Good high schools on the southside? (Chicago, Lincoln: real estate, neighborhoods, catholic schools)

[chikid]

So the other day, I was trying to think of some really good PUBLIC high schools on the southside, but I couldn't think of any. Now before you all attack me, I am aware that Whitney Young and Jones can be argued to be on the southside (although I consider Whitney Young West Side and Jones in the Loop).

However, when you look at the best public schools in the city: Northside, Walter Payton, Whitney Young, Lane Tech, Jones, and I am sure I am missing one or two others like Lincoln Park, they are relatively close to the northside or within the northside.

So are there any really good public high schools/college preps in the southside or is the CPS pretty much telling the southside SOL?

I think there is a rule if you live a certain distance from a school, you cannot attend it, even if you pass the exams to get in. I am pretty sure Lane Tech and Northside would be out of reach for most southsiders and Walter Payton for those who live really far south.

[chet everett]

Many people believe that the funds spent to build Northside and Payton have ultimatelty hurt schools like Morgan Park and Kenwood. Of course had those schools not been built even more families with school age children would have left the desirable neighborhoods that are withing tolerable commute distance of them...

I agree that Young should be considered "near west side" and it too has suffered from the dilution of talented students that occurred becuase of the decision to build Payton & Northside.

Jones is properly called "near south Loop" and it could argueably be called one of the more unique "success" stories in turning around an under-appreciated / almost ignored school into one of the better performing CPS high schools. Because of the inflow of families into the South Loop there are probably some lessons to be learned that COULD be applied to areas around Pilsen or UIC, but the difficulty is that the efforts to improve Jones happened during a mostly upward trending period of incomes and real estate values nearby, something that might be a long time coming in those areas...

The strength of Catholic schools on the south side is paradoxically one of the impediments to improving southside public high schools -- the better students are already "skimmed off" and efforts to change that could even be seen as misguided. Sort of some seismic shift the shear numbers are really not promising for either private or public schools anywhere in Chicago to boom either in enrollment or quality. One might say that the money that poured into places like Ignatius along with the boom in affluent families living in northside / lakefront areas was kind of "perfect storm" that had much to do with financial markets and the demographics of baby boomers. I would not bet in favor of "lighting striking twice"...

[chikid]

Yeah, I think Payton and Northside in their own way hurt the other schools like Whitney Young and Lane Tech. Whitney Young used to be the best public school with Lane Tech being probably the second or third. I would now place Whitney Young as the third best and Lane Tech fifth behind Jones.

Lane Tech's main issue IMO is it's size. It could get away before with having 1,000 students per class back in the day as Chicago's brightest that were attending CPS high schools would most likely either go to Lane Tech or Young. Out of the 1,000 students it can be expected that there will be quite a few underachievers as opposed to a school where there is 200 per class where it is more concentrated. Nowadays, the CPS brightest are not going to Lane Tech, and much fewer to Whitney Young. They are being sucked up at Northside and Payton. Lane Tech is still a terrific school, it's just gone down by a slight hair.

I think a better balance would have been possibly having Payton located in the core of the southside. I think it would have effected a school like Lane Tech much less.

[Manigault]

Lindblom is a good public high school on the south side.

[prairiestate]

Mt. Greenwood Agricultural HS, arguably the best on the southside. And it helps churn out those farmers Chicago so desperately needs!

[MarcJM]

Gwendolyn Brooks is a selective enrollment high school in the Roseland/West Pullman area that has great scores.