This past Friday, thousands of CPS eighth graders from across the city applied for access to selective enrollment high schools. Many of the schools, which accept only a small percentage of applicants, are rated in the nation’s top 100 schools and send graduates to some of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
However, access to these schools won’t be equitably distributed across Chicago. In a district that is predominantly Black, Latinx, and low-income, these competitive enrollment schools are disproportionately white and wealthy. White CPS students are more than three times as likely to attend a selective high school as their Black and Latinx peers, and students from the top income quartile are more than twice as likely to attend as students from the lowest income quartile.