By Nicole Upton
On July 31, the Chicago Board of Education proposed providing $5.5 million to sustain Chicago Arts High School (formerly The Chicago High School for the Arts or ChiArts) for one year under its current model. According to the proposal, more than half of the Department of Arts Education budget would be redirected to support the school, limiting districtwide investments that expand arts access. CPS ultimately postponed a vote until its next meeting on August 27.
When Chicago Arts High School, a privately operated but publicly funded school, faced significant financial challenges, its leaders voted not to renew their operating agreement with CPS. To ensure students could continue their arts education, the district brought the school into CPS as a Fine and Performing Arts school.
No one wants to see students lose access to a school that has provided meaningful opportunities for young artists. However, if the solution is to sustain the school by diverting funding from districtwide initiatives, Chicago risks solving one urgent problem only to create another.
Just over a year ago, the Board unanimously adopted a five-year Arts Education Plan, recognizing the arts as an essential part of a well-rounded education. Built through years of collaboration among educators, principals, parents, students and community partners, the plan commits the district to expanding equitable access to high-quality arts education in every neighborhood.
Chicago’s progress in arts education has been built on strengthening that infrastructure. Ingenuity’s data show a 23-percentage point increase in arts staffing across CPS schools over the last six years. This progress reflects a shared commitment to ensuring students have access to certified arts educators as part of a well-rounded education.
The need remains significant. According to Ingenuity’s State of the Arts Report, 100 percent of CPS schools submitted arts education data, allowing the district to identify where students are thriving and where additional investment is needed. While 39 percent of schools achieved the highest recognition level, many others are still building the staffing, resources and partnerships needed for a comprehensive arts education.
The scale of the decision is important. Chicago Arts High School serves approximately 520 students. The Department of Arts Education supports a districtwide strategy designed to reach more than 316,000 students across Chicago.
There is another reason this proposal should concern Chicagoans: it is not a sustainable solution. Shifting districtwide arts funding may close this year’s gap, but it does not resolve the underlying structural challenge.
The proposal appears to assume that the school can eventually reduce or replace district support through private fundraising. The school’s recent history suggests otherwise. The circumstances that led ChiArts’ governing board to end its operating agreement with CPS stemmed from an operating model that could no longer be sustained. According to CPS, the school’s conservatory alone carried an annual cost of approximately $2.95 million under the previous model—and that was while the school benefited from an established fundraising foundation. Publicly available IRS filings show the ChiArts Foundation reported annual revenue between approximately $1.9 million and $3.4 million over the past three fiscal years. That variability underscores the challenge of relying on philanthropy to sustain recurring operating costs, particularly now that the independent foundation is no longer part of the school’s structure.
History shows that budget reallocations are rarely temporary. Once funding is redirected to a new purpose, it often becomes part of the baseline budget in future years, making it extraordinarily difficult to restore those dollars to districtwide initiatives.
The path forward requires an honest recognition of the choices before the Board. Chicago Arts High School can continue to provide meaningful opportunities for students, but it must do so within the financial realities, accountability structures and operating expectations of a public school district. If the school is to remain part of CPS, it must be aligned with a sustainable model that allows the district to fulfill its obligation to every student.
This is not a debate about whether CPS values the arts. It does. It is not a debate about whether Chicago Arts High School provides meaningful opportunities for students. It does. The question is whether Chicago will allow one school’s financial challenges to diminish opportunities for students across the district.
CPS must protect its commitment to arts education for every student while ensuring that every school within the system operates in a way that is sustainable, equitable and aligned with the public mission of Chicago Public Schools.
Nicole Upton is the Executive Director of Ingenuity, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring every CPS student has access to arts education. Since 2013, Ingenuity’s Creative Schools Fund has invested more than $21 million in arts education programming across Chicago Public Schools, supporting partnerships between schools and community arts organizations. Ingenuity partnered with CPS in developing the district’s Arts Education Plan and supports the district’s arts education data and accountability systems, including the Creative Schools Certification process and State of the Arts report.