Raising kids "in the city" - is it possible?? (Chicago: townhomes, neighborhoods)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by cdc3217

I think you're discounting the activist yupppies out there who are willing to try and change the world until it gets too ugly.

Nettlehorst and Blaine used to be terrible CPS schools, but a critical mass of middle to upper class parents turned them around. You can actually see a big difference in test scores between the younger kids and older kids because of the "new wave" of kids who have grown up in Lakeview.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by mr aztec

I don't see the current mortgage crisis affecting the cps for the good.

1) First, I see the universe of mothers/fathers who could potentially get involved in the cps and improve the cps as rather small--In general, this segment will have an unconventional mortgage (loan with an ARM and 95/100% financing), have a child, and actually be distressed because of the increase costs w/ childcare, rate increase, or both.

2) Don't forget, they are not truly stuck. If I was faced with the choice of sending my kid to cps or foreclose and rent in the burbs, I'd be inclined to walk away.

Why would you assume that "this segment" has unconventional mortgages? That's not a sound assumption. My mortgage is 30-year fixed, and most of my friends have the same.

Also, most professional couples aren't going to walk away from their mortgage if they can avoid it. No one wants to have their credit destroyed for the rest of their life.

[aragx6]

You will have a really hard time to even be able to rent a place if you foreclose... your credit is so destroyed, who wants to rent to you?

And as others have said, many CPS schools in the strongest neighborhoods have been doing significantly better. once they hit that critical mass, there's no stopping it. I should think yuppie parents are pretty likely to stick around, send their kids to an "improving" neighborhood elementary school and make sure they get some supplemental learning at home and try to get them into a magnet high school.

Once enough parents start doing this, the schools will improve at a very fast clip.

[cdc3217]

Originally Posted by mr aztec

My argument is that the activist yuppie population would be too small to really turn things around, and the affects of the mortgage crisis on the existing population with kids in cps would counterweight any progress made by the activist yuppies. IMHO.

Maybe there can be some progress made if there truly is a large influx of families raising young children, especially in areas that seem ripe to change, i.e., lakeview/buena park/ravenswood/lincoln square.

But areas like uptown? maybe next generation.

I definitely think you have to be at a tipping point, for sure, especially to overcome the Goliathic aspect of CPS. But I see some of this in my inner burb, where just a few families can make a difference, and I think its an pattern that will be interesting to follow. How long to parents hang on? Jr High? HS?

[Lookout Kid]

High School option in CPS are much better than K-8. But you have to be smart to get into a selective enrollment school!

[mr aztec]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Why would you assume that "this segment" has unconventional mortgages? That's not a sound assumption. My mortgage is 30-year fixed, and most of my friends have the same.

Also, most professional couples aren't going to walk away from their mortgage if they can avoid it. No one wants to have their credit destroyed for the rest of their life.

Lookout, that is not my assumption. My assumption is that the existing "non-yuppie" segment with unconventional equals or exceets the yuppie segment with unconventional. As I said, this is a gut feeling as it seems to me that the "non-yuppie" segment would be more prone to the agressive mortgage brokers, i.e., less educated to the real cost/all aspects of an unconventional.

Let me say, I hope I am totally wrong on my hunch, and that this progres can take pace at a much faster clip than my gut tells me.

Also, the idea of a "tipping point" really intrigues me.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by mr aztec

Lookout, that is not my assumption. My assumption is that the existing "non-yuppie" segment with unconventional equals or exceets the yuppie segment with unconventional. As I said, this is a gut feeling as it seems to me that the "non-yuppie" segment would be more prone to the agressive mortgage brokers, i.e., less educated to the real cost/all aspects of an unconventional.

Let me say, I hope I am totally wrong on my hunch, and that this progres can take pace at a much faster clip than my gut tells me.

Also, the idea of a "tipping point" really intrigues me.

Well, Lakeview had been gentrified for many years before this "tipping point" occured... And it's only a couple of schools. Bell School in North Center also makes sense because it is in a neighborhood with LOTS of kids. Schools in Ravenswood will be next.

[aragx6]

I think the tipping point theory can be especially true in a city that has so many transplants. If no one had ever told me, I'd never have known Wicker Park used to be a bad neighborhood, just as a new transplant might not know all the "horror stories" of a CPS education that is so well known by born and bred locals.

By changing the dialogue and by making sending one's kids to a CPS elementary seem like at least an option in a way that it hasn't been seen by the middle class in a very long time, you can expect a greater effect. This is far easier to do that with transplants who may not hold all of those bad impressions. There's a feeling of "Oh, others are doing it, so I am sure it is fine."

This isn't an overnight solution by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think it's easier than in a small town where everyone who lives there grew up there. Those perceptions, the ones passed down from generation to generation, can be much more difficult to change.

[ChicagoWeekendFun]

I don't think that the city (or CPS) has tipped the tipping point yet, but Oak Park and Evanston have relativley city-like living experiences that might work for you while having well known public schools. It is kind of a middle ground area that is niether city or suburb. I hate to think of paying more than most college education tuition bills for elementary school. It is too cost prohibitive for most families and that isn't supposed to be the only way to get a good education in this country. (or city)

Chicago Weekend Fun

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by Miami305Kid

by the city you mean Manhattan right?

This is the Chicago forum. Be gone with your crazy Manhattan talk!