S5 E7 - A Parent’s Roadmap To Chicago Public Schools And Selective Enrollment

We break down how Chicago Public Schools really works, from neighborhood boundaries and lotteries to gifted programs, Academic Centers, and selective enrollment high schools. We share the exact decision points we used with our own kids and the home habits that make the biggest difference when the system feels confusing. 
• the main CPS school types and what admissions looks like for each 
• how to use the CPS School Locator and why boundaries are not destiny 
• what magnet, classical, gifted and options programs actually mean 
• Academic Centers and why seventh grade is a key window 
• the waitlist reality, sibling preference, and why you may need to resubmit 
• why CPS can better prepare kids for selective enrollment tests than many private schools 
• the 900-point selective enrollment formula and why seventh grade grades matter 
• the CPS tier system and how competition changes by tier 
• how private school feeder patterns and costs shape high school choices 
• why home support and daily habits matter more than blaming the system 
DM me. 

Transcript

Why Education Comes First

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think that a parent's job is to do what's best for their child. And education is by far the single best thing you could do for your child to get them to where they want to go, right? My grandfather always said, you can take my body, you can never take my mind. You know, he said that in his 90s. So you, you know, your mind is the one thing that you can control. You want to give the best education possible. What's the five P's? Do you remember it? Proper preparation prevents poor performance. There you go. It doesn't matter how much money we get. If we don't close, it's no money, right? So no close is no money. I'm everything that I am because of my dad's death. And I wouldn't be as successful without his death. Welcome to the Jason Theory. Today we're gonna tackle a very interesting subject. We're gonna tackle the public school system and how to navigate this. So, first and foremost, let me let you a little know about my background with my kids. I had kids that were in private school. My oldest, who just graduated from Peyton, went to private school until sixth grade. My middle child is now going to be a rising sophomore at Lane Tech. And then I have one right now that is in third grade and has always been in CPS. So my first two were in private school, flipped them to CPS, and my youngest has always been in CPS. On top of that, my kids have gone to Burley, public school-wise, Burley, Pritzker gifted, Bell gifted, Lane, and Peyton. So I have neighborhood school experience, I have test in school experience, and I have option school experience. And then I also have navigated two of my kids to the test and enrollment high schools. So I get a ton of questions all the time from parents and from other people, especially when I'm working with families that are, let's say, have children from three to six, and they find out that my oldest went to Peyton, my middle's at Lane, and then they kind of find out the journey my kids have. They always ask questions. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to spend about 40 minutes and talk about the CPS system, the different types of schools, and the journey you need to take to get your kid where you want to, and the fact that you don't have to leave the city of Chicago to have a great education. And, you know, we'll talk about ranking, school rankings. The city dominates the school rankings. And yes, they are selective enrollment and there are some neighborhood schools that that dominate that space. That being said, if your child is in that space and is very advanced in math or science or music or stuff like that, the city provides opportunities that the suburbs cannot provide. They just can't. And we'll get into that too.

The Real Map Of CPS Schools

SPEAKER_00 2:55

So I first want to talk about, you know, I've that's about me. Now, the first thing I want to talk about are the are the different schools. So, in terms of elementary school, there are neighborhood schools. These are the schools that if you live in those neighborhoods, you are automatically going to, right? That's going to be Burley, Bell, Blaine, any school in that neighborhood that you are in that boundaries. If you want to know your boundaries, it's really easy. You go to the CPS, just put in CPS school locator, and it'll pop up. You hit it, you put your address in, it'll tell you your grammar school and it'll tell you your high school right there. And it's mapped out this or that. You want to know if you're shopping for a home and you want to know a specific school district, you can go to their website and hit the school district and it pops up. I always like putting in the address of where you're going, the house or the condo or the townhome or whatever you're looking at. I like to go to the CPS website and put in the address so I know exactly where the school is. A lot of times, per se, like let's say diversi, you know, in certain areas of Roscoe Village, the north side of Dversi is Yon and the South Side is Prescott. Those are two very different rated schools that are divided by a street, being north and south. So that's your neighborhood schools. Your next is going to be your selective enrollment schools. These are highly competitive. These are accelerated academic programs. And these are on entrance exams, grades, and then also they have what's called a socioeconomic tier system, which I really love. We'll get into that. That's tier one through four. That's gonna be mostly your high schools. I really, I'm really interested in getting into that. Then you have your magnet schools. I'm gonna use one. These are great schools. They are pure lottery. You do not have to be in the neighborhood. The one everyone goes to is Hawthorne, right? Like when I mean goes to, like talks about. So Hawthorne an unbelievable grammar school, better than any grammar school that's a neighborhood school in the suburbs, in Illinois, whatever. It's unbelievable. Top three in the state, and it's straight lottery. Then you have your classical schools. Your classical schools are going to be schools like Skinner North. These are extremely heavily on math reading, right? So if you have a child that reads at a high level, has unbelievable math at a high level, these schools are fantastic for them. It basically takes all those kids together and accelerates. The number one grammar school in Illinois, the top two are going to be Skinner and Edison Gifted. These schools are both testing schools that are in the city. They're phenomenal schools. They teach at about two years or even more above where everyone else teaches in the state of Illinois. They're incredible schools. You have kids doing pre-calculus in eighth grade. I mean, it's these are phenomenal schools. The next is going to be the Academic Center and Regional Gifted Centers. So regional gifted center is going to be Edison. This is the number one grammar school in Illinois. This is an unbelievable school. Your kid is very strong academics. I would tell you to take a look at that. And the next one's called the ACUs. These are the academic centers. These are actually grammar schools that are located inside of high schools. We'll get into all the different ACUs. That's the what they call them. Extremely competitive. Over 12 to 1,300 applications for 100 spots in LangTech last year, LangTech ACU. So the great things about ACUs, we'll get into them. If you get into Whitney, if you get into LangTech ACU, there's a ton. Taft, I'll have the whole list. I think there's nine. If you do get into them, you're automatically in that high school. So for someone that doesn't want to deal with the selective enrollment high school issues, if you do get into an ACU, you know, congratulations. But if you do get into that seventh, eighth, and then you roll right into high school, you don't have to leave. Some people don't like to have their kids, you know, let's just say Lane Tech's got 4,200 students. I think that's what my kid goes, maybe even more. Some people don't want a seven or eight-year-old in that environment. They keep them pretty bubbled in their own area. The nice thing is, if your kid is accelerated in certain things, they can pop up to high school courses and take them there, which, which, which, if you're thinking four, five, six years down the line, really sets you up for a top-end college because you're going to have classes that most college, most high schoolers don't get, and you're going to be able to receive those courses. On those things, I'm going to tell you my oldest went from private school, went, he tested to get into act you, didn't get into lane tech, but got into Pritzker Gifted. Fantastic school. He loved it. That got him ready for the academic test. And then my youngest, my middle one, uh, went from Burley, tested in to Bell Gifted in sixth grade, and then seventh and eighth at Bell Gifted, or they call it options now. Seventh, because you can't call somebody gifted. So seventh and eighth options there, and then decided to go to Lane and pursue a different avenue than his brother did at Peyton. My youngest is now at Burley. He loves it there. Great school. Probably will start testing him to see what school he wants to go to as he gets older. Listen, I had three kids in three different schools. People are always like, well, I want to move the suburbs so everyone, I don't have to worry about schools and I don't have to drive here, here. Listen, the suburbs are broken up the same way. You're gonna be going to three different schools too in the suburbs. You don't go first to eighth and the burbs and then and then obviously high school. There's middle school, there's elementary school, there's junior high. Some larger places have three schools. So if you have kids that are spaced out, you're gonna be going to three different schools too. Also, people are always like, oh my God, you kid went to three, you had three kids at three different schools. Listen, the drive was maybe 10 or 10 or 15 or 20 minutes. It's not that bad. Everything's really centrally located here in the city. So I'm maybe driving two and a half miles at total to drop off kids. And eventually your kids get old enough and they drive themselves to school. Also, my kids do take public transportation to school. My kid took the bus and the train to to Peyton before that. He took the Damon bus to Pritzker. The Western bus drops all the kids off at Lane. So there are other things to do. You don't have to worry about that. Okay.

The Tests And What They Measure

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Now, on top of that, there are different, there are different tests too. So there's the regional gifted test. This is gonna be, this is more of like a IQ test. It's aptitude reasoning and critical thinking. It's a totally different test than other ones. Uh one of the things you have to do on this test is it's called paper cuts and figure out like if you cut, if you fold something, it's you have to practice it. It's crazy. Think about this at home. If you fold something eight different ways and you cut certain ways on the paper, what will the paper look like when you open it up? Crazy, right? Like those are the questions that they have on the test. It's not just a really math and science. What's five times five? It's not. It's out-of-the-box critical thinking. The classical programs are more interested in straight scores. So your Bell, your Pritzker, all those option programs, that's straight scores. Your Edison gifted, your acu's are gonna be more on your aptitude to understand information, logic, and thinking outside the box. So they're two different scores uh tests. Most people take both. The academic centers, we talked about six, seventh and eighth grade. We're gonna be talking about Brooks Academic Center, Kenwood, Lane Tech, Lindblom, Morgan Park, Taft, and Whitney Young. So those are your accu's. Those are the things, those are the ones that have seventh and eighth right into it. Now, let's get back to the neighborhood schools.

Neighborhood Schools And Waitlist Tactics

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Let's shift back to neighborhood schools. The one thing about neighborhood schools is my kids, we were in Bucktown. So my neighborhood school in Bucktown is Pulaski. There's two districts in Bucktown, it's Pulaski and Burr. Burr service service is Damon East, and basically Damon for argument's sake. There's some things that go in and out, but for argument's sake, Damon West to Western is going to be Pulaski pretty much. Do you have to go to these neighborhood schools? No. That's a thing that people don't understand. You don't. You that that's guaranteed. You have guaranteed enrollment in that school, but you don't have to go to that school. When you apply to schools and you get on the CPS website, and you know, shout out to my wife who really navigated a lot of this. She has the patience. I really don't, but got on the phone with a ton of people at CPS who were totally cool and totally told us how to do stuff. They're like, listen, on top of your neighborhood school, you can list other schools that you want to go to. So we had put a whole other list together. And then on top of it, of course, you're gonna and you're going to always say, hey, throw our name in for the lottery for Hawthorne. And then you're taking the classical test and you're taking the gifted tests. Not everybody has to do this, but I think that a parent's job is to do what's best for their child. And education is by far the single best thing you could do for your child to get them to where they want to go, right? My grandfather always said, you can take my body, you can never take my mind. You know, he said that in his 90s. So you, you know, your mind is the one thing that you can control. You want to have the best education possible. So for us, we wanted to go to school outside of our district and we listed our schools. Thank God. And you know, it was great. My middle child got into Burley off of that list. Now we are in Bucktown, but he got into Burley. The nice thing about that is once one child gets into Burley, there's a there is a wait list, but there is a sibling wait list and there is a regular wait list. And sibling wait list gets preference. Well, eventually, James, my youngest, got into Burley too. And then what happens was when you get, I will tell you, you know, you you can kind of know early on if your child is reading accelerated or he's working at math accelerated. But at some point, you know, maybe your child is starting to outpace the class, which is great. And if that happens, that's when you start incorporating these tests. Now, it is tough when you have friendships with families and your kids have friendships, and all of a sudden you're like, hey, you know, the best thing for you to do is to pick up and to go here. For my child, for my middle child, it was like, hey, he loved his school, but it was time for him to figure out if testing was for him to move. I believe we tested multiple years in his sixth grade. He did get in to start getting into testing schools. So how the how I always wondered how they figure out where people go. The first school he got into was Skinner North, which was phenomenal, top two school in the state. We went and visited school, it wasn't for him. So you have all these other gifted schools, option schools. And my son was like, I want to go to Bell. He had friends that were there. I want to go to the Bell Options. So now how do you get to Bell Options? Or how do you get to any other options school? Okay, this is something that we found out by talking to people on the phone at CPS. When you deny, when you say, I don't want to take this spot at a certain school, you would think that you would automatically slip back into and get to the next school, but that's not how it works. Every time you deny a school, you have to resubmit to the program, which they don't tell you. So that is a really good thing for you to know that you have to resubmit. So when you resubmit back into the program, it then picks another school. Well, we kept the next school we got was Pritzker. So Pritzker gifted were my were options where my oldest went and he loved it. But Will's like, I'm not leaving Burley unless I get into this program because he's like, I love where I'm at. So we had to keep on saying no until eventually, God willing, he got into Bell. What I realized is that when we were talking to the person, when they look at options programs and these other programs, they do it via location. So what they want to do is they want to put that child for ease to the parents to the closest options program to that house. So we basically got you had to keep on saying no until we got further away from our house, until eventually he did get into the Bell Options program. So that is something that they don't really tell you, but that's something you need to know that once you deny that, you need to reapply to get your name back into the mix. Your Hawthorns and your other things, they will tell you right away, hey, you're number 10 on the wait list. You're number three on the wait list. So to reverse it, when we were getting out of private school and we were applying to Burley, Blaine, Bell at the time, Autobahn, they actually send you back a list and tell you where you are on the wait list. You gotta get to, with about three weeks left in school, you need to get to like number three to make it happen. Because a lot of people leave at the last moment or don't tell the people they're leaving. I mean, my kids got into school. I may be wrong here, but I'm almost positive. I know that I think our kids got into school like maybe a day before school started, or actually a day after school started, when people just didn't show up and they said, Oh yeah, we we we we left, we went to uh, you know, a different school, went to a private school or whatever, we went to something else. So you got to be patient with it and realize that you may get into that school days before school actually starts. So that's something. Now, the options programs for all these places, they run from, you know, kindergarten up. I will tell you, once you get into the options program, no matter what happens to you academically, you will always be in the program. So I I don't know how, I don't know how I feel about that in terms of like, I don't think anybody should be removed, but I think sometimes as kids get older, maybe that program isn't the right program. And having them there could be more of a hindrance than a help if they can't keep up with the speed. So just remember once options, always options. In neighborhood schools, once you're in that neighborhood school, if you move, you can be removed from that school. You're supposed to be removed, but principals have a lot of control and lenience on that. I just want you to know that, hey, my kid got into, you know, I not got into, I'm in this neighborhood, my kid spent three years here. We want to upgrade a house. That being said, I don't think we can afford a house in this neighborhood. So we're moving moving neighborhoods. In theory, I don't want you to be like shocked. You could be removed from that school. That being said, if you get into the school like my son did off of a wait list and you're out of the neighborhood, it doesn't matter because you were never put in that school via neighborhood. So those are two big differences. If you got in because of the neighborhood, watch yourself when you move. Have a discussion with your principal. I can also tell you being very active and volunteering time to that school and helping that school out will help that principal's decision to say, hey, don't worry. I mean, let's be realistic. There's politics involved in everything. So that's something you want to do. Become involved in the school, especially if you think you're gonna move. And just remember, if you originally were not in the neighborhood, it will have no effect on you on that neighborhood school. Okay. So those are those, those are the things when it comes to the the schools in terms of neighborhood school, magnet, like we talked about, which is full test in, like Hawthorne, regional gifted, Edison, and classical school north, like Skinner North. And then your neighborhood schools around me, just around me, I know there's more, but around me are going to be your Pulaski, Burr, Audubon, Bell, Burley, Oscar Meyer, sorry, Oscar Mayer, all those schools, they're they're neighborhood schools. There's also a difference. There's Skinner North and Skinner West. Skinner West is the neighborhood school that's right by Whitney Young. Skinner North is on the other side of Target by division. So just north of division on the other side of Target. Two different schools, Skinner North and Skinner West. Very different schools. All right. So I want to talk about that stuff. Okay.

The Proven Path To Top High Schools

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Now that takes us into what when parents always ask me, hey, you know, we want to do, we want to do Peyton or we want to get to Lane or Whitney, Kenwood, whatever it is, Taft, they always ask me, you know, hey, you know, how did you get there? And the first thing I always say to people is, where does your kid go to school now? If you want your child to go to one of those schools, now listen, this is a generalization, but it's about 90% true because my kids have gone through these schools, so I know where these kids are. 90% of these school, 90%, I would even say it's probably higher, but let's just say 90% of these kids all went to CPS. Out of that 90%, I'm gonna tell you 90% of them went to regional gifted options programs and advanced programs and magnets. Ton of Peyton kids from Hawthorne, ton of Hawthorne kids go to Lane. That's really how you get into that space. It's extremely, extremely difficult to get in to Northside Prep, Peyton, Whitney, Jones, whom I leave now, Lane. It's extremely difficult to get into those schools if you're at a private school. Extremely difficult. And I say this because public schools have a much they differentiate more. And I know that sounds nuts because I went to I went to private school all, you know, throughout my whole career. And we differentiate incredibly amount in private school. What is differentiation? That is taking people in your class and grouping them in levels of where they are in terms of those classes. If you're advanced to math, I'm going to put those people together. If you're advanced in reading, I'm going to put those people together within the class. So people are not within that class, people are learning at different rates, right? You're you people that are accelerated, you want to challenge them. People that need a little help, you want to challenge them. People that are right in the middle, you keep them right where they're at, right? That happens a lot in public school, which lends to those accelerated kids getting into those accelerated testing high schools. It's just a fact. You can argue with me, I have tons of evidence. It's just a fact. In private school, the you have more of you're going to teach at the level where everyone is at, where everyone can participate. So people that are accelerated in those situations a lot of times find themselves reviewing material that they understand and don't need to review. So what happens is that these kids that are in these regional gifted or are in these test-ins, they are learning years ahead of where other schools are at. And when you take a test that is standard for private school and public school to get into a Peyton or Jones or Whitney or any of these other schools, when you're taking that test, and I have kids that are advanced math that, you know, that go straight to junior, straight to pre-calc as freshmen in At Lane, and you haven't seen any of that in your grammar school. You're just, there's nothing wrong with that child. They just have not been exposed to what's going to be on that test, which differentiates the Peyton Jones Whitney kid from a standard high school experience or level. Nothing's wrong with that. It just, it's just a fact because of the pace that these schools teach at. And a lot of these kids in these private schools can learn at those pace and have the aptitude to learn at that pace, but it's just not provided in the schools because that's just how the school is set up. You know, experience that I had when I had, when I had given my concerns to that, to the board and to the school about my sons, they're, you know, and rightfully so. Their response to me is we are not an academic center that pushes academics like that. I thought that was a little unusual considering the cost of that school was the same cost as my property taxes. So I thought that was a little, you know, you know, you know, that's what that's what preemptively started my journey to where I went, but that was something that I wasn't okay with. I wasn't okay with my kids not being challenged, right? Listen, a lot of you parents have kids that are athletes. I look at it the same way. If you're playing a sport and your kid's scoring a hundred points a game in basketball or hitting 10 home runs every game, he's probably not in the right environment, right? He needs to be challenged because the worst thing that happens when you don't challenge a child is they get bored. And when children get bored, they get completely disinterested and they detach from learning or they detach from the environment they're in. Kids love to be challenged, right? They they want to be challenged. You may not think so, but they do. And if you bring them up in that challenging environment, their whole mantra, their whole thought process of how they tackle things changes. So for me, it was, and for me personally, this was something that I needed to do. And I knew that I wanted my kids to go to selective role in high schools and that I wasn't moving to the suburbs, right? I wasn't gonna move. So I was like, okay, we have amazing high schools in the city. You just got to get into them. What's the path to get into them? The path for that I believe is the easiest way to get in is getting into CPS, challenging your kids in CPS, challenging them at home. And then on top of it, also getting them, pulling them out of school if need be. Or if you're at a school like Bell that has an options program in, you're you're in the same school, you hop to the options program. If you're in Pritzker, you can hop to the Pritzker program, options program. A lot of these neighborhood schools have these options programs, these honors programs within the schools. You know, you should actually know that and figure out hey, listen, do we want to move to a place that has an options program inside that grammar school and try to get our kid into that? And then all of a sudden you're fast tracking that child to that selective enrollment school. I know it's a lot, but but but you know, that's what we do for our kids. We do a lot for our kids. And there is a path for

The 900-Point Selective Enrollment Game

SPEAKER_00 27:31

that. It just takes a little bit. Now, enrolling in the high schools is a test that you will take in eighth grade. So the first, the first thing I gotta tell you is the most important thing to get into these high schools is that there's a point system. 900 points. So there's two things that create these 900 points. It's 450 points that is your grades in seventh grade, and there's 450 points on the selective enrollment test. You don't know what you're gonna score on the test, right? Like it's it's a tough test, and you're you're up against everyone else, right? Because it's you versus the world on that test. What you do know is how to get A's in seventh grade. This is a must. Now, listen, you can get in without getting A's, but that 450 points, you really, really, really need it. For example, Lane Tech, if you're in tier four, and we'll talk about those tiers, but in in lane tech, if you're in tier four, the lowest score that got in last year was 870. Now you're 450 on the grades and you're 450 on the test. 870, which means you can only get 15 points wrong on each spot. Okay. I'd rather have the 30-point leeway on the test than not get straight A's in grammar school. And let's be serious. Right now, parents getting straight A's in grammar school, the amount of retests and the amount of this, the amount of that, it's just a matter of you staying on top of your kids and really pushing them and making sure they're ready for seventh. If it's right now your kids going into seventh grade or you're in fifth grade and it's summertime, I fully suggest that you start getting on Cotton Academy. It's free. And Cotton Academy has math in fifth, sixth grade math from first grade all the way up to eighth, all the way up to high school. Get your child starting to push into the grade level above where he's at. I'm sorry, now he he or she is at, where your child's at, just so they can do good on this test, or get them ready for the entrance exam into one of the selective enrollment programs in grammar, in elementary. The elementary, the time to get into the the test, the options programs and all these other gifted schools is seventh grade. Six rising seventh graders. Why? Because the accu centers, which are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, there's seven of them. They're gonna take 700 kids out of these gifted schools and create spots. That's when my son got into Bell Options because half that class left and went to ACU at Lane. So that's the time. That's a big time. Fourth grade and going into seventh grade are great times to get your child into these schools because the accu, the academic centers, are pulling all these kids out of these advanced schools. So that's a great little side piece. All right. So now you're in, you're taking that high school test, you've got your straight A's in seventh grade, you got 450, and now you have the test. Okay.

How The CPS Tier System Works

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Chicago is broken into four tiers. I love this system. There's four tiers: tier one, tier two, tier three, and tier four. These four tiers are all based on economic status. That's it. Not religion, not race, nothing. Four economic status places. And they take what that income is in that area and they decide how the tiers work. What I love about that is that up tier one is gonna be your your starting economic status, and tier four is your highest. So to explain this, tier one at Lane Tech, the low score is 742. On tier four, the low score was 870. So, what this means is when you take your test, you're only competing against people in your tier. Think about that. I love it. Because that means someone that has more means in tier four for tutors, maybe has a couple parents in the house, people stressing academics. Tier four has advantages that tier one doesn't have. So why should tier one challenge tier four? They don't. Tier one only challenges tier one. Tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four. So let me go over last year's scores at Lane. 742 on Tier One, 816 on Tier Two, 844 on Tier Three, and 870 on Tier Four. Let me go over Peyton's. Peyton Tier One starts where tier three starts at Lane. Tier one's 843. Tier two, 869. That's tier four on lane. Tier three, eight eighty-five, and tier four, perfect. If you're in tier four and you want to go to Peyton, you have to score perfect. So that is the that is how the tier system works. Now, what's the ranking system on the Illinois public schools? All right, well, the first five are going to be the city schools before we even get into the suburbs. Peyton's number one. Peyton's always about top ten in the nation, too. Northside Prep, Whitney, Jones, and Lane. That's the top five in the state of Illinois. The first public school outside the city is Stevenson. Now, Stevenson's a neighborhood school. You don't have to score to get into Stevenson. So I know there's a difference. That being said, if your child has the ability to go to Peyton Northside, Whitney Jones or Lane, you don't have to move to the burbs because these high schools, just is what it is, crush Stevenson. And Stevenson is the first and is the top-rated high school there. The same thing with the grammar school. The top grammar schools are all in the city. So sometimes I tell people wait, see what happens. If you get into these schools, there's no reason to leave if you love the city, because the education that you're getting from these schools trounces the education on the other side. So that's kind of what I want to talk about in terms of the tiers. So once again, tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four is how the test scores are done for the testans. In terms of the grammar schools, you're going to have classical, you're going to have gifted, you're going to have the magnet, which is straight lottery, and you're going to have your neighborhood schools. As a parent, when you're in, if you don't like your neighborhood school, don't forget you do not have to go to your neighborhood school. You can select other schools and get on the wait list for them. And you want to do that every year. Don't just do it one year. Do it every year. And eventually, God willing, you'll get into one of those schools. And as that education grows, you then can see figure out what you want to do in terms of sixth, seventh, and eighth. Is your child ready for accu setter? Does he score high enough to go seventh and eighth at the high school? Is he going to go to a testing school? Is he going to go to a classical school? Is he strong in math and reading and gets into a great classical school? All of these decisions that you make in grammar school lead up to the high school that leads up to the college. I cannot tell you the amazing schools that I see. My son just graduated from Peyton, the amazing schools that these Peyton grads get into, right? I'm going to mess up the numbers, but there's like, let's say, 320 graduating kids. Out of that, 250 of them were state scholars or were national merit scholars, right? The top of the top, more than 70% of their class was the top of the top. So I mean, it really makes a difference. And if you want to go that route and you're in a private school, just know it's going to be a little bit tougher of a route. Actually, let's be honest, it's going to be a much tougher route because of how the education of differential teaching is done in CPS versus private.

Private School Costs And Feeder Pipelines

SPEAKER_00 36:25

If you're going the private route, there's a ton of great private schools in the city of Chicago. So if you're going the private route and you're you like that education, you want that education, there's a ton of Catholic schools, there's a ton of non-demination schools. Those schools will lead to the high schools. Those high schools are going to be your lab, lab school, Latin, Parker, Ignatius, and British International School in Chicago in the South Loop. All those schools have price tags of well over 20,000 into the 30s and 40s. So if that is the route you want to go, understand those are the high schools that you're going to be going to. Predominantly, those are the high schools, because they are in lockstep with each other. That's just the way it works. A lot of these schools are feeder schools. What do I mean by that? Well, Ignatius has the grammar schools that they work with, right? Parker has the grammar schools that they work with. Most people, you know, you probably go to Parker Grammar, you go right into Parker High School. Latin. You want to go to Latin high school? You better get into Latin grammar school to get into Latin high school, right? Because they feed into each other. Same thing with the British school. That being said, those other schools, those private schools, do feed into these schools, which are great, great schools. The thing is, is do you want to spend between $100 to $200,000 on that high school education? And then let me tell you what college costs. That, you know, sometimes 2x. So it just depends how you want to allocate those funds. A lot of times depends on how many kids you have financially. What can you do? Well, if you're like, hey, financially, I can't spend, you know, $500,000 on high school and I'm spending $100,000 at grammar school. Hey, what is our CPS school? What's our neighborhood school? Do we want to start testing? Do we want to go that route? So we have the best chance to get into a Peyton Northside, Whitney, Jones, Lane. And then that all of a sudden getting you into Ivy's New Ivy's California school system, U of I, Champaign, those schools, Michigan top 10 big schools, because those are the schools that they feed into. I mean, Peyton alone, I believe, had 80 plus kids go to Champagne, which is one of the top public schools. Purdue, University of Michigan, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, Tufts, Harvard, Stanford. These are the schools that these kids are getting into that are coming through that academic, rigorous rigors through these public schools that are topper school, that are top schools. And I get it, these schools aren't for everybody. And not everybody is at that pace. This just being said, if you have a child or you want to know how to get to a Peyton or to a Lane or to Whitney, I'm just giving you the roadmap that has worked for my kids and has worked for everyone else. It's get yourself into the CPS system, really study in the summertime 20 minutes a day, that's it. Read. And then eventually find yourself into one of these academic centers or gifted schools or regional schools. And then that's how you're going to have the biggest and best chance to get into one of these top schools. I will leave you on a couple, it's a shorter one because I just want to go over schools today. I will leave you with a couple things that were said to me. I'm in 2012, the head of CPS was Jean-Claude. And he came in, they brought him in to fix the schools. And I will never forget what he said to my sister, which my sister then translated to me and told me, you know, she said, because they were looking to buy, and he wanted to buy in the Ogden School District, which is kind of downtown Gold Kochish. And it, you know, it goes all over west side, stuff like West Side of the downtown. And he had a very interesting thing he said to me. Uh he said to Sophia, who said it to me. She goes, everybody in Chicago and every school has the same book. Everybody's being taught the same thing. He said, what happens at home is the difference. And I really want to leave that with you in another thought, one more thought is that, you know, it's not accidental that these kids end up in these situations. It's the efforts of the child, the willingness of the child, and the dedication and the willingness of the parent to put in that time. And I really think that you have to understand how important education is for everybody and how education is a way to change not only your child's life, but the direction in which your pedigree goes, right? Like your name. Like education can change everything. And it is the easiest way to change things. And it's something that you can control as an individual, as a child, and you can control as a parent is how much time and effort you put into your child's education because that's their mind and that's what can take them places.

Politics And Accountability In CPS

SPEAKER_00 41:46

I also want to talk about the fact in the last 30 years, the only mayor that has sent their kids to CPS is Brandon Johnson at Kenwood. And I'm gonna say this: listen, the guy has a 6% approval rating, but he's the only person that's in charge of the city, which puts him in charge of our schools, who actually has skin in the game and put their kids in school. I think it's a travesty that people can govern over, be it our education, our city, this, that. Like if you are, if you are an alderman, if you're a mayor, you have to live in the city. Remember that big thing with Rom because he moved to DC? I don't understand why it's not throughout. If you are ruling on something, if you are voting on something, you should take the the pluses and the minuses of what you're voting on, and you should be affected by that. So the fact that only one mayor in the last 30 years, Rom, went to lab. FXW was started by dailies. They went to, they went to FXW. Then there is, and then what's her name? I just know her as Beetlejuice. She went, she went to FXW, then went to DePaul High School. Like all these people that cause work stoppages, cause lockouts of teachers, all these people that are part of that never participated in the school system. And I think that's something that we as a people should should really think about and and and try to change. I know it's tough to change things because the prisoners are in charge of the prisons. That's how I feel about politicians. However, the fact that they're, they have a say in our kids' education, but don't put their kids through that education to me is a huge problem for me. But that's it.

What Starts At Home

SPEAKER_00 43:38

So the that's everything in a nutshell. Any questions on this stuff? I know there's tons. DM me. I will give you my best experience about how I got through the CPS system. I can give you my thoughts on private education versus public education. My wife was all public. I was all private. My kids now started private and are all public. I can give you all my thoughts on that. And I hope this helped. There's, you know, obviously, we didn't get, you know, three hours into the weeds, and you could on this. And I know, listen, I know there's a ton of problems with CPS and major schools throughout America. I know the literacy rate sucks. I know the math rate sucks. It starts at home. The parents have to make the dedication to enforce and understand that education is amazing and is needed, but it starts with the parents. So we can point fingers at everybody, but it starts with the parents to start understanding that they need to stress education when the kids come home. What are your grades? What's your homework? Are you asking questions? All that stuff. It's easy to blame others. Let's start with the blame in our home and then take it from there. Let's fix our houses. When I mean houses, let's fix the education we're stressing at our house. Good food helps your brain. And then once we fix our house, we'll go attack other people. But that's it. Thank you so much. I hope this was helped you a little bit. If it keeps you in the city, I did my job there too. And we'll talk soon. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening.