Politicians’ five-step guide for making parents think all’s well in Illinois schools – Wirepoints

By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Illinois’ educational establishment has been doing it for more than five decades. Year after year they’ve automatically advanced kids that can’t read or do math at grade level. They’ve graduated kids that are nowhere near proficiency levels on the SAT. And they always tell parents all is well. 

They just did it again this month when the State Board of Education and Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the new state 2024 education results. This time to give the illusion of success, they conflated record graduation rates with improved elementary scores. Gov. Pritzker told parents: “This year’s report card shows we’ve reached the highest grad rate in 14 years at 87.7% AND the highest-ever proficiency rate in English Language Arts in grades 3-8.”

Tricky. When bragging about record graduation rates, it’s not elementary scores but rather high school SAT scores that matter. And those SAT scores are at or near all-time lows. Student reading proficiency statewide is down nearly 9 percentage points and math is down by over 10 points compared to 2017 when Illinois began using the SAT. 

Note that the scores on the SAT – a requirement for all juniors in Illinois – were trending down even before the pandemic began.

But few parents are going know about those collapsing scores thanks to a five-step process Illinois education officials use to make public education look better than it really is:

Step 1. Lead with lofty statements to set the stage. Use phrases like “reaching new heights”…“powerful example of success”…”delivering real results.” Make sure to throw in the word “investment” several times. From ISBE:

“Students are reaching new heights & educators are setting a powerful example of success…our investments in students are delivering real results as Illinois continues to bounce back stronger from the challenges set by the pandemic. ~ @GovPritzker.

Step 2. Highlight “positive” stats and conflate the data where needed. In this case, tie record graduation rates to higher elementary-level reading scores. 

Step 3. Ensure the media echoes the same message throughout the state. Use sympathetic traditional media sources to spread official talking points.

Step 4. Name-call anybody that challenges the narrative. Use terms like “carnival barker” and “denier” for groups that reveal the truth. Gov. Pritzker did exactly that in a gubernatorial debate in 2020 when challenged about Illinois’ school results (see Instagram Reel here).

Step 5. Rinse and repeat. Push the same narrative regarding “improvements” and “investments” just like in 2023, and 2022, and 2021 and 2019…

That’s how politicians perpetuate the system. It’s what prompted the Wall Street Journal to write: Illinois’s Shocking Report Card: The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up.

**************

Illinois educators can brag about record graduation rates, but the sad fact is the state is graduating students that are the least prepared they’ve ever been for life in the working world. 

Just 31% of high schoolers scored proficient in reading on the SAT in 2024. For black students, it was only 12%. And white student proficiency fell a whopping 9.5 percentage points from 2017, to just 42%.

Math results for 2024 were even more abysmal, with high school SAT proficiencies hitting post-2017 lows across all major demographics. A mere 7% of black students and just 26% of all students statewide were proficient in math on the SAT.

Even top-performing high school districts like New Trier in Chicago’s North Shore (operational spending alone exceeds $33,000 per student) are failing their students. The percentage of students reading proficiently there has dropped by more than 10 percentage points since 2017, to just 77.2%, while math proficiency is down by more than 9 percentage points to 70.4%. 

*********************

A record-high graduation rate of nearly 88%, record low math scores and near-record low reading scores. That alone is an indictment of Illinois’ public education and its leaders.

Illinois legislators should be ashamed that they perpetuate this system. In 2026, a litmus test for whether lawmakers should be allowed to keep their jobs is whether or not they support universal school choice.

Read more from Wirepoints:

• Fresh data: Illinois officials graduate record 88% of students despite tragic literacy, numeracy rates
• Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
• The big myth that needs debunking: Illinois needs more money for education
• Chicago Public Schools spends $100 million yearly on its 20 emptiest schools. And it wants to spend another $1 billion on them.
• Illinois lawmakers’ decision to kill school choice looks increasingly absurd