By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
More than one-third of Chicago’s 473 traditional public schools are currently running half empty or worse, according to 2022-2023 data released in December by the Chicago Public Schools. The city’s 20 most-empty schools are operating at 25 percent or less capacity, with the worst less than 10 percent full.
That absolute failure in efficiency is bad enough, but the situation is even worse considering the dismal student outcomes in those 20 nearly-empty schools. There are just 3.6 students for every school employee – a dream level for educating kids – and yet only 8 out of every 100 students in those schools can read at grade level.
What are these empty, failing schools doing open? It’s clear the kids aren’t being taught to read or do math. And with so few students, the schools can’t provide a social learning environment nor can they claim to be community hubs. They are also incredibly expensive to operate – 60 percent more than the average CPS school – pushing up Chicago property taxes even higher than they need to be.
There’s absolutely no reason for these schools to exist, yet they do for two reasons: the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) wants them to – think pay, pensions and power – and Illinois and Chicago’s political leadership don’t have the spine to say no.
Chicago can’t close any of the schools above due to a moratorium that won’t end until 2025.
The moratorium originally began as a five-year ban after Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools in 2013. The moratorium was resurrected in 2021 in the same bill that created, beginning in 2024, an elected school board for CPS.
And knowing the CTU, the moratorium may never end. The union will soon have even more power to keep empty schools open. They’ll have an elected board filled with their hand-picked candidates, and unprecedented new collective bargaining rights and powers granted to them by the “Workers Rights” Amendment. (See Wirepoints’ Amendment 1 webpage here.)
That means schools like Douglass High School, currently the emptiest, failingest school in the district, will remain open. The school has a capacity for 888 students but just 34 attend. That’s a pathetic 3.8 percent of available seats.
What’s even more laughable, the school has 24 employees, meaning there are 1.4 students for every staff member. That student-to-staff ratio is insanely expensive – Douglass HS spends over $56,000 in operating costs per student. It’s almost like every student has a private tutor.
And yet, not a single Douglass student can read or do math at grade level, according to ISBE’s latest 2022 data. Oh, and the school of 34 students has both a principal and an assistant principal who, combined, cost Chicagoans over $280,000 a year.
It’s a similar story for 1,300-capacity Manley High School, which is just 5 percent filled and just 2.5 percent of its students can read at grade level.
Ditto for Austin High School, with a capacity for almost 1,800 students. It’s just 9 percent filled and just 1 out of every 10 students can read at grade level.
Or look at Raby High School. With 816 available seats but only 140 students, Raby is only 17 percent filled. Its 57 employees (meaning 2.5 students per staff member) contribute to the school’s costs of $30,900 per student. Yet all that money doesn’t change the school’s dismal results. Just 2 percent of students can read at grade level and not a single one is proficient in math. Presiding over that failure are an interim and an assistant principal, costing a combined $270,000 a year.
And if you’re wondering why we don’t focus on math grades, that’s because they are near-universally worse than reading scores. We covered those outcomes in greater detail in our statewide report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
CPS’ failures
We’ve focused on the worst 20 schools because they bring to life to what extremes the Chicago Teachers Union will go to keep schools open, and just how weak this and previous city administrations have been regarding the interests of parents and students.
But the problem is far larger when you look at all the schools that are operating at less than 50 percent. Exactly 170 of Chicago’s 473 stand-alone “traditional” (non-charter, non-contract) schools, or 36 percent, are less than half-full. That’s up from last year, when 32 percent were less than half-full.
Ignoring the failed outcomes that we’ve covered in detail (here and here and here), there’s a massive waste of taxpayer funds in keeping these schools at suboptimal capacity. In 2022/2023, the Chicago Public Schools will spend nearly $29,000 per student once all local, state and federal dollars are added up (it’s the district’s entire spend on operations, debt and capital).
That’s up 40 percent from just 4 years ago, when the district spent $21,000 per student.
The increased spending by the billions should have Chicagoans and state taxpayers angry, but it’s even worse than that. Their fury should be compounded by the 116,000 drop – about 27 percent – in student enrollment over the past 20 years. In 2003, the district had 438,000 students, but today that number has dropped to 322,000 (see appendix). Students and families are fleeing the district, and yet local and state governments keep dumping more money into the system.
And all for worse and worse results. Just 11 out of every 100 black students in CPS could read at grade level in 2022 and for Hispanics it was only 17 of every 100. For the entire district, just 20 out of every 100 students could read at grade level. (The results for math are significantly worse across the board.)
At this point, whether Chicago closes its empty schools or dramatically reorganizes them no longer matters…the system simply can’t and won’t teach kids. It’s content to just graduate them and move on, much like it has been doing since the 1970’s.
Defenders of the status quo in education like to claim that outcomes will be far worse for students if they are given school choice. For Chicago’s children – and especially those thousands trapped in empty schools – it’s hard to imagine anything worse than their current plight.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Over 460 soon-to-expire teachers union contracts and the ‘Workers’ Rights’ Amendment make Illinois’ April school board elections critical.
- 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.
- Six facts Gov. Pritzker doesn’t want you to know about Illinois’ 2022 Report Card
- Wirepoints in the Wall Street Journal: Illinois’ Shocking Report Card. The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up.
- Wall Street Journal Column by Wirepoints’ Dabrowski and Klingner: Why the Chicago Teachers Union Always Gets What It Wants
- The opportunity that Chicago – and Illinois – kids need is real school choice
Appendix.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently promised electric car maker Rivian $827 million in taxpayer subsidies when he shouldn’t have given the company a penny. The question is, was it negligence or something more?
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.
Lori should plan on keeping Soldier Field, McCormack Place and the Pier empty too.
The CTU is run by fascists where their mission is to extract as much money out of the City of Chicago rather than to be educators to mentor these Chicago school children who desperately need better educational outcomes. As the CTU has had authorized three strikes since 2012 (one was averted the day before the strike took place), the CTU does not care about educating their students, only increasing their wages and benefits. If anyone can’t understand this, they don’t understand the facts.
Why the general use of CPS? Some of the top performing schools in the state are CPS. Walter Payton, Jones, Lane—Why comment if you’re going to ignore the complexities of the situation?
It is implicit in the condemnation of CPS that the magnet schools are not included. however, those schools are still 100% woke beyond repair too
There’s a lot of understandable frustration and anger here, and I too am disgusted at the way the children of Chicago are being neglected by these grifters.
But I have seen no mention in these comments of the importance of the real source of literacy, in my opinion – parents attentively reading books with their children. I mean PRE-SCHOOL age. We had books, lots of books, and we read them together. If you don’t get this head start, you’ll most likely fall behind.
The frustration with CPS is justified, however what is going on in these kid’s homes?
…kids’ homes. It’s New Year’s Eve. So sue me. Happy new year MF’rs
Shaggy, it’s easy to blame parents. But remember who the parents are. In many cases, the parents themselves were students in the CPS system who were taught nothing but given a diploma anyway. And now they are to blame for the next generation of failure? How are parents expected to teach their children something that they themselves were never taught? Ten years from now, current CPS students will be the parents, and CPS will still be pointing fingers at parents for education failures. Talk about blaming the victim!
They aren’t. That means it’s working.
Michelle Obama is a CPS product
Well, I guess that proves that everything is great with CPS! Please disregard the mountains of evidence to the contrary.
The CTU and the Democrats are just like the KKK. They don’t want minorities to be able to read.
The magnitude of the skim must be phenomenal.
I guess I was over the target.
Democrap click farms in China.
The CTU and LSC handpick their own principals, so the downward spiral will continue. They just recycle the same failed administrators and shuffle them to different buildings where these failed principals continue to serve as CTU lapdogs. The principal of Air Force has decreased SAT scores by 2% per annum for nearly a decade, but is still “leading” the building. Her failed assistant principal was recently sent to Corliss as a now principal; Corliss is another failing building. It is ridiculous. Time to hire new turnaround leadership and abolish CTU.
I predict a record low turnout at the School Board Elections statewide
Like most districts, my district has had its fair share of controversy over DIE, masks, ‘inclusion’. Hundreds of parents screaming at the school board to be normal. So what does the new candidate slate look like for the upcoming election? Nearly half a dozen progressives running to replace the handful of retiring conservatives remaining on the board. These people are insane. They see adversarial parents as an excuse to double-down on their terrible polices. Maybe one, possibly two conservatives running to replace the two retiring conservatives. It’s a pointless battle here any more. They progressive rot is everywhere and it… Read more »
Remember, Ronald Reagan and the air controllers union. That is a good example of how to proceed with many public unions today
Keeping drastically underutilized public schools open is another example of abuse of the taxpayer by mismanaging taxpayer funds.
Gotta pat those teachers big bucks
Their pay is too low. They should demand better wages. They need hazard pay to work there.
The complete disaster they have made of the public education system has a large hand in creating the hazards. Hazard pay would be like the person who kills his parents, then asks for mercy on the grounds that he is an orphan.
Excellent.
The lazy, brainless vermin of CTU are the very worst of public sector unions. There will be no change in education in Chicago until this union pustule of corruption is busted, all members tossed into the gutter and prevented from ever ‘teaching’ again.
This proves that CPS is nothing more than a welfare program for lazy parasites that call themselves “teachers”. CPS has nothing to do with education
Why not just give the controlling adult 15 or 20 grand as their child leaves 8th grade and let them look elsewhere for education? If they return the following year with passing grades from a real school, fund them for a second year. It can’t be any worse than the current mess.
What controlling adult?
Lot of red downvotes…
You guys are over the target…
“Just 11 out of every 100 black students in CPS could read at grade level in 2022 and for Hispanics it was only 17 of every 100.” In my local district, the administrators and board acknowledge similar statistics in our primarily latinks district, but then try to say that INCOME is why some kids can read, but not others. It’s the TEST ITSELF because WEALTH correlates with TEST SCORES, and furthermore, TESTS don’t mean anything, because GPAs are a better indicator of college preparedness. You think they would, you know, BLAME THEMSELVES, AND THE TERRIBLE TEACHING METHODS! But of course… Read more »
Just more evidence that the so called teacher shortage isn’t reality.
All of these statements are right on the money. This is the kind of financial malfeasance that when multiplied with other boneheaded moves will cripple the city, and eventually the state. CTU could careless if one student is inside the building. Educating children is way low on the list. I don’t have a problem with teaching black history, hispanic cultural history, etc. Go for it. I do have a problem with the outcomes. Not sure if its a cultural, parental, socio-economic, or just a societal problem. I have my theories but everything I would offer would probably be tough love.… Read more »
CPS failed many years ago, nothing new here, just more corruption & fraud. I’ve been in education for 45 years & the current state of affairs is unacceptable. We can’t prepare professionals for medical field, for engineering, educaiton, etc. Moreover, the cashiers in the stores can’t even give the correct amount of change, as they don’t know basic math. Imaging technicians don’t know table of multiplication. Baby boomers retire & we are not able to replace them with new professional workforce. We are failing as a country that raises only population dependent on government support. But where will money to… Read more »
And how do the public education unions expect these graduates to be able to pay taxes to fund pensions? It’s amazing that they cannot see their own self-interest in making sure that students learn. They somehow don’t understand that pushing woke at the expense of real education will end up biting them in the a**.
Obviously, the union can’t agree to close schools or they would have to eliminate unnecessary, high-paid union jobs.
Unbelievable waste of money… Chicago spends over $26,000 per student…compare that taxpayer assistance to Springfield…around $13,000…. Canton High School is…around $11,000… Champaign Central is around $13,000…Macomb High School…around $11,000….. There’s a problem in Chicago and the problem has NOTHING to do with spending more money. I say that as the former Chairman of the Illinois House Education Appropriation Committee.
The CTU and, to no lesser extent, the CPS, through their lust for power and money, are guilty of racism and child abuse. How else can it be described? The statistics don’t lie. Until parents and taxpayers think in those terms, the system will continue to abuse the children of Chicago. Blacks and Hispanics are the most severely undereducated, released into society unprepared for life. For many, their entire lives will face unrelenting battles of frustration, anxiety, poverty, envy, dependency, misery. You cannot convince me their educational abuse while in school is not a direct cause. Because Illinois’ politicians are… Read more »
Douglass HS: Imagine going to high school and your entire class size is 8 students. Same 7 damn kids in every class you take. How depressing. A taste of Little House on the Prairie in the big city. Furthermore, if each class size from freshmen to senior year is only 8 students (1 class), then that means there are only 4 classes occurring simultaneously. What are teachers doing in between classes? Just a dumb allocation of resources. The state should penalize CPS for underutilization. If Chicago wants to prop up their school district like this, they can fund it primarily… Read more »
I’m sure CTU would have no objections to converting empty schools, I’ll assume mostly in black neighborhoods, into asylum centers for hispanic migrants (per today’s CBS story). As long as CTU gets to keep the jobs or new jobs tending the migrants…It’s a growth industry. CTU just needs political cover in declining black communities.
You’re close to the bulls eye. I expect that by the time Bidet is institutionalized in a memory care facility a significant portion of CPS “students” will be the progeny of illegal aliens. Stated differently; public charges.
If you object to paying property taxes to educate those who don’t even belong here you’ll be labeled a racist bigot
Half of the district’s students are latinks already, many of whom are here illegally or are the offspring of illegals themselves.
If I were a black community activist, I’d be super angry that the newcomers are taking away much needed valuable resources away from natives. Every ESL teacher in Pilsen is one less teacher in Englewood.
But they don’t see it that way, blacks see the newcomer latinks as an ally against whites. We’ll see how well this works out for them.
CPS’s high school curriculum and course catalogs have been watered down in many buildings. There are virtually no advanced math course pathways. In one building, all of the English and math courses are remedial /support courses with little to no alignment with rigorous college prep standards. It’s so sad these Hispanic/black families are stuck in cyclical poverty with no chance given the lack of K-12 options and low expectations. The CTU will go into attack mode if there’s any talk of reforms or accountability to improve student outcomes. It appears CTU only wants to teach SEL and victimhood vs prepare… Read more »
You are correct. It’s quickly becoming ‘racist’ and ‘inequitable’ to provide advanced classes at all. That’s what my district believes too. In a good area too. You can scream and yell at the board and the administration and they just look at you like some crazy fool, you know, for not wanting them to break the system completely.
Teachers Union is a powerful lobby. They will get more money and the news media will scare everyone if they strike since education is so critical to the future of the Republic.
Hmm, seems that the CPS is incapable of a “lessons learned” exercise!
CPS and CTU are simply money laundries for the crooked corrupt Cook County Democrats
The CPS is set up for creating Jobs, benefits and huge pensions for adults. No one in the CPS gives a damn about education. I mean NO ONE, it is all about MONEY. Union thugs now control Illinois and criminal thugs now control the Chitty of Chicago streets.
11 out of 100 black students proficient in reading? And math performance is worse? No matter one’s politics, this is a massive civil rights issue. I don’t understand why these scores aren’t the defining civil rights issue of today. The loss of talent and opportunity is stupendous. It is easy to forget just how courageous and principled black civil rights leaders were in the 50’s and 60’s. They didn’t put their lives on the line for these kind of outcomes. The world can be a small and stressing place without competent reading and computational skills. Who really cares about these… Read more »
Spot on Willowglen. This is the systemic racisism you’ll never read about in the MSM.
A downvote? Inexplicable. It would be interesting to know why. The facts about academic proficiency aren’t opinions. Even if one disagrees with the assessments, the state of affairs is dismal.
I would ask the downvoter to read the history of Bob Moses, a civil rights leader in Mississippi in the 60’s. A teacher by training, he recognized that progress would not obtain by voting rights alone. To his credit, he recognized the minority kids in the South generally had a long way to go, but in his quest for improved education, he was unyielding. This is why the civil rights leaders of the 60’s inspired so many, including upper middle class whites. Why the academic deficiencies in places like Baltimore, Chicago and similar environments is tolerated is mind boggling. The… Read more »
The money is guaranteed. They are all about progressive ideology now. They’ve created woke madrasas where students can’t read or write but they know how to become activists. And graduation rates have skyrocketed as wokeness has replaced teaching. So in their minds, it’s working.
Students “graduate” from failing high schools, but cannot pass the SAT reading/writing or math tests. Criminal that students are passed on and “graduate” with no district accountability for whether students are actually ready for the postsecondary level.