The city is pouring more resources into these schools amid ongoing tension between CPS and supporters of lesser-performing institutions that risk being shuttered in the wake of last year’s mass closures.
Jones recently enlarged its incoming freshmen class to include some extra 100 students while Payton is undergoing an expansion. Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the city will open a new selective-enrollment high school, named for President Obama, on the North Side in 2017 with $60 million in tax increment financing and a goal of enrolling 1,200 students.