From the space race to a consent decree: the history of selective enrollment in Chicago schools – WBEZ (Chicago)

"Before selective enrollment became the highly competitive program it is today, its main goal was to create islands of integrated schools in an otherwise segregated school system (though at least one school became selective for a completely different reason). Education and civil rights leaders looked to specialty schools as a way to get families to voluntarily integrate the public school system. But when CPS faced shrinking enrollment through the 1990s, a new era of selective enrollment was ushered in."