As some of you know, I live in Chicago, where my high school, Northside College Prep, is ranked number one in the city.  Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is the driving force for all of the public schools in Chicago.  My particular school is one of the many selective enrollment schools -that means student are admitted based on their grades in 7th grade, ISAT scores, and of course, the entrance exam.  What many people overlook, however, is the concept of tiers.  A while ago, many of the high academically ranked students of Chicago began to leave CPS to go to suburban schools, which are famous for having incredibly high standards and probably the best sports teams around.  Due to this, CPS enforced a tier system.  There are four different tiers in Chicago, your tier based on the area you live in.  Tier 4 refers to the "weathier" areas of Chicago and is the highest ranked tier - that means the bar is raised for the students who live in tier 4 areas.  Tier 1 refers to the less wealthy areas, making it extremely easy for kids who live in those areas to get admitted to almost any selective enrollment schools.  When you apply for a selective enrollment school, a score system is used, the highest score being 900 points.  For students who live in tier 4, the cut off score for Northside Prep is roughly 897.  But how about for the student who live in tier 1?  What's their cut off score?  Roughly 800.  There is almost a 100 point difference in the expectationf of students in tiers 1 and 4.  This tier system is, unfortunately, lowering the standards of all selective enrollment schools.  Before, CPS admitted kids based on their race.  It took them way too long to figure out that basing admission on a student's ethnic background wasn't fair, and wasn't legitimate.  I wonder how long it will take for them to realize that the tier system is probably worse.  Kids who live in tier 1 and earned scores of a mere 800 are able to wiggle their way into the top schools in Chicago simply because they live in "less wealthy" neighborhoods.  This means they are put in the same classrooms as the student who got perfect scores of 900.  The gap that exists in between the kids who earned the right to be at those schools and the kids who don't belong their is larger than is healthy.  Student with incredibly low scores fool themselves into thinking that they're smart enough to be at high ranked schools such as Northside Prep or Whitney Young or even Payton Prep.  The sad thing is, they don't belong at those schools.  They realize too late that they are not academically sufficient enough to keep up with the school work that particular school requires them to complete and are simply not up to parr with the expectations of the school.  I felt like I had to write this in order to express my mixed feelings regarding the corruption of our school system.  If you read through to this part, congratulations for getting through all of that .  Are you possibly as pissed off as me?