On a chilly Saturday in October, the line for an open house at Jones College Prep stretches nearly three blocks in the South Loop. As cheerful Jones students canvass the line chirping, "Ask us anything!" with some holding up signs in Spanish, anxious middle schoolers and their parents wave them over to talk about such things as school culture, lunch and dress code.
But only a few teens in that line will get to experience Jones, one of 11 selective enrollment high schools in Chicago Public Schools. The competition for a seat at one of these high performers is so stiff that the process has been not-so-jokingly called the Midwest's Hunger Games. For this school year, 13,413 students applied for 3,600 freshman seats at the selective enrollments, according to the district. As for the 9,800 or so who didn't get a spot, 15 percent left the district, either for private schools or—gulp—the suburbs. Were it not for these elite schools, Chicago undoubtedly would have lost even more teens, and their taxpaying parents. The schools play a vital role in a city still struggling to retain its middle class...