Thread by @il_fps

Rep Margaret Croke's HB 303 is an attempt to prevent CPS from shifting to equity-driven budgeting by protecting schools with selective admissions policies. Here's the set of SEHS & HS w/ Academic Centers' Opportunity Index measures:

As you can see there's a big range in indicator score and Opp Index score. A high Opp Index means school is less resourced & has higher need student body (among other things). See p. 4 here cpsboe.org/content/action…

Lane, Payton, Jones, Northside have the lowest OI of high schools in CPS, w/ Whitney Young close behind--but these are similar to Amundsen, Lincoln Park, Von Steuben & Lake View, 3 n'hood high schools and a magnet docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

Brooks, Hancock and Lindblom are close to Roosevelt and Alcott; Westinghouse is similar to Wells HS and Mather HS; King's is close to Dyett, Spry, Juarez. South Shore's is like Chicago Vocational and Hubbard - the SE schools are very disparate, as are neighborhood high schools!

And this is the case for elementary schools too. The most advantaged elem schools in the district are mostly not those that are test-in for K-8 (= only Edison, Keller, Skinner North, Decatur)

Unfortunately, no one has districtwide public numbers on budgets from @ChiPubSchools this year yet, but likely these low OI schools may be facing budget cuts. But HB 303 won't protect most of them anyway! See our HB 303 fact sheet here assets.nationbuilder.com/ilfps/pages/14…

@ChiPubSchools Here's a (somewhat random subset) of elem schools that use test scores for at least part of their admissions. Also a big range in OI

It's not good policy to write laws to further opportunity hoarding, so the intent behind HB 303 is problematic in any case, but it's also clearly not even doing what those who drafted it think it's supposed to do! 🤦

In short: Call and ask your State Rep to oppose this confusing and harmful legislation!