By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
It should be criminal. Illinois education officials are passing hundreds of thousands of children from one grade to the next even though those students can’t read at grade level. That process, called social promotion, is institutionalized here in Illinois and it’s failing our kids.
The result? By high school, just 9 of every 100 blacks graduating in Illinois could read at grade level in 2022. For Hispanics, it was just 13 of every 100. And results for math are even worse.
What’s incredible – and infuriating – is just how long this policy has gone on in Illinois. An alert Wirepoints’ reader recently pointed out to us that Chicago Public Schools’ pass-along policy was the subject of a Good Times episode that ran in 1974 – almost 50 years ago.
Here’s the plot:
“Junior the Senior” March 29, 1974
Florida and James are worried that J.J. will not pass into the 12th grade. When he gets his report card, he did indeed pass, but his parents suspect he shouldn’t have. This leads James and Florida to do a little investigating.
The crux of the episode (at 14:11) includes the following exchange:
Florida: Our son is going to be in a tough world pretty soon, and we want to make sure he has a real education. We don’t want him pushed through high school like he was going through a three minute car wash and still coming out wet behind his ears.
Principal Kirkland: Mr. and Mrs. Evans, I appreciate how you feel about your son’s education, but you see we lack the facilities and the money that schools in more privileged areas have.
I have thousands of students at this school, and a graduating class of over 600. Now if I don’t graduate a large percentage of that group, I wind up looking like I’m not doing too good a job.
If I don’t graduate a high percentage, our budget is cut, and if our budget is cut, our teaching staff suffers, and if our teachers suffer, students’ education suffers…
…You have to understand the system. One hand washes the other. You have to help us move the pupils along, and I’ll help you by giving your son a diploma. And with that diploma, it can help him get a job.
James: A job. What the hell good is a job? I’ve got a job. I’ve got two jobs. Hell, I’ve had jobs all my life. I want something more for my son. I want him to have an opportunity. And you and I both know that opportunities only come from an education.
Principal Kirkland: But folks, the system…
James: Mr. Kirkland, please don’t make me tell you what you can do with your “system.”
There’s hardly a better representation of Chicago’s systemic failure in education. Back then the district’s negligence was so blatant that it drew the scorn of the Norman Lear-produced show – yet five decades later the same policy continues.
In fact, the situation is worse than ever. The number of students able to read at grade level fell to a record low in 2022 and yet few people, including the media, seem to care.
Passing students along
Chicago’s use of social promotion is obvious when you look at the graphic below. Wirepoints analyzed both reading and math scores in our recent reports here and here, but for brevity we focus on reading.
Just 17 out of every 100 CPS 3rd-graders could read at grade level in 2022, according to Illinois Report Card data directly from the Illinois State Board of Education.
The ability to read in third grade is critical because if children can’t read by then, they’ll have real trouble learning science, social studies and civics in later grades.
That’s why some states like Florida outlaw social promotion. The Sunshine State requires students to stay in 3rd grade until they absolutely have the skills they need to move on to the next grade.
But CPS simply pushes students along. Which is why only 19 out of every 100 fourth-graders are reading proficient.
Chicagoans’ reading proficiency stagnates from there. Only about 20 of every 100 students in Chicago can read at grade level in any given grade.
The numbers are even worse for the city’s black students. Less than 10 out every 100 black children are reading-proficient in the third grade.
And the numbers never improve. Just 10 out of every 100 black 11th-graders could read at grade level in 2022.
Those are dismal numbers. But that doesn’t stop CPS from pushing students through the system. Officials proudly announced that the city had achieved a record graduation rate in 2022 while not mentioning that only 10 out of every 100 black 11th-graders could actually read at grade level, or that just 16 out of every 100 Hispanic 11th-graders reached proficiency.
Not just Chicago
Unfortunately, the practice of pushing children up and out of the education system regardless of their actual proficiency isn’t restricted to Chicago. As we wrote in our report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system, many school districts across the state are doing the same.
Black students in Decatur, for example, perform even worse than their counterparts in Chicago.
Less than 4 out of every 100 black third-graders in the district can read at grade level. And just like in Chicago, those students never see any improvement.
By the 11th-grade, just 3 out of every 100 black students are reading proficient.
Up, out, and nowhere to go
The saddest, and most prescient, part of the Good Times episode comes when J.J. is asked to decide whether he wants to move on to the 12th grade or be held back. His parents plead with him to remain behind (at 18:05):
Principal Kirkland: It’s up to you now, if you want to move along to the Senior year with your classmates, our school is right behind you.
James: Now see here, they’re just pushing you through here. Those grades you got, you didn’t deserve them, Junior. They just gave them to you to get rid of you.
Florida: But we told Mr. Kirkland, our son came to school to learn, not to just get pushed around…and nobody’s just gonna push him through school without putting something into his head.
J.J.’s decision? “Mr. Kirkland, I’m proud to go along with your quota system and take my place in your senior class.”
Though J.J.’s decision was played for laughs on the show, it’s a deeply tragic outcome. Because over the last 50 years, millions of actual children have been failed by Illinois’ education system in the same way.
******
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and others may choose to name-call those who criticize Illinois’ failed education system – see our reel here – but the reality is, there’s no justification for keeping this system intact.
What’s amazing in Illinois is that nobody pays the price for this failure. On the contrary, those who run the system get rewarded for it – handsomely.
P.S. Gov. Pritzker may once again claim that the education data above is wrong, but to reiterate, the educational outcomes included above come directly from the Illinois State Board of Education. Here’s the original Wirepoints’ report Pritzker first dismissed, the Wall Street Journal editorial he mocked and his actual words during the gubernatorial debate.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Pritzker’s big brag: A record 87% of Illinois students graduate…but only 3 in 10 students taking the SAT can read at grade level
- Illinois’ 2021 student outcomes collapsed during school shutdowns, Covid mitigations
- Gov. Pritzker name-calls rather than admit to Illinois’ dire educational outcomes
- Wirepoints in the Wall Street Journal: Illinois’ Shocking Report Card. The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up.
- Trapped in a death spiral: Chicago Public School spending hits record $29K per student as enrollment shrinks, outcomes plummet
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.
The discussion in that episode is spot on. I had a similar convo recently. In a meeting of Math teachers (me -8th grade, 6th, 5th, and 2nd), the AP, and an „Instructional Support Leader” from the Network Office, the discussion about the need for intense intervention because our kids are sooo far behind in Math, went like this (we were trying to decide which students to address first): ISL: well, I see on the latest standardized test in 8th grade, you had about 30 kids (out of 80) score in the „needs moderate or urgent intervention” categories. But, at the… Read more »
Interestingly enough, JJ is now on a television commercials touting the fact that he now qualifies for the Medicare “give back” benefit, a program geared toward lower incomes. Perhaps he should have studied a bit harder.
And all those students eventually get jobs with the state of IL, most helping Jumbo Belly with the budget. One thing I’ll say about Good Times, it taught me that life was just a lark when you lived in Cabrini Green. Nothing but good family times.
No mention that Principal Kirkland is a retired pension multi-millionaire residing in FL.
This is what Chicago wants. If you don’t want to play along with the fraud and fund it, your option is to leave it.
Good Times nailed a lot of Chicago things, especially Alderman Fred C. Davis.
The base cause of low reading scores, is traceable to the colleges that train teachers . Most teachers do not know how to teach reading in the elementary years. Better trained teachers=better education.
The nuns I had in the 60s didn’t have that problem. Phonics needs to make a comeback too.
Yeah, and rulers……
with Amendment 1 pretty much a done deal watch next year as CTU and IFT push to bargain for ever more dumbed-down testing or no testing at all under guise that any standards are systemic racist discrimination or some other equity hustle/ keep-em-down on the farm bs spin.
Yes, but it’s not really bargaining when they own the system.
Wait until city employees realize they can now remove the residency requirement for employment. Chicago will be left with overtaxed yuppies and welfare recipients.
good point. that will be the end…. cops, fire and their alderman are already pushing for no residency requirement
Norman Lear is a liberal nut-bag — but his shows effectively lampooned both conservatives and liberals alike.
Yep, All in the Family was a classic. I miss Archie & Edith. The meathead not so much.
I liked Sanford and Son especially Aunt Ester and Shady Grady.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaE3rq8Iik4
Yep, the “It’s the big one. Elizabeth, I’m coming to join you” schtik never got old.
Folks, once again don’t confuse a government jobs program with education.
The education system is set up to provide good jobs and benefits for adults. Education is at the bottom of the list. As long as the teachers get large pensions to retire to Florida at a young age and live the good life, nothing else matters. Just check and see where the pension checks are going.
The Kansas City experiment proves this statement to be accurate. https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure# I don’t know how the educational – industrial complex explains Kansas City. There literally could not have a been a bigger infusion of funds in the history of our nation. Yet performance declined. I could see those on the left saying it was racism, but that assumes the only way to raise performance is to have white (and now asian) kids in the schools. Casting aside the perceived beneficial notions of diversity, the money spent in Kansas City should have produced far better results than it did. And one… Read more »
We are always told that teacher pensions are based on a sacred “contract”. The supposed contract has always been based on a massive fraud. SBF is a piker compared to the 50 year scam perpetrated by teacher unions.
It’s a 70 year contract, from 35 years of service through 35 years of retirement. Once you hire someone, that benefit cannot be diminished or impaired, ’til death do they part. Your only recourse is to terminate that employee, which would be replaced by another employee with the same 70 year contract.
The state hardly knows what’s going to happen 7 months from now, let alone 70 years. But here we are.
The anecdotal version of this article might best be illuminated by the experiences of managers who, like myself, recruit, train and supervise employees. High school “graduates” – college “graduates” for that matter – whose literacy doesn’t even allow them to complete an employment application that does little more than ask them to put their name, address and work history (if any) in the correct places on a form. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve participated in job-fairs and watched applicants using someone who they’ve brought along with them to complete written documents, or to read and explain… Read more »
In Illinois all the teachers are above average!