Disservices within Chicago Public Schools

The job of a journalist is to research, document, and share stories that you find important/meaningful. Being a journalist can be a dangerous job and can cost you your life. For my journalism course, my class finished out first unit, “Text”. In this unit we learned what it takes to be a journalist as well as a consumer throughout the different time periods. We analyzed different parts of an article: like the headline, how you would capture this information/ the readers and how you can communicate a message. This led to me thinking about what I could write about.

Disservices within Chicago Public Schools

        “We’ve been using the same books for 10 years. We can't afford anything.” says 17-year-old Kayla who attends King College Prep. Chicago is notorious for having unjust school systems in lower-income neighborhoods predominantly on the south and west sides of Chicago. It’s not news that public schools don’t have the best funding or functionality, some schools more than others. But in circumstances as Kayla (and many others) describes it, there’s an obvious disadvantage to students who go to schools in minority dense neighborhoods. Teachers coming and going has been a big problem within the CPS school system, as well as having fewer resources than other students in higher-income neighborhoods.
        Instability within the staff at schools is detrimental to the success of students. Often when teachers are coming and going frequently, students become less engaged and are less likely to be motivated to learn. “We just lost like 7 teachers and only 3 of them were replaced.” says Kayla. Fewer teachers can translate into many issues. Teachers can likely be coaches or sponsors, helping with extracurricular programs such as sports, or academic teams within the school. Class size is very important to your learning success, it’s easy to trail off in class when you have 20 plus classmates. It may be even easier to overlook a student with an intolerable workload. This may cause a decrease in test scores leading to less funding, something that schools like this have been struggling with already. With fewer teachers, this means that there will be less and less programs to offer. At King College Prep, a librarian no longer worked there, and so students were not allowed to access the library for a year until they were able to find a new teacher, depriving them of a consistent space to study.
        Kayla talks about how she wishes she could experience what other students can .Barely even 5 miles north of her school, a senior, also at a selective enrollment school likely experiences school completely different. At a school like Walter Payton or Jones college prep, the school offers so many resources; 70+ clubs/activities, global class trips, and room for more teacher/student interaction. These things are something that they’re known for. “I think it's unfair to see students within the same system experience a completely different academic environment,” she then continues to express her point “I have friends who attend Walter Payton College Prep and we’ve discussed the difference in numbers with extracurricular activities and clubs. Payton has over 70 clubs while King is losing clubs yearly.”
        This is just one unfortunate situations out of countless others. Talking to Kayla really brought insight to a situation that not a lot of people acknowledges nor try to change. For many students, school is a sanctuary but it truly is providing a disservice to students while simultaneously setting them up for failure in higher education to allow students to continue to attend schools with subpar conditions and education. Every student deserves equal opportunity and hopefully under the new mayoral administration in Chicago, that would be something attainable.

        Deciding to write about this topic came from me having friends who go to public schools here in Chicago and I wanted to know more about my friends perspective. I was able to empathize, having experienced completely different highschools myself. I hear about what they have to go through and how it compares to other schools in Chicago and it’s wrong. Public schools have to fix their system. This project worked out perfectly because I was already with my peer who I interviewed and we regularly have conversations like this. I’m glad I could write an article about this.