Chicago Public Schools students thrive through academic rigor
Chicago Public Schools’ school choice experiment is working: students at the city’s selective enrollment schools are thriving.
In a district where Chicago Teachers Union leadership’s radical political agenda puts politics over academics, students at the city’s selective enrollment schools are thriving.
True to form, CTU opposes selective enrollment schools. It falsely claims the schools promote segregation and it advocates a generic brand of education for all.
Here’s why CTU is wrong.
In selective enrollment schools, 3 out of 5 students enrolled are Black or Hispanic and 45% are low income. More than 90% of the 17,000 students attending CPS charter schools are Black or Hispanic, well above the average for CPS public schools.
Selective enrollment schools are a desired schooling option among Chicago parents seeking a higher-quality education, especially for minority families. They offer hope, especially to the minority families these schools primarily serve.
Black and Hispanic students are thriving academically at Chicago’s selective enrollment high schools by meeting proficiency in reading and math at much higher rates than their peers in other CPS high schools.
On average, Black selective enrollment 11th grade students were nearly three times more likely to read at grade level compared to their peers in other CPS high schools. On average, 70.7% of Black students were proficient in reading in 2025 at selective enrollment high schools compared to 25.3% in other CPS high schools.
In math, Black students at selective enrollment high schools were five times more likely to be proficient compared to their peers in other CPS high schools. There were 55.2% proficient on average in selective enrollment schools and only 11.7% proficient in other CPS high schools.
Hispanic students in Chicago’s selective enrollment schools are similarly far outperforming their peers in other CPS high schools. In reading, Hispanic selective enrollment students were two times more likely to be proficient and more than three times more likely to be proficient in math.
Low-income students also outperformed their peers in other CPS high schools. In reading, 77.1% of low-income selective enrollment students were proficient in reading while 32% of their peers at other CPS schools read proficiently. In math, low-income students were three times more likely to be proficient in math.
The bottom line: selective enrollment high schools are providing Black, Hispanic and low-income Chicago high schoolers with the best opportunity for academic success.
Chicago high school students struggled in reading and math on the 2025 Illinois Report Card. Only 40% were proficient in reading and 25% in math on the ACT.
Chicago’s selective enrollment high schools are beacons of academic opportunity for students to prepare them for success. No wonder CTU opposes them and pushes mediocrity for all.