By Matt Rosenberg and John Klingner
Don’t fall for the Chicago Public School’s autumn PR offensive. In recent Crain’s Chicago Business op-eds, two seemingly civic-minded NGO leaders stress improved graduation rates and better standardized test performance of CPS students as important signs CPS is making progress. “There has been steady improvement over the last 15 years, from 49% in 2007 to 80% last year,” said writers for Network for College Success about graduation rates. But those claims are misleading.
Student achievement remains badly sub-par at CPS. About 70 percent of CPS students in grades 4, 8, and 11 – and 80 percent or more of its tested black students – aren’t proficient in reading and math. In some schools, reading proficiency is still in the low single digits.
Chicago’s poor achievement scores
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” measures 4th and 8th grade reading and math skills. The test shows a vast majority of Chicago students aren’t proficient in either.
Chicago students’ proficiency in 4th-grade math has been effectively stalled at around 30 percent since 2013. And reading proficiency has been stalled at about 25 percent since 2015.
For black students in Chicago’s government schools, the NAEP results are notably worse. Of CPS Grade 4 students taking the test in 2019, just 20 percent were proficient in math and just 17 percent in reading. Four in five students don’t have basic skills they need.
Chicago students’ record on the SAT has been just as dismal.
In 2021, just 23 percent of 11th-graders scored proficient or better in reading on the SAT. Math proficiencies were even lower: 21 percent. (Pre-Covid 2019 proficiencies were 26 percent for reading, 27 percent for math.)
Don’t buy the hype
Chicago Public Schools and Chicago itself are continuing to fail – that’s why families keep leaving CPS in droves.
Chicago’s government schools are in effect run by an aggressive and politically hyper-muscular union that has won a cap on charter school growth from Mayor Lori Lightfoot and a moratorium on badly needed school closures from the legislature.
The district itself posts violent rhetoric on its “equity” webpage encouraging looting and burning interlaced with toxic and false anti-police rhetoric. Not to mention the destructive remote-learning and mitigation policies pushed during Covid-19.
Establishment NGOs can try to polish CPS’ image, but Wirepoints doesn’t buy the hype that things are looking bright and promising at CPS.
You shouldn’t either. The actual numbers show why.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- A Chicago Public Schools-backed video says cops are routinely killing blacks; that extreme narrative is false.
- Even more bad facts about Chicago Public Schools’ 20 emptiest schools
- Chicago Public Schools’ radical agenda gets uglier: ‘Equity’ video promotes looting and burning
- ‘F*** Wirepoints’ Says Chicago Teachers Union When Confronted With Facts From The School District Itself
- How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Sure, they’ve increased graduation rates but they’re graduating kids that are illiterate, ignorant, and ill-prepared for the real world. Just ask any college professor who teaches Freshman. Public education dollars should follow the students similar to college grants so kids can attend the schools that actually serve them.
It’s just sad and the children in the schools suffer the most
The hype is funny because it’s preposterous … check that, it’s sad. The continuing failures of CPS to educate Chicago’s children is beyond frustrating, it’s maddening. It’s almost as if that organization reports to the Chicago Teachers Union, who care only about teacher’s compensation, and less works days. The failure of CPS to provide anything close to an adequate education is heartbreaking.
Another well written piece, including amazing links to proof the CPS encourages anti police rhetoric and encouraging violent looting. This is outside societal norms and the McDonalds’ CEO comments yesterday are spot on. Chicago and Illinois leaders are terrible and need to be pushed out. Vote and push. #KeepItUp !
Chicago officials continually promise transparency and then propagate their messaging via smoke and mirrors. It’s beyond disingenuous.
I remember how Mayor Emanuel was vilified for closing failing or poorly attended schools in Chicago.
The teachers union, only there to protect teachers in public schools, while the students can shift for themselves. The kids are losing in the game of lies from people trying to cover for their poor performance. The kids suffer long term in this world. School choice!
The schools are no longer about Academic Excellence. They are clear more concerned with indoctrination, brainwashing, and advancing agendas. Public schools have been in a deliberate state of Managed Decline for decades. The proficiency for math and reading is abysmal. At this point Homeschooling or private school is the only way to rescue children. In addition to that, we now have Comprehensive Sex Education/NSES in the classrooms. In August 2021 SB 818 was passed into law. Their stated goal is to destroy Childhood Innocence and destabilize children. They are teaching them that their parents and doctor got it wrong when… Read more »
All Chicagoland families should have opportunities to send their children to the public or private school of their choice, regardless of wealth or personal circumstances.
They think we are stupid. These statistics are horrifying and there actions in covering it up are even worse.
This information is extremely sad, because it shows just how low the CPS “public education” system has sunk in not serving the students, but in only serving the interests of the teachers’ unions and local government bureaucrats. The reading and math proficiency scores are abysmal, and then people wonder why the students don’t succeed in their lives. The taxpayers are forced to fund these schools, only to see their money wasted on failure. And, what’s with not closing the mostly empty schools in the city? With enrollment being as low at it is at many of the schools in the… Read more »
It seems that the Chicago School District is not familiar with the spirit of the Every Student Succeeds Act. This means that every single child meets certain levels of ability, and that the schools system is responsible for every single child. Children are not like baseball batting averages, a system in which a 30% success rate is considered a major success. Kids need a 100% success rate. That the school system is bragging about a failure rate at 80% means that the public school system has failed and needs to be replaced.
The school system here has been failing for decades. Yet they take the majority of your property tax money. CPS should’ve been dissolved decades ago.
Of course there are some well-meaning teachers trying to do a good job. But, for the most part, CPS is now a giant wealth-transfer organization. Average salary is $76,000 for 10 months. On top of that, it’s become a radical leftist political group. Defund CPS. Let parents decide where their children will learn.
Invest in Kids Act is set to expire this year on December 31, unless it can be either extended or made permanent. The Act is a win-win-win-win for donors, families, private schools, and yes, public schools in Illinois. Encourage your legislators in Springfield to support it. Americans for Prosperity’s Prairie State Promise has more information.
What amazes me is the cabal that isists that the governent schools should always be funded to the max even though they fail consistently. I went to a Catholic grade school and high school and succeded very well. I was accepted to the University of Illinois at Urbana in December of my senior year when that university was being very selective. What is so sad is that Chicago public school teachers are among the highest paid in the nation, but they produce such bad results. However, when I was in high school, the public high schools in my area, South… Read more »
Maybe Randi Weingarten would like to explain why these children can’t read, but they need to be taught about gender identity and sexuality beginning in kindergarten. Maybe drag queens can teach the kids to read while the teachers are busy with the CRT lessons.
Progressive madrasas.
The madrasas today have graduation rates up near 90%. A generation ago these schools tried to teach the 3 R’s, and shop and trades, and the drop out rate was 50%. They have turned an entire generation of BIPOC children into white and straight hating socialists.
Indoctrination is the point and it is working.
That’s why they never even address or even care if you call them out about low literacy rates.
If they started teaching again they’d have drop out rates at 50%.
But if they’re indoctrinating, well, it’s working.
So they’re going with the formula that works.
All the more reason for school choice. It would allow good teachers to free themselves of the monster that is the CTU & give students the opportunity to actually learn.
This comes to down to what is best for the students, it seems rather obvious that the Teachers Union does not care. That does not mean that there are not some great teachers in the union. There has to be a way to weed out the bad from the good. school choice may just be that way.
Make no mistake. CPS, the Mayor and the Teachers Union are doing our children a huge disservice. Our children are paying the price. They are putting their own interests above the needs of the children. As a result, the future is bleak.
Nobody can succeed in life, truly succeed, without a good education. Yet, the CTU continues to pass through students who have almost no chance.
A college education is not a requirement. Trade schools are good. But nobody can succeed there unless they have proficiency in language and math skills.
We keep talking about slavery. But we continue to send our kids into lives of slavery from ignorance every year.
The situation in the CPS is getting worse and it is exacerbated by the Chicago Teachers Union and the power that they wield. These kids in the CPS are not getting the education that they deserve and the CTU is responsible that they don’t care about teaching, only the power they wield and their profligate pensions. The entire state should see what’s happening to the CPS and they should take over oversight and run the CPS. That is the only solution to this problem.
As the parent of 3 CPS kids who all went to very good schools on thr north side and then to selective enrollment schools (my third one graduated last year), I find it incredibly sad that the vast majority of CPS schools are epically failing at their central mission. Thanks again for your important work on setting the record straight from the misleading propaganda by CTU and CPS.
If Black Students are ‘under-served’, then WE ARE ALL UNDER-SERVED, as this makes a ripe and fermenting criminal substructure: their only goal is living, and that at ANY cost. It is a criminal enterprise and needs shutting down for the good of us all! I can’t think that there IS any solution to the vast corruption and lies which have proliferated in the past few decades. Let it burn; leave if you can, run if you are able. Crawl if you can’t.
And just like that, it’s fashionable to talk about performance within public schools. Achievement became the proverbial elephant in the living room amid the chatter about CRT, gender expression, and things NOT associated with the fundamental skills young people need. Graduation rates are indicative of nothing. There is no shortage of “graduates” who are functionally illiterate. These puff pieces in Crain’s also ignore the effects and aftermath of two years worth of educational malpractice which will disproportionately impact those who are least able to recover.
I disagree-Failing schools and students be design guarantee to keep elites (educated by expensive private schools) on the top of the pile. Why should people in general encroach to their level? The world’s knowledge is at the tip of every finger who wants it. Never in history can this much information be accessed by a few keystrokes.
We should be shocked by these numbers but unfortunately, it’s something we’ve come to expect. I feel bad for the kids who can’t escape an awful situation.
The majority of students leaving CPS are most likely at the bottom of the grade curve. That means CPS should be able to show measurable gains in learning just from attrition. Yet they can’t.
Thanks for the factual analysis.
Thank you again for exposing the truth using hard facts and data as to why CPS is dismally failing our kids. There are many levels of ineptitude embedded within the CPS system that will remain until either it entirely collapses or the entire ‘machine’ is dismantled and rebuilt in a manner that actually caters to students needs.
CPS or any other government run schools are ran in a chaotic fashion. There is absolutely no accountability in any of the teachers on up. If the student isn’t performing at the grade level should they shouldn’t be promoted to the next grade level, but they don’t do it. All they’re doing is setting up these kids to fail. We already know that if they’re not face to face with a teacher they’re in greater danger of failing, because there is no real support at home if any. Vouchers are said to be the answer to give parents a choice… Read more »
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. There’s always a way to find and use a number to spin data. Thanks for speaking truth to power, Mr. Rosenberg.
In the 2003 book “No Excuses. Closing the Racial Gap in Learning”, authors Abigail & Stephan Thernstrom set out to prove that the achievement gap was due to funding disparities. Simple problem: wealthier white neighborhoods had more money. Poorer black and brown neighborhoods didn’t. Simple solution. Increase spending in those areas. Problem solved, right? But what the authors discovered was this: per pupil spending was equal or more in the poorer city schools. The reason for the achievement gap wasn’t $$$. It was culture, culture, culture….! Family structure, parental involvement, parental expectations. Good teachers plus parents and students valuing and… Read more »
Don’t forget school culture, the tone which ought to be set and fostered by a highly present and visible principal, not an office-bound or hamstringed administrator.
The principal cannot set the tone when his/her hands are tied by an inept LSC and the CTU bullies who have the power to hire and fire principals through the LSC. Too much power in the hands of the CTU. The principal is basically a union lap dog.
Over many years I’ve had a disproportionately Latin workforce, like most restaurateurs. These folks overcome the language barrier, have ‘at least’ one job if not two but treasure their families and their children above all else. They attend church, have communions and dress their children like little beauty queens. Despite more than one job, many of these folks work a second job, but the families reman intact, with the Father as head of the household. They don’t mind working hard, from the bottom up. They don’t miss work, fight with their co-workers, show up late or ‘steal’, and when they… Read more »
thank you for this informative article. interesting how the data and the report vary so much. deceptive times we live in.
Choice is good, and I wish that choice had been guaranteed when I was in public high schools. My freshman and sophomore years were basically repeats of 7th and eighth grades, because I went to a Catholic elementary school and CPS high schools. Of course, my parents could have chosen a Catholic high school for me. But my father, who had not been raised Catholic, thought broader exposure in public school would be better for me. Choice is good, and it should be guaranteed in Chicago and throughout the nation, the teachers unions be damned. I’m sure the drones at… Read more »
Tommy, once upon a time public employee unions were illegal everywhere; not just in Illinois. Believe it or not FDR was against public employee unions and for good reason.
The CPS/CTU racket is the end result of allowing public employee teachers unions.
Sadly, only the numbers are astounding, inasmuch as most tax paying citizens are abundantly aware of the cavernous gap between the white child and the black child capabilities pursuant to ‘graduation’ from High School. Until there are fathers present, gainfully employed and mothers who’ve got more to worry about than their crack pipes and food stamps, there’ll be absolutely no progress made in these communities. When the role models are gang bangers and drug dealers who drive around in flashy cars …. is it any wonder that this is just another doomed generation of urban gang bang wannabes. Wishing don’t… Read more »
Ain’t that a shame. Generations of children who cannot compete in a knowledge society doomed to become criminals at worst and government dependents at best. I do not believe this will ever change as long as voters continue to support Democrats. They vote for their own doom. Pathological that is.
As Matt Rosenberg and John Klingner chronicle the systemic underperformance of the Chicago Public Schools, a number of thoughts come to mind: 1). No entity could be this inept without the implicit support of those purporting to be responsible. We have witnessed, not only in Chicago, the utter destruction of generations of latent talent that could have had the potential for great things. Despair has replaced hope, crime has replaced productive lives, and collectively, we as citizens have been the unwilling and unwitting recipients of its failures. 2). With the power of the anointed, no one will be held accountable.… Read more »
What is allowed will continue. I often think about a conversation I had some years ago while out to dinner with school friends. We were in agreement that we had grown up poor, but we didn’t know it. In school we were expected to learn, do homework, take tests, and be good in school. I wouldn’t trade my south side of Chicago public school education for anything. I had some great teachers who left an ever lasting impression on me. I’m still friends with a few. I along with many believe school choice should be available to all. Let the… Read more »
CPS no longer serves the interests of pupils and parents — CPS’ creepy curriculum of sexualization and grooming serves the interests of perverts and pedophiles
Apparently, black lives don’t matter to the CPS and CTU. And for that matter, no young lives matter. Fat contracts, lots of time off, power over a sinking ship, accountability avoidance. Those are what really matter. It’s child abuse all around.
Thanks, Matt, for setting the record straight once again. This is the type of investigative journalism that is so sorely lacking currently. This is the fake news, the pablum being spouted by the NGO leaders. Didn’t Crain’s do some fact-checking of their own, or are they part of the ‘evil cabal’ as well?
It is ironic that the one-party Democrat leadership in Illinois and Chicago have failed so miserably at the one constituency that they claim to represent the most…minorities. This is not news. While they play lip service to helping the poor, it is just exactly that “lip service”. They have zero interest in improving the chances of poor blacks in society. Thecynical symbiotic relationship between the public unions (e.g. CPS) insures that things will not get better, and insures that the Democrats will stay in power, and insures that Illinois will continue to be a deeply in debt cesspool of corruption,… Read more »
Not everything related to the pandemic was bad. One of the positive things that came out of it was the realization of many parents that homeschooling was possible for them. And while homeschooling is not for everyone, nevertheless it’s hard to argue that anybody knows better than the mother of a child what that child needs, in terms of encouragement, or perhaps scolding, to get them to apply themselves to their studies. Although I don’t live in Chicago, or have any children, if I did I would pull them out of the public schools as a first measure, and consider… Read more »
Home schooling seems to work pretty well when education is the priority at home and the ‘home schooler’ knows how to read, write and pronounce a polysyllabic word. Perhaps home schooling should be supplemental to a good education… like it was when we were children.
Here’s a trivia question: When was the last time you read a Chicago real estate listing that highlighted CPS as a selling point?
The simple equation that remains true.
Parents with kids in CPS = Bad parent
(Your down votes don’t change this.)