By Ted Dabrowski
We highlighted last week the collapse in Chicago Public Schools’ reading and math scores in 2021. Reading proficiency for minorities, already dismal before Covid, collapsed by more than 30 percent compared to 2019. Only 11 percent of black students and 17 percent of Hispanic children in the entire district could read at grade level in 2021.
That data was part of a longer critique on the continued shrinkage of CPS, down by 120,000 students since 2000, and the dramatic increase in spending to nearly $30,000 per student. The details are here.
A few readers were quick to remind us we’d left off one key point, and that’s how well CPS teachers had been evaluated in 2021, despite the dramatic drop in student scores, the teacher walkouts and the forced remote learning. Some students were out of the classroom for nearly two years.
How well did CPS teachers do? According to the Illinois Report Card, 100 percent of CPS teachers in 2021 were “evaluated as excellent or proficient by an administrator or other evaluator trained in performance evaluations.”
That’s up from 98 percent in 2020, 91.4 percent in 2019 and 85.6 percent in 2018.
The only conclusion you can reach is that as student outcomes worsen and more families flee CPS, the better teacher ratings get.
That’s a harsh assessment, but there’s nothing positive to say about a system where less than one-sixth of the district’s 300,000 minority students can read and do English at grade level – and where social promotion, the practice of moving kids to the next grade is automatic – and yet virtually every teacher is proficient or excellent.
No, we’re not trying to beat up on teachers. For sure many, many teachers make great sacrifices to help kids facing huge challenges. The real point is that teachers and their unions are part of a failed, top-down educational system that’s stripped schools of any measure of accountability. We laid that out in detail in our recent report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system. And CPS teachers have had a hand in that, giving the Chicago Teachers Union ever more power: In 2016, 95% of teachers voted in favor to strike; in 2019, it was 94%; and the walkout earlier this year garnered 73% of member votes.
It’s important to note that the inflated teacher evaluation problem is not limited to the Chicago Public Schools. It’s rampant everywhere. Across the entire state, 98.8 percent of all teachers in 2021 were evaluated as proficient or excellent. Try and square that up with the fact that in 2021, less than one-third of the state’s 1.9 million students could read or do English at grade level (30% for k-8 and 33% for 11th-grade). Click here for the ISBE data.
There’s just no way to defend the current education system – neither at CPS nor at the state level – especially when Illinois spends the 8th-most per student in the country. The data and outcomes just keep making the case for school choice more and more clear.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Trapped in a death spiral: Chicago Public School spending hits record $29K per student as enrollment shrinks, outcomes plummet
- Chicago 2022 homicide rate 5 times higher than New York City’s, 2.5 times higher than Los Angeles’
- Chicago 2022 homicides will exceed 2019 baseline; McDonald’s CEO warns city’s future at stake
- McDonald’s and the Crisis of Chicago – Wirepoints in the Wall Street Journal*
- The scream and Chicago’s “Great Unraveling” – Wirepoints on The Chicago Way with John Kass
- Chicago not a “hellhole,” but the facts show it’s a living hell for far too many people
Details emerging about Chicago Teachers Union’s upcoming contract show just how divorced its demands, both extreme and expensive, are from the reality at Chicago schools. It’s not just about massive salary increases, but also about money for migrant students, climate initiatives, abortions and gender-affirming care. About blocking parental notification. Count on CTU’s demands to veer further from reality until the public finally says no. 
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 5/4/2024.
Gov. JB Pritzker calls it “ethics” reform.
It’s rare to see city leaders in Chicago take an open, unabashed stance on the collapse of literacy. To complain is deemed as too political, too racist or too anti-public schools. So it’s refreshing to see Willie Wilson, a successful businessman and leader of the black community, call for a literacy initiative “with the goal of getting 100% of Black students reading at grade level.”
You want to call it Journalism and no one told you Teacher evaluation was suspended since Covid started in most of the schools and and you are using minimal amount of data to make big claims about teachers around the state. This is the real shame.
CPS had been a disaster for years. While it has always been run as a patronage army, as most now realize the old ways don’t work anymore. More and more people are moving out daily. This includes large swaths of minorities searching for alternatives. The eventual financial collapse of CPS can only be prevented by more COVID relief funds and political budget trickery to feed the insatiable appetite of the union. Its unsustainable much like the city. Sure Democrats inside the beltway can keep funding this nonsense in Illinois but everything comes to an eventual end.
Hey everyone where’s ppf and James on this one Mia.
I commented on this article 3 days before your comment. How lazy are you that you can’t read existing comments on an article? At least your brand of ignorance is consistent.
Regular folks get yearly reviews with their boss individually and their individual salary is increased at that time. But teachers don’t get reviewed individually in order to truly earn their increase over the next teacher. With the CTU there is no judgement or evaluations of individuals, it is a collective, all get the same increase and its not at all about you being better than the next teacher, its about seniority, meaningless. The worst get the same increases as the best, so why bend over backwards? Makes sense that a wacked out review system like this would simply say everyone… Read more »
So all these teachers get an almost perfect score. That must mean all their students get an almost perfect score. Why aren’t they? Lets all be honest, teachers are really only proficient at playing the blame game.
The Chicago Public Schools should be put into receivership and run by ISBE. They can’t be any worse the than the CPS which has been highjacked by the CTU.
School vouchers for all. Dissolve CPS. Bust CTU.
Proficient at reading their labor contract and excellent at using sick and other time off. High marks also for ability to ignore the obvious.
I see only one solution and it’s financial. No, not throwing more money at a problem that only gets worse. Parents need to WAKE UP and remove their children from the public school system. We need to demand that school choice become the law of the land; a ballot referendum to amend the Illinois constitution. If teachers can protect their pension payments in perpetuity, we should be allowed to protect our children‘s education in perpetuity. Next step: how to force our property tax bills to reflect our school choices. As enrollment shifts from public to private, from school to school,… Read more »
Bravo, jajujon!!
Yes, my husband and I sent our four children to private schools. It was a sacrifice, but one we would gladly make again. The rewards are enormous. I feel fully confident in saying that in the 70+ years my husband and I have lived, there has not been a more impactful, meaningful thing we have done. And yeah, I would like if property taxes reflected the tuition we paid. But even without any recompense for the tax dollars we paid the cost of a private education is worth it. It is truly the biblical pearl of great price.
Couldn’t agree with you more. It was worth every penny and every sacrifice Our children are now productive members of society supporting themselves.
Thumbs down? Please explain. We’d like to read your opinion.
Trolls J. Disregard them.
Ironic…
They demand outside oversight of law enforcement…
Well, I demand outside oversight of the educational system too…
We are stuck in a corruption carousel where-in the vested interest is not in educating our children, but in consolidating power, money & influence…
Does that include the idiots that made the music video during covid?
Let’s put it to a test. If Chicago teachers are 100% proficient there should be a “Jeopardy” type of show to prove or disprove. Take some teachers at random from public schools and also from private grade for grade and class by class to see who is more proficient. Only math questions for math teachers and so on. It would be interesting to see how proficient each are. Wish we could do that with Fauci vs Hippocrates or Pritzker (or Biden) vs Socrates.
Unfortunately, being able to answer questions about a topic does not equate to being able to teach others. Subject knowledge has to come first, yes, but it’s only a fraction of the skills a teacher must have.
I could be wrong, but its my understanding teacher evaluations state wide got put on hold for covid? All teachers got a “proficient” rating.
also, the CPS REACH requirements (different from teacher assessment) are a mess. on ctu web site they have all kinds of articles about how teachers can appeal their students REACH evaluation and how the entire REACH process is inequitable. I’m sure this is same statewide…..its never ending pressure by public sect unions. I’m sure if Amendment 1 passes the teachers unions will see to it that all evaluation standards are eliminated as being inequitable or some other nonsense……$$JUST SHUT-UP & PAY-UP$$$
These teachers are 100% safe and effective.
Folks, don’t confuse “Teacher Evaluations” with education.
All the teachers of Lake Woebegon are above average!
Where the women are strong, and all the men are good looking.
“According to the Illinois Report Card, 100 percent of CPS teachers in 2021 were evaluated as excellent or proficient by an administrator or other evaluator trained in performance evaluations.”
Since that’s a nonsensical finding, one explanation is that 100 percent of the administrators or other evaluators are not excellent or not proficient.
The state average teacher evaluation score for 2021 was 98.8%. Everybody wins!
HARVEY SD 152 scored a 100% whereas WINNETKA SD 36 got a 99%. EAST ST LOUIS SD 189 went from a 93.8% in 2020 to 100%. They should share their teacher training plan with the state.
Sounds like the teachers are not the problem. Maybe the students dedication to their studies are the actual culprit.
It is most certainly the teachers. They have mostly gone insanely woke. Graduation rates are up while proficiency has dropped. The CTU demands tell you all you need to know about the crazy people transing your children.
Maybe that is true. We’ve certainly heard enough about the lack of student effort and parental support. But then the question is why should we continue to invest in a system that educators themselves tell us has no chance of success? Sounds like the teachers are not part of the solution either.
Sounds like this teacher is the problem.. Maybe it’s time to find a new job. But here’s the thing, not every job is lollipops and roses you will encounter some tough situations, you will handle them correctly or you will need to move on. But teachers already know that, that’s why they wine and complain and stay where they are so they can get their big pensions.
PPF – there is likely more truth to your point than many (including me) would like to admit. But then you reach the problem of rampant social promotion. There are essentially limited consequences for not performing to minimal standards. Graduation rates in many districts are meaningless. The problem is that graduation or not the labor market is painfully aware of the cohort which lacks skills and literacy. Either the school systems are dedicated to the notion that a rising tide of standards helps everyone (unfortunately not equally), or they don’t. The latter seems to be all too often the case,… Read more »
Really can’t disagree with anything you’ve stated. The problem with measuring education outcomes is the idea that each student has the same potential, same access to resources, same devoted parents, same safe home environment, etc… The reality is that smart parents tend to produce smart offspring and dumb parents provide the opposite. Sure there are outliers but ultimately we all start with different levels of potential. Educated parents value education and emphasize this importance throughout their childhood. There are also studies that show parents that read to their children every day (before they are even in school) are more likely… Read more »
The ‘fixes’ employed by the educational system have objectively made things worse. Common core has undoubtedly dumbed down education making lower performing students even dumber. Remember, common core was sold to us as helping lower performing kids learn math and reading in new ways and prepare us to compete in the world. It has done the exact opposite. And ‘rona lockdowns and remote learning only made things worse. Equitable policies like not suspending the most disruptive students, feeding them unhealthy low quality free lunches, and social promotion are like pouring gasoline on a dumpster fire. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/27/historic-drop-u-s-reading-math-scores-common-core-debacle/ Study: Historic Drop in… Read more »
What this basically means is that there is no room for improvement. This is as good as it gets. So funny. I can laugh because I don’t live in Chicago (or Illinois).