By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Anybody following Wirepoints’ recent reporting on Illinois’ educational crisis already knows the numbers: statewide just 1 of every 10 black students can read at grade level, and for Hispanics, it’s just 2 in every 10. For white students, it’s a better but still dismal 4 in 10. It’s not an exaggeration to say the state’s public schools are condemning an entire generation of Illinois children to failure.
So when Gov. Pritzker recently had the chance to name a new Superintendent to lead the state, he could have picked somebody to shake up the system, somebody whose district was actually leading the state in reading and math outcomes. Maybe somebody from outside the system or outside the state. Somebody who would, finally, prioritize merit, achievement and competence. Somebody who would obsess about dramatically raising student scores.
But he didn’t. Instead, Pritzker chose Tony Sanders, Superintendent of U-46 in Elgin, the state’s second-largest school district with 35,000 students. At U-46, just 1 in every 10 minority students can read at grade level. For all students, it’s just 2 in 10. Sanders has been in the district since 2007 and was named superintendent there in 2014.
Here’s what Gov. Pritzker had to say in making his selection:
“Dr. Tony Sanders is an extraordinary choice for State Superintendent of Education,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Dr. Sanders’ breadth of experience as superintendent of School District U-46 and his entire background have prepared him to take on this role. His focus on innovation, social emotional development, and academic excellence make him an extraordinary pick. I can think of no better person to lead the Illinois State Board of Education as we continue to invest in, support, and elevate our students and educators.”
Keep “innovation, social emotional development, and academic excellence” in mind as we lay out Sanders and Elgin’s results below.
Even worse than the state
Sanders has led for nine years a district with some of the lowest minority outcomes in the state. Just 11.3% of U-46 Hispanic students and 9.3% of black students could read at grade level in 2022.
Math is even more dismal. Just 10.7% of Hispanics and 5.4% of blacks are proficient in math.
Those scores are worse than the state average for both minority groups.
White student outcomes in Elgin are almost as bad. Just 32 percent of white students could read or do math at grade level in 2022. That’s 8 percentage points worse than the state average.
Sanders’ measures during the pandemic contributed to a collapse in student outcomes. His administration kept children out of classrooms through October 2020 and forced them to remain masked through February of 2022.
U-46’s reading scores fell by 8 percentage points, or 30 percent, over the past 4 years. In 2019, 3 out of every 10 students could read at grade level in Elgin. Outcomes fell to less than 2 out of every 10 students in 2022.
Automatically passing
Sanders has done nothing to end the culture of automatically passing kids along to the next grade. No matter what grade Hispanic students are in, 9 out of 10 of them can’t read at their grade level. They’ve simply been passed along, year after year.
It’s how you end up with just 10% of 3rd graders reading at grade level and the same percent in the 11th grade.
By the way, Sanders took over U-46 school when today’s Hispanic 11th graders were in the 3rd grade. He oversaw their entire 11-year stagnation.
If Sanders had shown leadership, he would have pushed for a policy to not advance kids to the next grade until his teachers, parents and volunteers all worked to ensure they were at grade level. That’s particularly true for 3rd-graders. If students haven’t achieved proficiency by the end of 3rd grade, they are often doomed to struggle the rest of their school careers.
The graduation facade
Sanders has created a facade of success by graduating students who are unprepared for college or careers. Over the last six years U-46 has graduated more than 85% of students a year, but in most years fewer than 30% of 11th-grade students were proficient in reading on the SAT the year before. In 2022, the share of students proficient on the SAT was just 19%.
Inflated teacher evaluations
Sanders has also done nothing to end the practice of hyper-inflated teacher evaluations. At U-46, 98% or more of all teachers over the past six years have been rated “excellent or proficient” by their supervisors or district evaluators. Even in 2021, amid the pandemic closures, remote learning and other mitigations that made a mess of Illinois’ children, 100% of U-46 teachers were designated “excellent or proficient.”
Again, as a head of the state’s second largest school district, a leader would have pushed for accountability measures like teacher evaluations to be more properly tied to outcomes. But he didn’t.
Nice work if you can get it.
Sanders’ pay is far out of sync with his results. In 2021, he received a $249,000 salary (and another $60,000 in benefits), the 59th-highest pay of any superintendent in the state. Yet Elgin’s overall reading scores that year ranked 621 out of the state’s 860 school districts (1st=best).
And this year U-46 granted Sanders a raise to $269,243. That salary will only grow now that Sanders has been appointed to the state’s top education position.
If there’s one recurring theme in this story – and in Wirepoints’ analysis of the education system as a whole – it’s that accountability means nothing.
Illinois students would be far better off with a superintendent dedicated to merit and achievement, and, as University of Chicago’s Charles Lipson recently wrote, to making kids literate and numerate again.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Six facts Gov. Pritzker doesn’t want you to know about Illinois’ 2022 Report Card
- 50 years of failure: Norman Lear’s ‘Good Times’ first criticized Chicago’s policy of automatically passing students in 1974. It’s still happening today.
- Over 460 soon-to-expire teachers union contracts and the ‘Workers’ Rights’ Amendment make Illinois’ April school board elections critical.
Ted was on The Chicago Way with John Kass and Jeff Carlin to discuss the proposed $5 billion lakefront stadium project proposed by the Chicago Bears & Mayor Brandon Johnson, why Chicago is struggling compared to other metro areas across the country, why the city might or might not go the way of Detroit, and more.
Some Illinois lawmakers continue to deny that covid aid and other federal stimulus bailed the state out of its fiscal mess. But a look at past and projected revenues from COGFA shows just how much the bailouts blew out the state’s revenues. And now that they’re over, how much harder it will be for Illinois revenues to grow.
Election integrity – both real and perceived – is essential to government’s legitimacy and stability. Illinois, like the rest of the nation, better fix its problems now.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Chicago’s latest bond offering, why Chicago’s dismal home value growth is due to poor policies, the next $70 million to be spent on migrants, the 9% salary hikes demanded by the CTU, and why Illinois lawmakers voting to stop Chicago’s selective enrollment schools from being closed is hypocritical.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 4/21/2024.
This is how the government works, people like Sanders on government salaries doing shit, btw paid by us, the taxpayers. Why we need school districts anyway, fire them all. Government doesn’t serve the people only the rich and corporations. You are all the sheeple for them.
The Peter Principle, promoted to the height of one’s incompetence
What is scary is this superintendent and failed administrative team have doomed these poor kids to a life of illiteracy, numeracy and poverty. There is a special place in h**l for them.
I hope you realize there’s a political parallel to this on OUR SIDE–incompetent people who don’t know how to produce success even though they are celebrities and are well funded…
What a poor choice to lead the state’s education efforts however it continues this Governors pattern of making poor choices. But it will guarantee that Illinois residents will be asked for even more tax dollars even though results are so poor and that the union jobs will be guaranteed.
Talk about failing up!
Demoncratic pans to keep da popuation ignorant r achievn stelr results!
Chicagos civic leaders should be ashamed to emerge into the daylight. All of them. They’re are complicit in the destruction of a once beautiful city!
Studies also show that young children that are read to by their parents every day are more likely to succeed in school. What should we do with the kids that don’t come from a home that values education? Maybe the parents don’t read or speak english.
It won’t happen just by complaining about teachers or in this case superintendents. It sounds like you are advocating for more funding for pre-schools through 3rd grade.
How does more funding for pre-schools through 3rd grade produce more parents who read to their kids?
That was tongue-in-cheek. I don’t think it would help one but but I’m sure that’s the future recommendation.
To your point, I don’t think it will ever be fixed without parental responsibility. So, in our society, never. Everyone wants to assign blame anywhere other than their mirror.
You nailed it, NewGirl.
I read to my daughter every night. Beautifully illustrated Graeam Base books. Reading to your children is a sacred responsibility. SureI was tired, but you need to read to kids. She’s now a transaction attorney.
Well done Paraclete. It’s unfortunate that others don’t understand the importance or are intellectually unable to help with that tradition.
Yes, it is unfortunate that 50 years of this education system has produced parents (and grandparents) that are intellectually unable to help with that tradition.
How many of their parents were even educated in the US? How many of them even speak English? So many people come here for the American Dream and act as if it’s some kind of lottery. Others act like certain color to ones skin is the secret. They refuse to acknowledge the habits that parents teach their children along with how they value education makes such a big difference. The asian immigrants also have many barriers yet as a group they seem to have figured it out. It can be done. It’s just that government won’t be the solution. Anyone… Read more »
Actually, I agree to a point. Asian cultures value education, and that manifests in the results. Other cultures, not so much. The past concept of “melting pot” and assimilation was a much better way to help teachers educate newcomers. But now the education system is one of the prime factors behind the absolute fear and abhorrence of Western Civilization. Their ultimate goal seems to be stamping out the glue that held America together, and as a by-product made teachers’ jobs easier. No wonder that teaching has become a much more difficult job. The ideology of the education system made it… Read more »
It is not hyperbole to say that their ultimate goal is clear: the ethnic cleansing or the enslavement of you, the native u.s. citizen, a male cisgendered with light colored skin. They want your stuff. Nothing has ever changed in the history of the world – the Barbarians overran the Roman Empire, the Anglos, Saxons and Jutes killed all the natives in Britannia, to the systematic killing and pillaging of landed farmers and estate owners in South Africa and Zimbabwe today. All these groups are seeking to take something from others, by force or under color of law, and the… Read more »
It’s difficult to read to kids when the parents can’t read or write.
Has anyone heard any of our “solution oriented” politicians suggest that reading to your children and helping them understand the value of education are the way forward? No, never they all suggest that the solution is more resources and investment as if $30k per year per student is not enough. You can accomplish more in two hours per day home schooling kids than they accomplish in six hours in a government school with the added benefit of not having to deprogram them from all the stuff they pick up from the school and other kids. Families that are paying high… Read more »
Many times, it’s the ‘good’ school district that keeps home prices high. There’s a reason why the exact same split-level in Oak Forest costs1/3rd of the same home in Glenview.
Then read to them in whatever language they speak
Make sure you tell all the parents that pro tip.
Not speaking English is a BS argument. Any child who is read to in any language – Spanish, Polish, Arabic, etc. – develops literacy skills that are transferrable across languages. Everyone here knows someone whose parents came from another country and didn’t speak or read to them in English, and yet they did fine in school. Please don’t use that excuse again.
Also, the number of kids whose parents do not value education is actually quite minute. It most certainly doesn’t correlate with the staggering number of children failing.
Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) is a federally required measure of students’ mastery of the Illinois Learning Standards in English language arts (ELA) and math in Grades 3 through 8 and their readiness for what’s next. IAR results are also used to measure student growth for school and district accountability.
IAR Proficiency has five levels of performance:
• Level 5: Exceeded expectations (considered proficient).
• Level 4: Met expectations (considered proficient).
• Level 3: Approached expectations
• Level 2: Partially met expectations.
• Level 1: Did not yet meet expectations.
From https://www.isbe.net/pages/illinois-state-report-card-data.aspx
Glossary
Where is the Pensions Paid First guy on this post? Does he actually care about competent government in Illinois, or just that he gets his piece of the pie?
As I’ve said before, there is no relationship between performance and reward in government employment because there is no accountability. When 98% of Illinois’ teachers are rated exemplary and their students’ education results are abysmal, my point is proven.
Many years back , I attended private schools and worked hard to learn, because my dad would threaten to send me to the public schools if I didn’t do well . now that was motivation
Russian kids receive incredibly well rounded educations that involve progression to higher math, physics, chemistry, etc. all based on equally rigorous grade school. An interesting fact is the importance of shop and home economics classes as well. All Russian kids of either gender learn to work with wood, metal, plastics, and how to balance a household economics. All the bases are covered, if a kid isn’t up to speed to become a lawyer or doctor, they may be an incredible welder or artist in wood. Face it, public school in America is more about leftist indoctrination into the religion of… Read more »
Not just Russian kids. Many European schools have been successfully following this model for years. Germany helps school children to choose which tract to follow around high school age with much success. Teaching vocational and life skills in general should be in the mission statements of our public schools. It should really not be as complicated as the teachers’ unions and Progressive legislators seem to make it out to be.
You might be right, but I wouldn’t be caught dead sending my kids to school in Russia. Instead of a diploma, they get a pack of smokes and a draft order….lol
If you don’t mind sharing, in which state and when was how to properly handle a firearm taught in HS? No blanks or live ammo, just an unloaded shotgun or pistol what?
In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, Calumet High School in Chicago let their ROTC color guard take their 22 cal rifles home on the CTA bus.
Reavis HS ROTC in South Stickney (it became Burbank later). .22 cal rifle.
Perhaps Pritzker needs to read up on the Peter Principle. Sadly, he certainly follows this failed style of management.
Precision of language and numerical formats is necessary for comprension and creation of laws and contracts.
Perhaps the solution is to agree on a language of words and numbers other than traditional English, then teach that as a rigorous discipline.
Laws on the books may then be translated and comprehended by all.
Thats too rational, they’ll just lower the standards until everyone is an A+ student. Lowering expectations, the liberal whites running public education know what’s best for the latinx and the black kids. It takes a village you know.
Roughly 98% of the state’s teachers are performing at an exemplary level. No need to change what’s happening in the classroom, right?
The Klan is thrilled that someone with such a poor record of educating blacks is being promoted
Just another example of how educators do not give a Schmitt about education.
The system is set up to make multi-millionaires out of government lackies.
The system is broken, the only solution is to vote with your feet.
Great article. Don’t forget to mention retirement pension and medical benefits, in addition to salary. And the age allowed to retire. Cause pensions is used big time by Illinois pols of course.
Typical for Arbuckle and Illinois, put an abject failure in charge.
Parents are left with only one solution: take your children out of public schools.
Public school exit is only a fraction of the solution and unfortunately available only for some. The majority of children will remain stuck in “failure factories” for a myriad of valid reasons and obstacles: the prohibited cost of private education, the lack of alternative education infrastructure, the logistics and economic impact of homeschooling on a family that depends on two incomes. In addition, no matter how low the public school census is, taxpayers will still be on the hook for a bloated, inefficient and ineffective bureaucracy courtesy of the teachers unions. School choice is the logical choice and legislators need… Read more »
I understand the limitations faced by some parents deciding whether to remove their children from public schools. But the system is so broken and so corrupt, only a militant approach will work. Your children’s futures are at stake. Anything more important than that? Waiting for the programs you mention is too passive. If school administrators and politicians truly cared, these ideas would be realities across the state. Instead, organize a parent strike, marching to the school district and demanding changes, or protesting en masse on Pritzker’s front lawn. Make some noise about it!!! Until that happens, pulling your child out… Read more »
Tell that to a blue collar family with $60,000 income and a $7,000 property tax bill. You think they can find another $25,000 per year to send their kids to private school?
Reform is needed. Opting out of the system is only an option for the very wealthy.
Tell this to a blue collar family. If their taxes are as you suggest, they need to sell and move into something more affordable. A $7k annual tab for real estate taxes, assuming 2% of home value, yields a $350,000 home. Assuming 80% LTV, a $280,000 mortgage at 5% is $18k annually. Add $7k for taxes and another $1k for insurance, total annual PITI is $26k or 43% of that $60k. Pretty sure lenders haven’t been signing up customers under those terms. Same advice: take your child out of public school. It’s not just for the wealthy . . .… Read more »
You can opt out of the system by packing the UHaul and leaving Illinois. Otherwise you are funding and enabling this corrupt broken system.
Get out now. You don’t want to be the last person at the table when the check arrives.
What Illinois grade school needs is an end to teachers unions and 200,000 nuns. Mean one’s–like I had in the 60’s! Sister Mary Knuckles for example.
It’s the truth, learning for fear of a beating;it worked well.
Snowplow parents will never allow corporal punishment in schools. Too bad. It worked on me.
Mine was 6th grade Sister Marie Jerome at St Albert the Great in Stickney. Instilling fear combined with patience and not letting you get away with anything is what the best teachers are. I’m 67 and still afraid of that nun.
It was Sr. Martina at my school. Broke her golden ruler over a kid’s knuckles. Another parent bought her one for Christmas.
I had a nun who had severe strabismus. She come storming down the aisle and you couldn’t tell who she was going after. You’d think you were safe and blam s huge hamfisted eye slap. When she was really pissed she’d beat you with a hard cover text book.those were the days that built character. The parents loved her. Corporal punishment worked. School was interesting. If you got through the day without a beating you walked home with a spring in your step .
It’s the “broken windows” policy applied in schools. Very effective.
He must be a loyal democrat