School doors are swinging open for a new academic year. The excited, joyful voices of children will fill the playgrounds. And the Paul Vallas team will unveil more substantial improvements in educational programs and services, continuing to bring highly positive change and new hope to Chicago’s challenged public school system.
Our family is enthusiastic about the new leadership in the public schools. Vallas is directly facing the hard issues from top to bottom. These include educational quality, teacher professionalism, uneven student preparation, gang/drug problems, facilities and union issues. Vallas may even be able to crack the funding problem. In short, we have good reason to hope that by the time our children reach high school age, the city public schools will provide a viable option.
Unfortunately, in our view, it does not do so now. Even given the excellent effort in progress, we still feel the need for an alternative for our children’s elementary school education. This is not to be critical of the new initiatives. The fact is that the new team must address the problems of 30 or more years of neglect.
So we are part of the small, independent-schools “movement.” Our 5-year-old and 8-year-old attend a not-for-profit school enrolling about 140 students. North Park Elementary School was founded 16 years ago by parents seeking an alternative to the public schools. Housed in rented facilities in our neighborhood, the school draws most students from adjacent ZIP codes. It employs trained educators and certified teachers, is not affiliated with any church, religion or “cause” other than good education. The school has excellent relationships with neighboring Northeastern Illinois University and North Park College. Most important, it has become a small, caring community of families dedicated to our children’s education.
The school is not exclusive. Family income range is concentrated between $35,000 and $100,000, with the same number under $35,000 as over $100,000. Parents range from single moms, in school themselves and struggling with part-time jobs, to college and public school teachers, writers, attorneys and architects. Tuition and fees come to about $3,200. Families help out in other ways too–lunchroom duty, facilities repairs, office work, classroom assistance.
Results? Iowa test scores are excellent, in the top 10 percent nationally. Graduates are welcomed in the best public and private high schools and go on to fine colleges.
North Park Elementary School is not unique. Many of our neighbors send their children to other private or parochial schools for similar reasons. Yes, we carry the double burden of taxes and school tuition–an enormous strain on our one-income family. But our family opposes proposals for a voucher system. Public education must get better, and it cannot improve without resources. In the meantime, schools like North Park Elementary are needed to provide in our neighborhood the educational quality to which the public schools can only aspire.
So bravo for Paul Vallas and his team in their second year. But some bravos are also due North Park Elementary and Chicago’s other small private and parochial schools. Such quiet efforts are rarely noticed but continue to make an important contribution to today’s Chicago–and, we hope, to Chicago’s public high schools in the years ahead.
