For some Chicago children, just getting to school is a major challenge. Many have no reliable adult to make sure they’re fed, dressed and off to class every day. Some kids walk many, many blocks to get to their neighborhood school — even though it’s right up the street — to avoid crossing gang territory.
Many kids know someone — often a classmate — who was gunned down in the street or killed by a stray bullet. This school year alone, 18 Chicago Public Schools students have been killed by gunfire.
“There’s a certain point where Dad is in jail or has disappeared and Mom is on crack … where there isn’t a stable grandmother, that child is being raised by the streets,” Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan says. In that environment, there’s not much room for algebra or American literature.
Duncan wants to try a 24/7 approach to educating those kids. CPS officials have been studying the possibility of opening as many as six public boarding schools, where adolescents from troubled homes would eat, sleep and study in a safe and stable setting. In April, CPS will put out a call for proposals to run such schools.
Most residential programs are either private academies that cater to affluent families or juvenile centers for youngsters held under court supervision. But a handful of urban areas are experimenting with public boarding schools for disadvantaged kids.
Perhaps the best-known success story comes from The SEED School, which opened 10 years ago in Washington, D.C., and serves 300 students in 7th to 12th grade from at-risk homes. It’s not cheap to educate them — about $34,000 per student per year, compared with the $7,000 Chicago spends per pupil.
Duncan doesn’t know how CPS would fund boarding schools. But such a costly investment in kids could be money well-spent: SEED sends more than 70 percent of its students to four-year colleges.
CPS officials have visited several public and private boarding schools and are considering several models. Youngsters could be housed in the same building where they attend classes, or they could live in central dorms and be bused to schools. Another variable to be determined: Kids might live at school seven days a week, perhaps all year around. Or the program could be structured so they return home on weekends.
School officials stress that parents or guardians would have to choose to enroll children in the program. The emphasis is on working with families, not forcing them to relinquish their kids (or terminating their parental rights).
Though Duncan says he doesn’t want to be in the parenting business, that role is inescapable — and vital. Adults would necessarily be on hand to supervise homework, enforce curfew and bedtime and maintain discipline. Some Chicago kids have never had that structure in their lives. It could be the key to their success.
