Just 8 percent of black students in Rockford Public Schools can read at grade level. And only 11 percent of Hispanic students and 27 percent of white students can do math at grade level. Every year, the district graduates hundreds of students who are grossly unprepared for either college or a career.
Those are some of the dismal student achievement numbers Wirepoints uncovered while writing our latest report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
Why doesn’t anyone, from administrators to the school board, to teachers and lawmakers, seem to care? And what can parents do to improve their children’s educational outcomes?
Join us as Ted Dabrowski and Rep. Joe Sosnowski discuss who is responsible for the failures in Illinois education and how we can restore power to parents and children through school choice.
Event Details: Rockford town hall 6.2.22
- “Public Education in Rockford: Spending vs. Outcomes”
- Thursday, June 2, 2022
- 11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
- Fozzy’s Bar & Grill, 6246 E. Riverside Boulevard. Loves Park, Illinois
Read up on Illinois’ problems in K-12 education before you attend:
- Illinoisans would pay 40% less in property taxes if the state spent at levels where students perform better: Florida
- Why the Chicago Teachers Union Always Gets What It Wants
- Parents, keep an eye on your school’s sex ed curriculum. It may be more extreme than you think
- Secret union contract negotiations trample on Illinois taxpayers and parents’ rights
- New U.S. Census data: Illinois education spending soars while outcomes flatline
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.
Ted-Here is another article to familiarize yourself on the Rockford school district. This is from 2019.
https://www.wrex.com/news/13-investigates/13-investigates-rps-205-teachers-say-failing-students-still-get-moved-on-to-next-grade/article_8b8b9850-7042-52d4-8301-530f0b8293c2.html
Freddy, that Channel 13 article is a great summary – and a dismal one – of what’s happening all across our state. Social promotion is the norm in Rockford, Decatur, Waukegan… In our education piece coming out next week, we highlight the need for retention. It’s painful, but it puts an onus on everyone to have kids ready. Most science shows that if kids can’t read in the 3rd grade, they won’t be able to tackle science and history and other classes…more from us on that next week. Thanks for sharing that article. Everyone who cares should read it. And kudos… Read more »
You are dreaming if you think social promotions will be significantly reduced. Part of education is seeking “growth” on a personal level as well as an academic level. “Personal growth” is hard to measure by comparison and means different things to different people, of course. Is society at large willling to suffer all the ill-will and likely rioting where social promotions are no longer allowable? I can’t begin to think that’s the case. Families almost always think their child is both smart and talented, and the cost of “redos” is something tax-payers will not indulge when it becomes a significant… Read more »
I’m starting to wonder why we even have public schools, with a supposed purpose of educating students. Pretty much all you offer are reasons why that is an impossible dream. We pay for masters degrees, doctorates, and pensions for people who admit that they cannot be much more than babysitters?
Well, with a teacher’s attempt to bring academic progress to his/her students its very much like the adage “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” The teacher offers the path to progress each day, but to the extent the students are absent from class, fail to do the assignments, fail to be fully engaged in the daily class activies as regards asking question, truly listening for the teacher’s response and maybe even bother to drag out a pencil and paper so as not to forget what’s been said and done each day the students… Read more »
I understand the point about “you can’t make the horse drink”. But I wonder – is there ever any discussion in education circles about why that seems to be the case with so many students today? Is there any recognition that it wasn’t always this way? Is there a problem? Yes. But it seems the education establishment has no solutions. It is what it is, and sweep it under the rug by just passing everyone. I get that it won’t change easily overnight, but the fatalistic attitude of education really bothers me. We can’t keep acting like “shrug, shrug, not… Read more »
Well, I have a solution, and its never going to happen. As far I’m concerned much of the disconnect of the public education system started rising when high schools started promoting college-prep courses for anything that has only the ability to breathe as the pre-requisite. What happens is that students in high school start taking classes that in their parents’ minds is “mandatory” for college prep purposes. Some with a reaonable amount of patience and diligent work habits succeed well enough, but the rest are asking themselves almost literallly every day “Why am I taking this …… anyway”? So, the… Read more »
Yes, vocational classes are very much frowned upon these days.
Sadly, your last sentence doesn’t apply to just “these days.” That whole (nearly mandatory) college-prep course selection psychosis started much earlier—think 1960’s. But, I’m willing to agree to public funding for any student beyond the sophomore year of high school IF the student (1) first passes an approved entry test showing he/she is minimally at grade level prior to enrollment, (2) writes a compelling reason why he wants to take any junior-senior level high school and (3) agrees that reimbursement will only be at the conclusion of the course for any student attaining at least a B course grade. Those… Read more »
Yes, that’s true about vocational education not being encouraged; indeed frowned upon. As a taxpayer I would greatly prefer to fund vocational education rather than students college debt forgiveness. The college loan scam is another article all by itself.
As a high school student in the 60s, we were tested and assigned a track: college, business, and vocational. Annually our ‘track’ was reassessed and students’ tracks could be adjusted.
Our school invested a lot of resources in testing and tracking and produced high school graduates who were able to either begin college, join the work force, or go into vocational training.
Worked then, wonder if it would work now?
I didn’t mention it in my posting here this time, but I have on earlier ones. As an alternate to my posting yesterday I also favor the kind of track system you’ve suggested. Some have done thatcby requiring high test scores to be allowed to take the higher track courses, and some do it by reccomendations of teachers and counselors. The testing later can become a matter of politics within the school as much as talent determination having to do with favoritism when spaces are limited. So, personally I like the testing system better. But, the crux of my earlier… Read more »
Well, first we tie compensation to results… And, no more teachers unions… In fact, no more public/municipal/government employee unions at all… Ever.
Then, once they know they will be measured against their ability to, you know, educate kids, maybe we will see change.
Let’s analyze this a minute. You want higher (academic?) results from the money spent. Nothing new there. Yet, most here—and maybe you—think taxes already are way too high. So, apparently we have two options—reducing teacher pay en masse or relying on more high tech to give instruction to greater numbers of students per teacher so that we need fewer teachers. You surely don’t envision, say, 50 students in each classroom all staying on task for more than a few minutes, do you? (Can you imagine even 10 kids in you own house successfully and happily engaged in a 45-minute task… Read more »
I equate this to punishing doctors if their patients are obese, smoke, or don’t exercise. The patients behavior is the primary driver of their poor health. It’s typically not the doctor, or in this example, the teachers fault.
All a teacher can do ultimately is give good advice when bad attitudes, laziness and behavioral problems become the main obvious detriments. Just as is the case for adults a few will take it grudgingly, fewer still will show gratitude for it and the great majority will ignore it and continue with little chance for improvement. We reap what we sow.
Yes, you reap what you sow. Spend every day pushing a curriculum that has no hope of teaching anyone. Add in big dollops of instruction in blaming everyone and everything else for problems. Make sure no one ever takes responsibility for themselves. You do reap what you sow.
Much to your surprise I don’t control the whole educational process in IL nor even a local district. I share much of your anger, but I think the whole liberal mantra of which you speak isn’t the large-scale controller literally everywhere as your posting implies. Sure, it makes huge waves in the major inner-cites, but in our suburbs and maybe even much of predominantly white rural America its generally more a theoretical construct rather than the daily drumbeats of those in charge of the local districts. Your response here is an over-reach even if it does have relevance.
James, I do understand that no individual teacher controls the education system. But where are the teachers standing up against this? Teachers, through their union votes, seem to be enthusiastic backers. In fact, the recent CTU election would seem to indicate they want to go even further down this path. And when parents try to stand up against it, they are called “domestic terrorists” By whom? Teachers.
I consider that “sowing”.
I don’t think you are all that wrong re CTU. But, what I find frustrating from you and from many others here is that when you mentally mean CTU or CPS you tend to write it as “teachers,” meaning teachers literally everywhere. If you are from Chicago itself I can understant that you reallyl mean CTU, but for the massive number of teacher in IL and elsewhere outside that particular district please indict CTU teachers by naming them rather than saying the more generalized version “teachers.” This may seem petty to you, but education in America as a whole and… Read more »
Ok, I’ll take your suggestion as a constructive criticism. May I offer one as well? Please recognize that your complacency on this issue is stunning to those of us who are parents and grandparents of children in the public education system.
Me, complacent? Not at all, or I’d never bother even reading the commenters here nor resoonding. That’s not at all characteristic of a complacent personality and particularly one who almost invites criticism by making comments contrary to mainstream thinking here.
True. I would not go on a site devoted to teachers, so I concede that point. Your input does make me think, so I appreciate that.
Great, we need more problem-solver thinkers here and a lesser number of vile put-down artists. Nobody really appreciates ad-homeny grits in the morning.
It’s not the tax payers fault they can’t afford the greedy Illinois pensioners. The pensioners demands are the primary reason for the ill health of the state.
This storyline is getting old fast. This website has covered the various opinions on this issue ad naseum. Now, if you said something new or even hA novel takek on it that would be nice, but you didn’t. Blah, blah and blah some more. None of us can do squat about it as individual voters, so basically we have to live with it, “vote the bums out” or simply move. Complaining to fellow like complainers makes you and the like-minded here feel good but simply doesn’t create progress on solving the problem.
Apparently some stories are not getting old. Even the New York Times concedes that teaching reading through phonics is ascendant. Progressives have done untold damage to young people by insisting on variants of whole language teaching, which for the vast majority of students doesn’t work. Whole language has appeal to progressives because it’s mantra is to let the kids read naturally and with no no need for correction. But again it doesn’t work – the science has indicated as such for quite some time. While on teacher as you suggest may not be able to do much, you certainly could… Read more »
I’m not a doctor and wouldn’t presume to tell a doctor how to do his job. I have to assume that goes for nearly any other job where the consumer isn’t a specialist in that same skill set, yet has an opinion. Get the drift? Time will bring change; it always does.
Look, equating a degree in education with that of a physician is weak at best. Education majors at most schools is one of the weakest academically, and it by and large is not all that challenging for people with sound academic skills (I know, both my parents were education majors, and many a scholarship athlete competitor in my athletic days were shoved into that field). But the science on phonics has existed for a while, and those with a rigorous education can read and understand the NIH’s and others works on it. The confirmation bias against it came from the… Read more »
I’m not really trying to equate the difficulty of getting a medical college degree to that of getting a teaching degree. I’m simply saying that those having no job exoerience at all should consider that the problems they choose to cite are not nearly as easily solved as the casual complainers seem to think. Presumably both considerable job experience and appropriate educational accreditation ought to carry more weight in such decisions no matter the topic causing any particular argument. Otherwise, the argument assumes neither matters, a questionable point of view at least.
Teaching methods are half the problem these days. Rote memorization and phoenics works as a foundation for reading but instead they try to teach kids to spell how it sounds. Common core math has been an unmitigated disaster and parents can’t even teach their own children simple concepts like addition and subtraction because it has ‘new’ names and all these ridiculous convoluted backwards ways of solving problems. Education took literally thousands of years of teaching, going back to the Greeks, and said, Nah, that’s garbage, let’s do math an entirely new way, and when test scores drop, we’ll just double… Read more »
100% agree. What’s getting old fast is the education mantra of “we can’t help it”, while deliberately turning public schools into woke madrassas. Oh, and they need more money while doing it.
The education establishment brought this mess on themselves with their far left philosophies. Now they whine that the students are unteachable, and they should not be held responsible for results.
This is still on topic about the Rockford school district. You may find this interesting. A lot to read but just scroll down to “through the end of 1999” paragraph.https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1375148.html It says that Rockford taxpayers pay 20% of the decree. Here is the interesting part which I looked into a few years back. It seems the school tax levy had to be increased and I got some info on what the levy each year was but did not go back far enough. Every year the levy went up except for a few years around 2008-09 (down a little) when home… Read more »
If you’ll quote or summarize that article I’ll happily read it and likely respond. But, I don’t live there or anywhere near there so wading through it isn’t of sufficient priority for me to pursue. Other thing of higher priority await. I have nothing againt Rockford or its people, but I’m indifferent to their problems, I guess.
My mistake. The comment was meant for Ted since he will be up here next week. Just trying to give Ted some info on the background of the Rockford school district. Here is another article for Ted on a former school superintendent LaVonne Sheffield who resigned early from her post.
https://qconline.com/news/illinois/schools-head-denounces-rockford-racism/article_dd7ce36a-807f-5077-b89e-f445bfaf7242.html