Chicago Uses Preschool To Lure Middle Class (The New York Times)

By Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times
Friday, June 15, 2001

Chicago - As a preschool teacher, Ivette Bustos has clear goals for her charges: to learn to write their names, count to 10, tie their shoes and skip.

But her work at Blaine Elementary, in the gentrifying Northside neighborhood of Lakeview, is part of a much broader mission: to keep middle-class professionals in the city by attracting them to its much-maligned but fast-improving public school system.

"We're trying to sell the school," said Gladys Vaccarezza, who has spent 26 years at Blaine, the last eight as principal. "We were taking baby steps. Now it's like a leap."

Blurring the line between public and private schools, prekindergarten classes began this spring in 15 schools in well-off Chicago neighborhoods, charging $5,800 a year for a 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. program packed with computer classes, library lessons, music, math, art and physical education. By hiring new teachers and aides to provide a less expensive high-quality alternative to day care, administrators in this heavily minority district hope to lure the young, mostly white, parents who typically start shopping for private schools or flirting with the suburbs as their toddlers approach kindergarten.

Once inside school walls, administrators believe, such potential customers will stick with the system as they replace images of low test scores and dangerous hallways with experiences with caring teachers, creative curriculums and clean campuses.

Chicago is among a handful of large cities trying this tack, and preschool is one of several recent initiatives designed to stop the flight of middle class families. Other initiatives are high-technology buildings, magnet programs and Advanced Placement classes. Experts see educational benefits in
economically integrated classrooms, but the broader strategy is urban renewal. As crime rates have fallen and economies have blossomed over the past decade, struggling public schools are among the last barriers to reviving the nation's largest cities.

"In the long run, the schools have to be turned around," Fred Siegel, a senior fellow of the Progressive Policy Institute, said, noting that recent urban growth had mainly come from the return of childless young professionals and retiring empty nesters. "If we want cities to once again be at the center of American life, they have to be able to attract middle class families with children."

Chicago is starting small, with 173 students enrolled in the preschools so far and about 250 expected in the fall, when programs open at three more schools. At Blaine, there is a waiting list, and there are plans for a second classroom; three 2-year-olds have already been signed up for 2002. (The city also serves more than 25,000 low-income preschoolers, more than 60 percent of its 4-year-olds, in separate programs, supported by state and federal money.)

Wade Hinton, 4, transferred to Blaine from a private nursery school. Max McCoy, also 4, switched from the Jewish Child and Youth Services program nearby. The Woods - Brianna, 5, and Dereck, 4 - came from home-based day care in the suburbs.

Now the children read stories, play dress-up and turn paper plates into colorful disks in the basement of a four-story 19th-century building that has 556 students through eighth grade. And their parents say the children will stay at Blaine for kindergarten, probably first grade and maybe until graduation.

"Honestly, it's opened our eyes a little bit," said Gary McCoy, a product manager.

Built for 750 students, Blaine saw its enrollment slip to just 492 last year from 681 in 1995, even as the percentage of students reading at grade level doubled to 64 percent. Ms. Vaccarezza has tried to attract neighborhood families, many wealthy enough to opt out of urban public schools, by opening the library for toddler story hour, offering weekly tours and sponsoring a craft fair.

But she said the new preschool program had been the strongest magnet. This year, with three kindergarten classes and the 75 current kindergartners moving into three first-grade classes, the school will enroll more students than it loses when the 20 eighth graders move on to other schools.

The new preschool program also attracts a different population: 8 of the 17 children in class on a recent day were white, compared with 20 percent of Blaine's population. Ten percent of Chicago's 435,000 public school students are white; 84 percent of all students are poor enough to qualify for free or cheap lunches.

Dallas, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia and San Francisco also charge tuition for a small number of preschoolers, but Chicago is the most aggressive large city at trying to use the program to help reshape the district. Paul G. Vallas, chief executive of the school system, sees fee-based after-school and summer-school programs, among others, as ways to compete with private schools and the suburbs.

"It's a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats approach," Mr. Vallas said. "It makes the neighborhood schools more attractive to the affluent, more attractive to the middle class, more attractive to the people that have a choice to go somewhere else - those same programs benefit the less than affluent."

With fees just covering costs, Chicago's preschool program is cheaper than its neighborhood competitors, many of which charge $8,000 or $10,000 a year, or lack the long hours favored by working parents. The weekly calendar includes music and painting classes taught by outside providers, and there are two computers in the classroom, which is overseen by a licensed teacher, who has two aides for most of the day.

Mr. McCoy and his wife, Anne, a lawyer, have set aside their calculations of private-school tuition for Max and their 1-year-old twins and have quit contemplating the suburbs. At least for now.

"I'm still concerned that if he remained in the school system, that when he got to eighth grade, he might not be where I want him to be," Mr. McCoy said. "But I don't think he's going to fall behind in a couple of years. He seems to be challenged. This program has given us some confidence in what's going on."
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