I am a product of the Chicago Public School (CPS) system, and as a collective, Chicago public schools perfectly exemplify John Taylor Gatto’s assessment that American public schools succeed in their goal to “Divide children…by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever reintegrate into a dangerous whole.” (36) CPS high schools are divided into selective enrollment (of which there are 11) and neighborhood schools. The entire high school student population enrolled in public schools is 109,000 students, to give some idea of the small portion of students that these selective enrollment schools serve. Consistently, however, this small portion of students are given funding at the expense of other students at neighborhood high schools, often in underprivileged communities, deemed unfit to attend these selective schools. When Gatto lists Inglis’ description of the sixth function of modern schooling, “the propaedeutic function” (37), it struck me how reminiscent the hierarchy established by the division of neighborhood schools and selective enrollment schools is of this sixth goal for our education system. I was fortunate enough to attend one of those eleven selective enrollment schools, and the insular environment, relatively generous funding, and advanced academic courses create a marked disparity in quality of education and schooling experience between this “elite group” of students and the general population.