Mike Klonsky's Blog: What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree

Mike Klonsky's Blog: What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree

What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree

I'm reading Sarah Karp's WBEZ story about Chicago's experiment with school desegregation and recalling how Arne Duncan helped get a federal judge to quash the city's deseg consent decree.

Karp writes:

Most of the city’s 78 magnet and test-in schools — including classical, gifted and selective enrollment — were created under the decree as a way to lure in a diverse group of students. But even after the court order was lifted, school district officials said they believed integration was important, and they started integrating by the socioeconomic status of children.

Students wait for the bus in front of Bouchet Elementary Math & Science Academy in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood. More than 74% of students whose neighborhood school is majority black schools are bussed to majority-black schools. (Manuel Martinez/WBEZ)

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras lifted the consent decree ending three decades of efforts to integrate Chicago schools. The decree’s bilingual education provisions, according to Kocoras, duplicated protections in state law. The ruling came despite evidence presented by DOJ lawyers in court that the district repeatedly failed to enroll English learners in bilingual education fast enough or provide them with required services.

Since then, writes Karp, CPS has continued busing and spending extra funding on magnet and test-in schools and also added 13 new ones plus more charter schools that have been shown to contribute to segregation. This year, the school district plans to spend $50 million for bussing and extra positions at these schools, which serve 62,000 students.

But, says Karp, the WBEZ analysis finds only about 20% of magnet and test-in schools meet the racial makeup goal set out in the court order, compared to 35% a decade ago. Under that CONTINUE READING: Mike Klonsky's Blog: What's happened to Chicago schools since Arne Duncan got Judge Kocoras to lift the deseg consent decree