Mysterious Tier Tweaking Preserves A Flawed System
November 15, 2012
Chicago, IL –Even though CPS just made a major change to its Tier system in February 2012, this past Friday the Tier system was revised yet again. The most recent changes were made without any explanation. It’s not clear why these changes were made, whether any new data was available, or whether the model’s various factors were “re-weighted”.
Three years ago, CPS introduced a socio-economic Tier system to select students for its test-in schools. The Tier system places every school age student in the City of Chicago into one of four socio-economic Tiers – with students whose socio-economic factors judged as more favorable grouped into the higher Tiers. Students living in higher Tiers need to get significantly higher scores (often 50 points or more) to get into higher ranked schools. Since CPS’ Tier system is used to select 70% of all students for every test-in school in Chicago including Selective Enrollment High Schools, Academic Centers and Selective Enrollment Elementary Schools – any Tier system change affects thousands of applicants.
