The Chicago Board of Education has revoked the charter of the storied Urban Prep Academy schools in Bronzeville and Englewood and, over howls of local protest, cleared the way for a hostile takeover by the bureaucrats of Chicago Public Schools.
That takeover is now under appeal. An appeal the school should win. Otherwise, this is a destabilizing disaster for the young Black men who are proud to attend those schools on their way to colleges and universities.
We think both Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker should step in to preserve what everyone can agree has been a remarkably successful educational experience for those students. Both of these politicians often use words such as “equity” but that’s empty rhetoric if it involves sacrificing educational excellence for students who were born in privilege.
Simply put, Urban Prep cannot do what it does under the management of CPS and under the corrosive influence of the Chicago Teachers Union.
The charter agreement has given Urban Prep crucial autonomy over coursework and other matters. The students, who live in resource-challenged neighborhoods, don’t just get a guidance counselor, they each get a dedicated college counselor who comes with the baked-in expectation that both college, and success on campus, are natural progressions for them. That’s why 100% of this school’s graduates are accepted to four-year schools. As those who work at Urban Prep have told us, the proof is in the pudding.
How does this happen?
Urban Prep has a longer school day (until 4 p.m.) than CPS schools. Students wear uniforms and learn in a single-sex environment. The school has a daily, all-school assembly where students are taught the school’s core values, which include pride in oneself and one’s community, resilience and accountability. There is a compulsory class actually called “pride.” It is a signature of the school. Urban Prep paid attention to matters such as social, emotional and individualized learning long before those concepts became trendy buzzwords.
Parents opt in to Urban Prep because they believe in what it is setting out to do. And what the data shows it has done well.
CPS is not exactly having great success with this demographic at present. The reality of a system failing young Black men on the South Side only increased with the endless pandemic closures. Only a limited percentage of Black male students leave CPS schools fully prepared to meet college requirements. There are profoundly dedicated teachers in many CPS schools, of course, but Urban Prep was doing something distinct in a specific way, and it clearly was working for those at-risk students. and for parents who sought it out for their sons.
So why did CPS swoop down? That’s open to debate. The stated issues mostly involve charges of poor fiscal management and the actions of one man, Tim King, the school’s founder, who resigned his positions as CEO and board chair last summer after reports surfaced of his having an inappropriate relationship with a former student.
Clearly, King ended up being a problem, both fiscally and personally, and Urban Prep’s supporters and staffers also acknowledged to us that he was allowed to hang around the school for too long, if only on the sidelines in recent weeks. But, and we cannot say this strongly enough, the students should not be made to pay for King’s mistakes.
And everyone we spoke to at Urban Prep, from board members to top educational officials, say that King is now permanently gone and charged that, in essence, CPS is using already corrected mistakes from the past to take over now.
Many of them see this action as a bureaucratic assault on Chicago’s Black community, an attack on the whole notion of charter schools with independent ideas, and a school closure under another name. And we get why they see it that way.
We heard of many reforms: More than one signature on checks, a newly expanded board of directors, a new director of finance, and an openness to an independent watchdog, assuming that does not suck money from the school that is going to students.
These leaders pointed out that their current financial scorecard meets or exceeds CPS’ own metrics. And, of course, they pointed out the obvious. The school is hugely successful and has a 91% graduation rate. And at Urban Prep, graduation means going to a four-year college because graduates have all of the requirements for admission.
We think the mayor, who has said that she stands for many of the values Urban Prep is propagating, as has the governor, should intervene here. They should help with the independent watchdog and understand that CPS is the worst possible overseer in this scenario because of an inherent conflict of interest, especially where its unions are concerned.
We don’t doubt CPS wishes all Chicago students well, but too many people have a vested interest in seeing Urban Prep fail as an institution because of an ideological opposition to charter schools. Put them in charge and it is obvious what will happen.
Yet anyone being honest knows that what Urban Prep is doing, what it has achieved, cannot be done under a CPS template. That’s not to say CPS cannot serve its students well in other ways, but parents sending their boys to Urban Prep made a specific decision for a particular kind of education.
This city should honor that choice and tell these students, and those that should follow, that it has their backs and that it will welcome back these young Black men with their shiny college degrees, ready and fired up to make our city better.
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