Chicago’s schools are making local and national headlines this month, and it seems like everyone has something to say about the city’s decision to move away from school choice.
I’ve seen articles and commentary by editorial boards and pundits and policy experts. I’ve seen statements from the city’s district, board and union leaders. But there’s one group that has been absent from the decision and the coverage — parents. I am a Chicago Public Schools parent and I am baffled that my voice, and the voices of hundreds of thousands of parents like me, is not part of the conversation.
I have done everything in my power to ensure each of my three Black sons has the education they need for a successful future. That means each has had a different educational journey.
For the last 15 years, I’ve lived in the Ashburn neighborhood of Chicago, and my children have attended schools in our neighborhood and outside of it. They’ve attended a traditional public school in CPS, a charter school, private school, a STEM school and a magnet school. You want to talk about real school choice? My family is it.
As someone who has embodied what providing educational choice is about, I can tell you that it is a game changer for parents, especially parents of Black and Brown children in Chicago.
For families like mine, access to an education that meets their needs isn’t always right outside our front door. In fact, most Black, brown, and low-income families in Chicago live in areas where the school their children are zoned to attend is mediocre at best. That’s why the majority of parents in Chicago are sending their kids to schools outside their zoned attendance area.
If you remove that choice, families are faced with fewer options: we can move or we can pay private school tuition — frankly, two options that families like mine can’t afford. Or, we can send our children to the single option available to us, which might not be what’s right for them.
I understand that the idea here is to make every neighborhood school great, but that will take years, and that school still might not meet your child’s needs. What the Chicago Board of Education is proposing takes away choice and agency from parents.
Offering a choice is what equity is about
Locking families into sending our children to their zoned school isn’t a decision that promotes equity, and it certainly doesn’t empower our community.
Do you know what is empowering? Knowing your child will function better in a smaller, quieter environment and finding a pre-K program at a charter school that gives that to them. Or seeing your child show signs of real potential and being able to secure scholarships for a private school education or acceptance into a magnet school. Or watching your child struggle in one school and being able to choose a different environment where they can flourish. Those are real choices. Choices I have made and choices that have fundamentally shifted the course of each of my children’s lives.
Without those choices, my sons would not be excelling. They would not be getting what they need to thrive. And isn’t that what promoting equity is about? It’s not about giving the same thing to everyone — that is equality and not equity, and that argument has long been played out. And it’s not telling someone what they need or making decisions for them.
I believe Mayor Brandon Johnson and our city’s leaders want every child to have an exceptional education. They want to reinvest in communities that have long been overlooked. They want to right historical wrongs against communities of color. I want all those things too. So do most parents. Which is why it is so upsetting that most parents weren’t asked how we feel about school choice before the board passed their resolution.
I would never say that Chicago’s system of school choice is without its flaws. I understand that our education system is rooted in a racist, problematic history and that there are still far too many children who don’t have access to a high-quality education. We must fix those problems. But we can’t do that by taking away choices from our families without asking them. We need to do this together, with genuine dialogue and partnership between leaders and families. Anything less than that cannot possibly be seen as a move toward equity.
Stacey Freeman is the mother of three boys and lives in Ashburn on the South Side. Her family has sent their children to public schools in Chicago for the last 18 years.
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.
The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.
