most schools in the district, being PreK-8, elementary, middle, or secondary, have attendance boundaries, restricting student enrollment outside of any given residential area.

Attendance boundaries are average, depending on how many schools are located within a neighborhood.

For example, Beverly has at least four public K-8 schools: Barnard, Clissold, Vanderpoel, Kellogg, and Sutherland. Each school restricts enrollment based on their individual attendance boundaries. A school may elect to enroll students outside their attendance boundaries if there is space, and or if it has a magnet cluster program. Full magnet schools, such as Gunsaulus Scholastic Academy, are open to student enrollment citywide, provided that applicants meet a level of high academic standards: living near a magnet school does not guarantee admission.

Chicago Public Schools also supports magnet schools, such as Walt Disney Magnet School, Sabin Magnet School, Galileo Scholastic Academy, and 35 other magnet schools. Magnets offer a variety of academic programs with various focuses (agriculture, fine arts, international baccalaureate, Montessori, Math, Literature, and Paideia programs, among others).

The school system also contains nine regional gifted centers, including: Lenart Regional Gifted Center, Beasley Regional Gifted Center, Beaubien Regional Gifted Center, Bell Regional Gifted Center, Carnegie Regional Gifted Center, Edison Regional Gifted Center, Keller Regional Gifted Center,Pritzker Regional Gifted Center, and South Loop Regional Gifted Center.

2005 Teacher layoffs

School administrators issued advanced dismissal notices to approximately 1,116 untenured teachers between March and April 2005. A change in the 2003-2007 Agreement Between the Board of Education and Chicago Teachers Union allowed for a clause giving principals the power to dismiss untenured teachers without due process. Principals can login to a website, select a reason from six items listed on a drop-down menu, and click a submit button. At least fifty-percent of the dismissed teachers experienced difficulty controlling their classrooms. Other reasons for dismissal include poor communication skills and rapport with fellow teachers and parents. The fact that principals can simply choose "other" from the drop-down menu is a cause for controversy. While the intent was to have "other" encompass such reasons as insubordination, it could also be used for budget-related firings. Per union restrictions, principles facing budget constraints may not cut costs by firing poor employees as would a business (they may only be fired for cause).

Performance

The April 21, 2006 issue of the Chicago Tribune revealed a study released by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that stated that 6 of every 100 CPS freshmen would earn a bachelor's degree by age 25. 3 in 100 black or Latino men would earn a bachelor's degree by age 25. The study tracked Chicago high school students who graduated in 1998 and 1999. 35% of CPS students who went to college earned their bachelor's degree within six years, below the national average of 64%.[1]

Chicago has a history of high dropout rates, with around half of students failing to graduate for the past 30 years. Criticism is directed at the CPS for inflating its performance figures. Through such techniques as counting students who swap schools before dropping out as transfers but not dropouts, it publishes graduation claims as high as 71%. Nonetheless, throughout the 1990s actual rates seem to have improved slightly, as true graduation estimates rose from 48% in 1991 to 54% in 2004.^[2]

As announced on September 8, 2006, due to an ongoing series of campaigns and programs, including one which emphasized the importance of fathers accompanying their children to the first day of school, and parents picking up their children's report cards, first day attendance rose from a previous year high of 92% in 2005 to 92.8% for the first day of classes, Tuesday, September 5, 2006.