August 30, 2004

New Illinois Charter School Law for Chicago

Governor Rod R. Blagojevich recently signed legislation that protects the original intention of the charter school law for Chicago: giving at-risk youth more education options. House Bill 5562, allows the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to give priority in charter school enrollment to students living in the community where the charter school is located. This legislation will assist in implementing Mayor Richard M. Daley's Renaissance 2010 plan for the city's public schools. The plan is to open 100 new schools — one-third of which will be charter schools -to replace under-enrolled and under-performing schools by the year 2010.

"Charter schools were created in Chicago to give the city's parents more alternatives in finding a school that best meets their children's learning needs. Charter schools, like regular public schools, should be a part of their communities, serving the children who live there. The bill I'm signing today will make sure that's the case — especially in neighborhoods where kids are facing extra challenges to growing up and finishing school," said Gov. Blagojevich.

The new law allows Chicago Public Schools to establish attendance boundaries in as many as one-third of the charter schools in the City in order to better serve at-risk students or to help relieve overcrowding in nearby public schools. Students living within the boundaries will be given preference in the charter school enrollment process.

The original charter school law for Chicago required the schools to accept students on a first-come, first-serve basis; however when more applications were received than slots were available, a blind lottery process was used, so children from outside the school's neighborhood had the same chances of gaining admittance as children from within the neighborhood. Right now, more than 5,200 children are on waiting lists to gain admittance to a City charter school. The new law becomes effective January 1, 2005.