Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Special Report

Download a PDF copy of the report

Appendix – Summary student achievement data for all Illinois school districts

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner


 

An indictment of Illinois’ education system

If what follows isn’t an indictment of Illinois’ education establishment, we don’t know what is. Of Decatur’s public school 3rd-graders in 2019, just 2 percent of black and 16 percent of white students could read at grade level. In Rockford, it was 7 percent of black students. In Peoria, 8 percent of blacks. And in Elgin, just 11 percent of Hispanic 3rd-graders could read at grade level. Similar results can be found across the state.

The data Wirepoints presents in this report represents an absolute dereliction of duty by those who run Illinois’ public schools. It’s not about money, it’s not about race, it’s not about curriculum and it’s not about critical race theory. It’s about a system that fails at its most basic function: to prepare Illinois children for their future.

Our assessment is harsh because student outcomes are beyond dismal and no one, it seems, takes any responsibility for them. Social promotion, hyper-inflated teacher evaluations and misleading “accountability” designations from the Illinois State Board of Education all help to deflect blame.

We’re also harsh because nobody in the system wants to upset the apple cart. The rewards are just too lucrative. The Illinois Constitution and multi-year labor contracts guarantee job security, big salaries and even bigger pensions for those in education. The sprawling district bureaucracy provides thousands of administrative jobs. Not to mention the back-scratching relationship between unions and lawmakers that protects the status quo.

This report focuses on Decatur School District 61 because it’s arguably the poster child for the education system’s failures. Just 9 percent of Decatur’s 3rd-grade students can read at grade level. And every year the district graduates hundreds of students who are grossly unprepared for either college or a career.

The same story could be written about the students of Rockford, Waukegan, Peoria, Quincy, Chicago or any one of a hundred Illinois cities. The only difference is in the degree of failure.

For sure, plenty of Illinois’ 860 school districts achieved better student outcomes in 2019. But a cursory glance at state report card data shows higher performers were the minority. Just 89 districts had at least 60 percent of students who could read at grade level. In 168 districts, by comparison, less than 25 percent of students could read at grade level.

Overall, less than 40 percent of all students in Illinois were proficient in either reading or math (see Appendix for details).

Who is it that’s allowing such bad outcomes to persist without intervention? Administrators? School boards? The Illinois State Board of Education? State lawmakers? And where are the parents in all this? Does anybody care?

Below we look at Decatur’s failed results and how parents are misled by district and state statistics. We also highlight the poor results of other major districts across the state. Last, we examine the “underfunding” myth and how Illinois’ education system perpetuates itself despite its failures. It’s important to note that Wirepoints focused on 2019 achievement data to avoid the noise the pandemic had on student outcomes in 2020 and 2021. School closures, remote learning, masks and more have had a significant negative impact on outcomes that will take years to unpack.

The failures of Decatur SD 61

When Wirepoints first came across the pre-pandemic 3rd-grade reading scores of Decatur Public Schools last year, we thought they’d been misreported. The State Board of Education’s Report Card said just 2 percent of Decatur’s black 3rd-graders met or exceeded reading requirements in 2019. Just 2 percent?

When we clicked over to the math results, they were worse. Only 1 percent of Decatur’s black 3rd-graders could do math at grade level. We didn’t believe the results could be so dire, but the bad numbers persisted all the way through high school, where only 5 percent of black 11th-graders met reading standards.

About 8,400 kids go to Decatur Public Schools and half of them are black, so if there’s no change in the next decade more than 3,000 black students will enter the workforce ill-prepared – or worse. And before anyone lays the blame on “white supremacy” and “systemic racism,” know that it’s not much better for Decatur’s white kids, who make up more than a third of the district’s enrollment.

Just 16 percent of white 3rd-graders were reading at grade level in 2019. That outcome is far lower than the 44 percent statewide average for whites.

The white scores in Decatur are so low that the district has achieved a perverse form of “equity:” all students, regardless of color, are failing.

The district’s black/white reading achievement gap is only 15 percentage points, half the statewide gap of 30 percentage points. Decatur’s achievement gap for math is even smaller: 10 percentage points versus 30 statewide. Normally, a narrow gap would be cause for celebration. Not so here.

Excuses

Wirepoints went down to Decatur in November 2021 to hear what district officials had to say about their student results. There we met with Jeff Dase, Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, the district’s new accountability manager, and Denise Swarthout, Chief Communications Officer.

The discussion at first focused on the pandemic and how difficult things had become over the past months. Certainly Decatur, with its large low-income population, was struggling. But Wirepoints’ primary interest lay in understanding why the district’s pre-COVID outcomes were so bad.

Yes, they verified, Decatur’s reading and math numbers were “alarmingly low.”

Many of the district’s problems, we were told, were due to a lack of an established district-wide curriculum in previous years. Individual teachers managed their own lesson plans.

High turnover in the district’s administration was also to blame. Every new administrator instituted their own processes and plans, so no initiative was ever maintained for long.

More skilled teachers are needed, they said. More black teachers, too. Students need more robust incentives. And, of course, the district said it needs more money for higher salaries and more programs.

However, even if all of that were true, it can’t explain why only 2 percent of black students could do math at grade level.


Wirepoints uses the phrase “cannot read or do math at grade level” to describe students who do not meet Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) “proficiency” standards. This is consistent with the Illinois School Board of Education’s definition of proficient: “Students performing at levels 4 and 5 met or exceeded expectations, have demonstrated readiness for the next grade level/course and, ultimately, are likely on track for college and careers. ”We also use the “grade level” definition as shorthand for the 11th-grade Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) proficiency standards.


 

It’s all a facade

In a system with this much failure it’s easy to fault everyone involved with the
city’s education system, including Decatur’s parents. But before we assign parents their share of the blame, let’s first look at what the education system is selling to the public.

Take a spin through the Illinois Report Card data for Decatur and you’ll find lots of statistics that say children are performing well, along with evaluations that grossly inflate the competence of Decatur’s teachers and schools.

You’ll also find that Decatur students are pushed through elementary and middle school even though no more than 16 percent in any given grade can read or do math at grade level.

“Social promotion” – pushing kids into the next grade regardless of ability – leaves unsuspecting Illinois parents believing their kids are being educated simply because they’re advancing. But it actually leads to higher dropout rates and lower rates of graduation, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, crippling students’ future chances for success.

In contrast, states like Florida outlaw social promotion. They require students to stay in 3rd grade until they absolutely have the skills they need to move on to the next grade. (Credit to State Rep. Rita Mayfield for trying to pass a similar bill in Illinois.)

Social promotion in Illinois continues into high school. That’s when district officials tell parents what they want to hear – that their children have what they need to graduate.

In 2019, 70 percent of all Decatur 9th-graders were shown on the state report card to be “on track” to graduate. Never mind that only 9 percent could do math at grade level the year before.

Most Decatur parents also see their children get a diploma, something they’re sure to be proud of. In 2019, 74 percent of Decatur seniors graduated. But that graduation rate is a facade. The district’s 2019 SAT scores show that only 11 percent of 11th-graders were proficient in math and only 13 percent were proficient in reading. Students are being pushed out of the system with no regard for their college or career readiness.

The Illinois State Board of Education is also complicit by selling feel-good numbers on teacher and school quality.

Decatur parents are being told their teachers are great based on what the state report card says. Over 97 percent of Decatur educators were evaluated as “excellent or proficient” in 2017. In 2018, 99.7 percent were rated “excellent or proficient.” So, Decatur has virtually no teachers that need improvement?

And that’s not just true of Decatur. ISBE’s report card says that 97 percent of teachers statewide were rated “excellent or proficient” in 2019. Illinois’ teacher evaluation process is broken.

Then there are the state’s four “Summative Designations” for schools. Despite their dismal student outcomes, a third of Decatur schools were given the state’s 2nd-highest rating of “commendable” in 2019.

Take Decatur’s Montessori Academy for Peace, for example. There, only 6 percent of black students can do math and only 15 percent can read at grade level. And in Robertson Charter School, only 2 percent of all students can do math and only 7 percent can read at grade level. Yet ISBE labels both those schools as “commendable.”


 

It’s the same story everywhere

Decatur may be the poster child for the education system’s failures, but it’s far from the only example. The same story of poor student achievement and near-zero accountability can be seen across the state.

Take, for example, reading proficiency for black 3rd-graders in 2019. In Rockford, just 7 percent were proficient. In Dolton SD 149, 7 percent. In Cahokia, 5 percent. In Peoria, 8 percent.

Same for Hispanic 3rd-graders. In Elgin, just 11 percent could read at grade level. In Waukegan, 16 percent. In Aurora East, 13 percent. Harvard SD 50, 9 percent. And it’s not just minorities who are failing. Just 15 percent of white 3rd-graders in East Alton could read at grade level. In Quincy, 28 percent. In Mount Vernon, 25 percent. And in Plano, 11 percent.

Chicago Public Schools outcomes, while higher, still leave only a quarter of the district’s 330,000 kids able to read or do math at grade level.

Yet the parents in districts like these are told their children are performing well. A majority of students are listed as “on track” to graduate, ranging from 56 percent “on track” in Waukegan to more than 87 percent in Mount Vernon HSD 201. Parents are also told their student’s teachers are top-notch. The share of “excellent or proficient” teachers ranges from 91 percent in Chicago to 100 percent in Decatur and Mount Vernon.

And while a majority of students in these districts do end up graduating, ranging from a low of 66 percent of students in Rockford to 84 percent in Quincy, most are not graduating college or career ready. Less than a quarter of 11th-grade students can read or do math at grade level in most of those districts.

That represents tens of thousands of students pushed up and out of Illinois’ education system every year without the basic skills they need.


 

Illinois’ educational-industrial complex 

How does Illinois’ education system remain intact given its many failures? The answer is simple: it’s designed to self-perpetuate.

A weave of labor laws, hundreds of districts, generous salaries, constitutionally protected pensions, powerful superintendents and even more powerful unions ensure the system is protected against criticism from parents and taxpayers. The entire $38 billion system – propped up by the symbiotic relationship between unions and lawmakers – can be described as an entrenched educational-industrial complex.

Here’s how it’s kept intact:

The labor contracts

At the heart of Illinois’ educational system are some of the most union-friendly collective bargaining laws in the country. Those laws compel – force – school district officials to negotiate with Illinois teachers unions.

What results are multi-year labor contracts that guarantee all types of protections and benefits for union members: job security, automatic raises and automatic inflation bumps, sick leave perks, pension pickups, end-of-career salary spiking, employment protections and more.

Decatur’s current contract is four years long, which is typical, but sometimes contracts are even longer. Palatine, for example, signed a 10-year long agreement in 2016.

Nobody in the private sector gets protections and guarantees like that. On top of that, the state’s labor laws allow administrators and the unions to keep contract negotiations secret from the public. Taxpayers don’t get a seat at the table and they don’t know the details until after the contracts are already agreed to.

And if the unions don’t like what a district offers during contract negotiations, they can strike. Striking is the most powerful tool at their disposal. Often just the threat of a strike is enough for school boards to give in to union demands.

Most states aren’t reckless enough to give teachers unions that much power. Illinois is one of only 13 states Illinois’ educational-industrial complex – and the only one of its neighbors – to legally allow strikes, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Contrast Illinois’ pro-union stance to that of states like Texas, Georgia and North Carolina, which prohibit their local school districts from bargaining with teachers unions. Those states prioritize parents over public sector unions.

The big money

Illinois’ big salaries and even bigger pensions ensure that few teachers and administrators want to upend the system.

Average Illinois teacher salaries, at $67,760 for nine months of work, are the highest in the Midwest, according to the National Education Association. They are also the nation’s 11th-highest after adjusting for cost of living.

Those salaries, combined with generous pension rules, result in some of the biggest teacher pensions in the country. A 2019 study by Teacherpensions.org shows the median pension benefit for newly-retired Illinois teachers is the highest in the nation overall.

And a separate analysis by Wirepoints found Illinois’ pension formula is so generous that career teachers with 30 years or more of service retire today at an average age of 59 with starting pensions of more than $73,000.

Add up their expected years in retirement plus Illinois’ 3 percent compounded cost-of-living adjustment – one of the most generous COLAs in the country – and those career teachers will receive, on average, about $2.6 million over the course of their retirements.

Illinois’ education administrators have even more stake in the system. They earn an average of $114,000 a year, according to 2021 ISBE report card data, with 60 percent of Illinois’ 12,000-plus school and district administrators getting more than $100,000 a year.

Illinois’ highest-paid administrators are state’s hundreds of district superintendents. They receive an average salary of $165,000 a year.

Take a look at the top ten. All are paid more than $300,000 a year. Kevin Nohelty of Dolton SD 148 is paid a salary of $330,000 to manage a district where only 10 percent of students can read at grade level. Theresa Placencia gets $306,000 in Waukegan where just 18 percent of students are proficient in reading.

The numbers jump even higher when we look at superintendent pensions. The top retiree in the Teachers’ Retirement System is Laura Murray, a former superintendent of Homewood-Flossmoor.

She retired in 2008 at age 57 and received a starting annual pension of nearly $240,000. Today, thanks to Illinois’ automatic 3 percent yearly COLA, her annual pension is more than $344,000 a year. She can expect to collect about $10 million in benefits during retirement.

The entrenched bureaucracy

Superintendents entrench their power and influence through one of the most extensive education bureaucracies in the nation. Illinois has over 850 school districts – the nation’s 4th-most. Compare that to other large states with student populations with one million or more students and you’ll see what an outlier Illinois is. Florida has only 75 school districts, North Carolina, 115, Virginia, 132 and Georgia, 215.

And before you disparage the southern states for their “poor” education, know that Florida, with just as many low income and minority students as Illinois, has equal or better educational outcomes than Illinois. That’s even though Illinois spends 70 percent more per
student than Florida does.

At Wirepoints, we’re major proponents of local control and for pushing decision making to the lowest levels of government possible, but any analysis of Illinois’ school district structure reveals rampant overlap, duplication and bloat. Over a third of Illinois districts serve 600 students or less. Nearly 45 percent of districts serve only one to two schools. And over half the districts in Illinois are separate elementary and high school districts, rather than combined unit districts.

Take New Trier Township. There, six New Trier High School feeder districts all lie within the same border as the high school district. All seven districts could easily be a 12,000-student unit structure that consolidates multiple bookkeepers, superintendents, curriculum heads, etc.

Instead, taxpayers must support about 140 total district bureaucrats – including seven superintendents – earning big salaries and eventually even bigger pension benefits. (Remember that the state, and not local school districts, pays teachers’ pension costs.)

The back scratching

All those laws, staffing, money and bureaucratic organization make Illinois’ education system a political powerhouse.

Teachers unions give political contributions and votes to lawmakers. In return, lawmakers and local officials pass union-friendly laws, generous pay and even more generous benefits.

That’s another key part of the system’s resilience: nobody involved wants to stop the
gravy train. So much so that Illinois politicians are more than willing to enshrine union power in the state’s constitution. Lawmakers voted to include an amendment that would vastly expand union powers on the November 2022 ballot.

If voters approve the referendum, any chance of passing structural collective bargaining reforms will be blocked.


 

The “underfunding” myth

Despite the big money spent in Illinois, claims of an “underfunded” education system persist. Illinois state superintendents have in the past gone so far as to demand a $7 billion increase in state education funding in a single year.

Illinois doesn’t need more education money. No state in the country has grown its spending more since 2007 than Illinois has. Spending is up 70 percent since before the start of the Great Recession. Compare that to neighboring states Wisconsin, up 23 percent and Indiana, up 16 percent.

Today, Illinois spends $16,660 per student (local, state and federal) after adjusting for cost of living, the nation’s 8th-most and the highest spending of any state in the Midwest.

And for what? Illinois’ $16,660 is 40 percent more than Indiana’s ($11,721) and 70 percent more than Florida’s ($9,550) yet student achievement on national tests (NAEP) in those states is on par with or better than Illinois’.

Illinois education doesn’t need more money now, nor did it when former Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Illinois’ “evidence-based” funding plan into law in 2017.

Rauner bought into the “underfunding” myth despite Illinois’ then fastest-in-the-nation funding growth and its 13th-highest overall per student spending. Not to mention Illinoisans were already paying the nation’s second highest property taxes, most of that dedicated to education spending.

What about the rationale that poor districts need more money? Not true either.

Wirepoints isolated Illinois’ neediest Tier 1 districts in the U.S. Census data and found that, on average, they spent more ($15,622) than what every other Midwest state spent in 2019, with the exception of North Dakota.

Of course, that doesn’t mean every Tier 1 district spends that much, but it does show that the overall crisis in Illinois education isn’t about money. Decatur SD 61, for example, spent $13,686 per student, more than half of the states in the Midwest.


 

Embracing Choice

Parents are the last piece in Illinois’ educational puzzle. We don’t dismiss the hardships many parents face – their struggles are real – but the absence of outrage and general lack of interest in school board elections means they’re culpable for the system’s failures, as well. Too many parents don’t demand enough from their children or their schools. Other parents may want improvements, but they’re unwilling to fight for them. And yet others have fully ceded responsibility over their children to school bureaucrats.

But even when parents want to assert themselves – whether it’s to oppose CRT, sexually explicit curriculums, remote learning or masks – they find their rights consistently squashed. Not only in the minority and low-income school districts like Decatur, but in wealthier districts, too. Teachers unions and district administrators have long held all the power in education and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made that fact dramatically obvious.

Today, Illinoisans are stuck with a $38 billion system that demands little to no accountability from its educators. A system that prioritizes social promotion over literacy. A system that’s more obsessed with vague outcomes like equity and diversity than merit and competence. A system that compensates itself handsomely and performs self-serving evaluations, never mind the outcomes. And a system where parents have little to no choice but to send their kids to failing schools.

It’s no wonder so many parents have simply given up fighting or have packed up and left Chicago and other Illinois cities.

Illinois education requires a dramatic transformation. We’ll leave the details of that for a future report, but if recent polling is any indication, the changes will be driven by school choice.

Nearly 80 percent of Illinois parents and 67 percent of all Illinois adults support Education Savings Accounts, or ESAs, a recent EdChoice survey found.

That tracks with a new national poll from the American Federation of Children that shows 72 percent of registered voters support the concept of school choice, along with 72 percent of whites, 70 percent of blacks and 77 percent of Hispanics. Along political lines, even 68 percent of Democrats support school choice while 82 percent of Republicans are in favor.

Those are numbers even Illinois’ powerful educational industrial complex should fear.


 

Appendix

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Mama Bear
1 year ago

Thank you for this report Wirepoint! Just for the record, there are many parents relentlessly fighting for our children here in Illinois. More need to start standing up and making their concerns heard. I find it ironic that Decatur schools also happened to have the same superintendent, Dr. Jay Marino as Antioch CCSD 34 and both districts have appalling reading and math scores, overpaid teachers, disrespectful school boards that hate parents, etc. Dr. Jay Marino was placed on a two week leave for something to this day, parents and tax payers were never told about. Dr. Jay Marino ended up… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by Mama Bear
tommy
1 year ago

Interesting that according to one chart nearly half (49%) of the students live in poverty. I have been in 100s of classrooms and have seen some very great teaching and some very bad. However, it is an uphill battle from the start when a child enters ill prepared and it starts in the home. Where there is abject poverty there is so much to overcome. How about getting more jobs that can pay.

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  tommy

Abject poverty is India or China without running water or indoor plumbing, and free government rice allowances.

Poverty in the US is air conditioning, cable television, an android cell phone, EBT cards, and free lunch in school.

Last edited 1 year ago by debtsor
Ruth
1 year ago

We live in east central Illinois. I homeschooled our 9 children plus a couple neighbor kids between 1985 and 2017. It cost about $300 per year (in 1985 dollars) to buy the student workbooks and teacher editions to start a new grade. It cost about $100 per year to buy new workbooks for subsequent children. All of the children could read by third grade. Most had mastered the Little House in the Big Woods series by the end of first grade. By third and fourth grade they would read, on their own, classics like Silas Marner, Heidi, The Little Princess,… Read more »

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Ruth

You are correct! We need to make you Secretary of Education. To a great extent it has to do with the underlying personalty traits of having a drive to be an active and truly interested participant, then demonstrating courtesy and patience for each leg of that imaginary three legged educational stool—students, teacher and parents. Continually good performance by each of those three legs is necessary for the educational process to function well.

Jon D.
1 year ago

I see no mention of Asian children.
THIS missing metric could be enlightening.

Anticoyote
1 year ago

The problem with math is that it builds on itself. If you get a “B” in math that means you have not mastered things needed to go onto the next level. Therefore when you start the next level you’re already behind, even with a “B.”

Educators don’t seem to get this.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Anticoyote

No, they get it alright. The problem more likely is that children and people generally give their time and their best attention to something only the first time its delivered except for the rare cases it sparks a really strong interest to ponder it more deeply. Otherwise, a redo generally sparks less interest in that the student has a bored been-there-and-done-that (unsuccessfully) attitude. But, you are certainly right that to go forward successfully with most topics that require earlier success its crucial that you take your first attempts seriously enough to strive for successful skills levels in them. Otherwise, with… Read more »

John James
1 year ago

*edited for spelling I work within the DPS 61 district and have worked within several schools. I have been doing this for quite a few years. I have seen a lot and experienced even more. This article was fantasticly done and very true. The number one problem is administration. They are overpaid, they don’t support their staff, and they discount parental input. You should go an watch the public comments at the board meetings – they are on Youtube. I mean for goodness sake we had a principal at Muffley Elementary, that within the first semester there screwed it up… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by John James
ProzacPlease
1 year ago
Reply to  John James

It sounds terrible. It also sounds like the result of the radical leftist ideas that teacher unions have financially supported for decades. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences.

John James
1 year ago
Reply to  ProzacPlease

I 100% agree!

Marie
1 year ago

If we had a choice we would not financially support this education disaster. The problem is we don’t have a reasonably priced choice. Most people can’t afford alternative education sources. We are wallowing in a failed and very expensive teacher’s union dictatorship. People are afraid of socialism infiltraing the United States. After reading this article it appears that we are too late.

Pat S.
1 year ago

In late 2020 friends moved from Illinois to Indiana – VERY smart move.

Their three kids were at least one grade behind their Indiana peers. In 2021 the kids went for tutoring and summer school. And now, over a year later, they are still working to catch up and will be attending another summer school session.

This report reinforces what we’ve seen in real time.

Thank you, teachers’ unions and the politicians who put Illinois children LAST.

Last edited 1 year ago by Pat S.
Joe
1 year ago

It would be interesting if you could compare the public school report cards with charters and religious schools educating children with similar demographics.

Let's GO RED in 2022
1 year ago
Reply to  Joe

The teachers unions [read Illinois “government” here] block comparative tests. The private v public administer different tests. However, it would seem possible to compare ACT and SATs from private v public high schools. My guess is those are buried somewhere too, and that assumes you could find a public school in Illinois that even proctors assessment tests anymore.

Father of Whit & Rade
1 year ago

Let’s GO RED, the entire article was based on scores of assessment tests given by public schools. Many private schools do not want to invest the money in the same tests.

Arthur John Yoggerst
1 year ago

My former wife taught our son to read at the third grade before he ever entered primary school. It all begins at home, in Texas. Yes, Illinois schools are abysmal; however, the blame starts at home.

Silverfox
1 year ago

Yes, it does begin at home with parents reading books in front of their children, reading to their children, having books at home for their own and their children’s education and pleasure, taking trips to the library (though these days you might have to make sure to miss the Drag Queen).  And just telling their children at a young age that these symbols on the page have sounds and when you’re able to put them together you can read!  My children now at or near middle-age, enjoy reading.  And I still tell them they should whisper a prayer in thanksgiving to God for… Read more »

OldJarHead
1 year ago

The obvious solution is more money! Gubbermint, the only entity that receives more money based on how bad their current and never ending failures are.

Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  OldJarHead

Unfortunately, that’s exactly how most people think — they cheer politicians who brag about more money for education, despite loads of research showing little if any connection between school spending and outcomes.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

I think the only real correction money has is in keeping current employees on the job rather than doing something else entirely. Maybe that’s good and maybe not as it might be applied to individual employees, but on balance a long-term employee surely has had more chances to learn the subtleties of a particular job and learned to a greater extent what’s workable and what isn’t in the practical sense. As always, some do it better than others, then you always have some who do the same things and not all that much new in their long-term career. People vary… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago

I have a solution for low proficiency in reading and math: Lower the testing standards! It’s the Communist approved method of solving problems. But in all seriousness – we need to be like the Maoists in China – if too many people are illiterate – then simplify the language to make it easier. That’s what the communists did in 1949 to make it easier to read – they changed the language. We could do that for English by making it entirely phonic, very simple spelling, get rid of words with more than 5 or 6 letters, and get rid of… Read more »

James
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

You say these things in jest, but really hitting the mark with your last thought; that’s the real world we live in today. We need to deal with it since we of an older generation can’t do much to change it. As an example, I recall one of my teachers decades ago making a distinction between the words “healthful” and “healthy.” She said the latter word should be used when describing your own condition, that of another person, animal or mammal—something that breathes. The former term should be used when thinking of a dietary item for any such creature. As… Read more »

Freddy
1 year ago
Reply to  James

There was an episode on Star Trek Next Generation about a society well advanced but they could not have children so they kidnapped (but offered a fair compensation) some of the kids from the Enterprise so they could repopulate. Everything they wanted was made by a giant computer inside the planet but no one knew how to fix it. The radiation from their tech is the reason for their sterility. Seems like we are headed in that direction where kids/adults can ask Siri-Alexa anything and get an answer. Spell check is and every device. Remotes have a small microphone to… Read more »

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy

Just think of how all those electronic devices aid and abet cheating on class tests. Those who want to “skate” in life rather than deal with it head-on mentally have ever more ways to do so. We can easily call it laziness, but the fact is that whole tech-assistance concept you’ve described is here to stay. Math teachers used to disallow calculators to help with classwork or tests, but that mindset has had to let it go basically. We are where we are and are not returning to “Mayberry.”

Freddy
1 year ago
Reply to  James

Very True. I was looking forward to a plate of Aunt Bea’s fried chicken.
With all the info at our fingertips very few are taxing their minds for stored/recall info. This is not good for our brain health since we need to keep our brain and mind active. Who know what diseases like early onset dementia will flourish. Not only that but now a new name called tech neck becoming a real injury on neck vertebrae. Think what will happen if the internet goes out or worse an EMP burst. It would be like the Walking Dead series.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy

I can tell you that children who work with calculators have given up about thinking whether the answer given seems reasonable. They typically give NO thought whatsoever as to generally how large or small the answer should be. So, they simply take the computer’s answer as right and don’t consider that they may have made an input error. To such a person an answer of 2M is essentially the same as 2B. Hey, they both have a “2.” What’s the problem?

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy

The barbarians invaded the Roman Empire with working aqueducts often transporting clean and safe freshwater over 50 or 100 miles from the mountains to the populated cities down below. The barbarians blew up some of the aqueducts during the sieges but didn’t know how to repair them after the siege was over and they had killed anyone with any knowledge how to repair them. The rest of the aqueducts fell into disrepair in short order, and the millennia old technology of delivering a constant stream of freshwater was lost to time. By the early middle ages, Romans who stayed in… Read more »

Heyjude
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

The ancient Greeks knew the Earth was round centuries BC. The knowledge was lost for over 1000 years of the Dark Ages. How much worse would a Dark Ages be now, when much of our knowledge is stored electronically and requires advanced devices to retrieve?

Walter Isaacson wrote a biography of Leonardo daVinci in which he commented on how lucky it was that daVinci’s ideas were in written notebooks.

SadStateofAffairs
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

Well said and thought out by referencing history. We are in trouble no doubt. This particular article tells me that parents of all races have failed. As parents its a lot of work and as many of you know, it rests upon you to have an active partnership which constantly works to reinforce a positive and structured home environment with 2 parents involved in every aspect of your children’s journey. Since our kids were born, no video games, zero, no social media, nothing of the sort. Not allowed. My wife and I are not on social media. Zero. Respect for… Read more »

Pat S.
1 year ago
Reply to  James

Interesting comments on language.

Subtleties of language, which includes punctuation, allow communication of specific and universally understood thoughts.

To abandon the subtleties would be to irreparably impair communication in American English.

Though we are showing many signs of a cultural revolution, let’s not go down that road without a fight.

OldJarHead
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

Great points. My solution is to break the unions and fire the slug teachers and administrators, remove ALL programs not directly related to the #R’s and fire all bloated staff filling those woke and totally useless positions. The DOE must be eliminated too.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  OldJarHead

Just where do you expect find literally thousands of ready-made, qualified new employees who will do a better job? You might find a few easily, but finding thousands of them in somewhat short order is a very tall order. Any such recruiter(s) is/are going to be taking a huge crap shoot only hoping for decided improvement without overwhelming evidence that will happen. If you want to do it more slowly and deliberately over, say, 4-5 years, then the current staff will cost the system mightily both financially and in terms of loss of any semblance of a good work ethic.… Read more »

Pat S.
1 year ago
Reply to  James

Answer: start small … one good teacher at a time and hope beyond hope that the current pool won’t contaminate the new teachers. Which, unfortunately, it likely will.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Pat S.

Sure, that’s the normal way of hiring, but you are not at pleasing OldJarHead and his think-alike brethren. He was the one starting this immediate exchange, after all.

Chisel
1 year ago

We were sold the LOTTO as the answer to the education problem. We’ll that apparently worked out so well!
Now, open more Casinos to pay those administration pensions.
Gambling is the answer to everything.

Thee Jabroni
1 year ago
Reply to  Chisel

More Weed shops too!!-gambling and weed!-thatll solve everything!!

OldJarHead
1 year ago
Reply to  Chisel

Slush fund for CorruptOHCrats, just like the lie about toll booths!

heyjude
1 year ago

I really don’t understand why teachers are not leading the charge to solve the problem. How many times have we read comments from teachers about how difficult their job is? Of course it is almost impossible for high school teachers if their students can’t read. So why aren’t the teachers themselves up in arms about this? How do they think it will ever be fixed if kids do not know basic reading and math?

But instead, we read about the solution that OPRF is selling.

JackBolly
1 year ago
Reply to  heyjude

I have had union teachers tell me they fear retaliation – from the union.

Henryk A. Kowalczyk
1 year ago

This report explains why Illinois employers prefer to hire immigrants. Even those from poor Latin countries are much better educated.

SadStateofAffairs
1 year ago

Absolutely correct. The work ethic is much better and the focus and drive to achieve something better has all but disappeared with average American workers who want $75 an hour for sitting around. Unions (I have many friends in them) sometimes forget why they exist. This is the very reason why jobs were shipped over the border for routine assembly. Remember that especially in Latin America, abortion is still very illegal and only if the mother is at risk for losing her life. Why? Because Christianity is still very important in their culture. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/maquiladora.asp#:~:text=A%20maquiladora%20is%20a%20low,United%20States%20and%20other%20countries. Why teachers even need a union… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago

The kids come out angry, illiterate, have children out of wedlock, and then commit felonies when they are desperate and lack the patience of looking for work and waiting their turn. This assumes that our lower class subculture values education, marriage, and crime-free lifestyles. What if, what if, our subculture of underperforming schools is a result of parents and children who care little for education, have no interest in getting married, and commit felonies because they enjoy the rush from a life of crime? There are large numbers of people who don’t share your judeo-christian values – hard work, thrift,… Read more »

JackBolly
1 year ago

What happened during the pandemic lockdowns is all one really needs to know – public schools beholden to the union closed (your large districts in cities) and went 100% remote for what seemed like years. Meanwhile public schools in the county stayed open or went hybrid. Private schools largely remained open, only going hybrid if there was a school spread. I’m still trying to figure out what these shut down public school teachers did – at least many parents gained insight to what was being taught. The data presented here explains why in nearly every Illinois city there is a… Read more »

Goodgulf Greyteeth
1 year ago
Reply to  JackBolly

Exactly correct.

30 years ago, when my wife was earning her PhD in Education, I can’t count the number of times she described having met a District 150 teacher in some grad program or another who was working desperately to figure out a way to get out of having to teach in a Peoria K-12 classroom.

Self evidently, it’s only become worse since then.

Thee Jabroni
1 year ago

So,in a nutshell,what we have is an entire generation of weak,easily offended,safe space needing dumb dumbs?-oh well,Taco Bell needs workers i guess,the applicants will probably need help filling out the application though

Goodgulf Greyteeth
1 year ago

Excellent article – sad article, better yet, a really, REALLY, disturbing column. Sad truth is, however, that we’re not going to hear anything about this in the coming elections – other than the usual blather and harrumphery from politicians and teacher’s unions telling us how successful and woke they are, just before they pause to take a breath and then tell us that they need more money, and then more money still, so that they can continue to do more of the same. Oh, they’ll brag about how they’ve got gender-fluid progressive bathrooms for the kids, and how they’ve figured… Read more »

JackBolly
1 year ago

So what is the difference between an illiterate, uneducated illegal alien and your typical union educated HS graduate? The illegal alien will work.

Last edited 1 year ago by JackBolly
Admin
1 year ago
Reply to  JackBolly

JackBolly, you nailed it. The job market will never be better than this. 11 million openings, a record. Take the damn jobs. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/01/jolts-april-2022-job-openings-fall-sharply-but-still-outnumber-available-workers.html

Being Had
1 year ago

I believe the food service for children is paid by the federal government.

James
1 year ago

Oh, how the accountants and accountant wannabes love to show their building-widgets mentality! Its a simole matter, they screech. If you double the number or cost of the inputs, then the number or quality of the outputs should closely approximate that increase as well. But, the reality says it simply isn’t so when you are considering the measurement of growth of people almost no matter their background or whether you want to measure their growth in skills, work output or attitude in general. Providing more salary money as your measurement for input has an effect one way or another, but… Read more »

Heyjude
1 year ago
Reply to  James

The children cannot read, James. I’ll say it again- the children cannot read. It’s not about widgets, accountant wannabes, “you just don’t understand”. It’s about teaching children to read. If they haven’t learned to read by 3rd grade, they will struggle with everything else. And then the attitude problems you describe will kick in. If the schools cannot figure out how to teach children to read, how will you teach them anything else? People have known how to teach reading for a thousand years. Now it is an insurmountable problem? Go back to proven methods that work – phonics. What… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Heyjude

What could be a bigger education failure than schools full of children who can’t read?

Social justice is more important than education! It is the CTU’s entire platform!

Last edited 1 year ago by debtsor
heyjude
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

Woke madrasas.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  Heyjude

I agree with you. But, I have to wonder who decides what “grade level” standards should be. I’m guessing here, but I think maybe that task is allocated to a committee of college education professors, or—just as likely in real terms—their Ph. D. candidates. If so, we can easily imagine their collective point of view is askew as compared to society at large in that to a person they likely did very well in their own schooling and have significantly better-than-average reading and other education-oriented skills. If so, then its not much of a stretch for them to think their… Read more »

heyjude
1 year ago
Reply to  James

It’s amazing that we act as if it is some big mysterious process to teach reading, then assess whether students can read. Really, we managed to do it for decades. Literacy rates climbed from next to nothing to majority literate in a relatively short time span historically speaking. So why do we now act like this is expecting too much? And as I said in another comment, your jobs as teachers would not be so difficult if schools were all in making sure that students learned to read.

James
1 year ago
Reply to  heyjude

I think there are lots of reasons why teaching “the basics” apparently has become much harder in the last few decades. First, there are progressively more and more jobs that teachers are expected to do with learning measurement tools attaching to each. Thus, they can’t generally just “cover” a topic they have to delve more deeply into it, meaning anything not formerly considered “basic” education is now consuming more and more class time. Secondly, children have always had distractions inside the classroom and outside, but the numbers of distractions are forever growing. Many have cell phones used for entertainment purposes… Read more »

willowglen
1 year ago
Reply to  James

James – let’s get back to teaching phonics rather the progressive inspired whole reading. The science on the biological basis of perception and reading is overwhelmingly in favor of phonics. I recall about 15 years ago the Secretary of Education in California expressed grave doubts about whole reading. He was shot down for political reasons. The apparatchiks have caused great harm.

Father of Whit & Rade
1 year ago
Reply to  heyjude

Literacy rates are still quite high. The article is dealing with whether the students can read and comprehend at grade level. Can an 11th grade student read and understand Sense and Sensibility for example. I’m guessing it’s based on Lexile scores.

Heyjude
1 year ago

I understand the concept of reading at grade level. The article points out that problems begin at 3rd grade, and never really improve. I think we all understand that not everyone will be able to read and comprehend the great works of English literature.

Willowglen
1 year ago
Reply to  Heyjude

One litmus test for reading comprehension is to read the auto manufacturers technical bulletins. Today’s mechanics must have mechanical skill and dexterity, but must also be able to read at what I discern is a very solid 11th grade level. Basic literacy doesn’t cut it.

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A statewide concern: Illinois’ population decline outpaces neighboring states – Wirepoints on ABC20 Champaign

“We are not in good shape” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski told ABC 20 Champaign during a segment on Illinois’ latest population losses. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink in the 2010-2020 period and has lost another 300,000 people since then. Ted says things need to change. “It’s too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs and nobody trusts the government anymore. There’s just other places to go where you can be more satisfied.”

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