Chicago does not need another selective enrollment high school (SEHS), like the project planned for the Near Northside (formerly known as “Obama Prep”), within a few miles of two other selective enrollment schools. Chicago Public Schools needs a real master plan for facilities and education policies that will provide true equity: the guarantee of a high-quality, well-resourced education at a publicly-operated school in every neighborhood of the city.

The city’s schools, particularly at the high school level, resemble a caste system where resources are distributed unequally and are dependent on a child’s test scores, furthering the stratification in our city. Children should not have to compete in an intellectual Hunger-Games system to attend a well-resourced high school. Parents want, and children deserve guaranteed access to a quality public high school not based on lotteries and selective criteria.