Let’s start with the following excerpt from Hannah Schmid’s article for illinoispolicy.org:
State test scores are in for Chicago Public Schools, and fewer than 1-in-3 students could read and fewer than 1-in-5 do math at their elementary grade level in 2024.
It was worse for the district’s 11th graders: fewer than 1 in 4 could read and math scores dropped nearly a percentage point from 2023.
The Illinois Report Card released Oct. 30 showed 30.5% of CPS students in third through eighth grade read at grade level in 2024 compared to 25.9% the previous school year. Math proficiency increased to 18.3% in 2024 from 17.5% in 2023.
Among Chicago’s 11th graders, only 22.4% could read at grade level in 2024 and 18.6% performed math proficiently, up just one-tenth of a percentage point in reading since the previous school year and down nearly one percentage point in math. Both reading and math proficiency for Chicago 11th graders remained below 2019 levels.
A huge majority of children in the Chicago public school system can neither read nor do math at grade level (which, if I remember correctly, has been lowered to raise the numbers). And this is presented as an improvement over the previous year. An improvement???
But, in the absence of success teaching children the basics that they need to function in the real world, Chicago teachers are successful at something.
Unfortunately, however, what they are successful at is promoting left wing causes…as demonstrated by the following release from the Chicago Teachers’ Union:
There you go. It’s not enough to leave children in Chicago uneducated. Let’s make sure they know that we are against efforts to keep immigration legal as well…with a reference to racism (a ubiquitous claim from the left for pretty much every issue) tossed in for good measure.
To the parents of Chicago school-age children: who voted for the people who have overseen your public schools as they deteriorated to this degree? Did you do so? And, if so, what are you going to do about it going forward?
That’s worth thinking about…assuming, if you are a product of Chicago’s public school system, you have the capability to do so.
