By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Gov. Pritzker and Illinois State Superintendent Tony Sanders have proudly announced that Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, Superintendent of Peoria SD 150 (enrollment 12,700), is one of the finalists to be the nation’s Superintendent of the Year, an annual award given out by the national School Superintendents Association.
The award “recognizes exceptional superintendents for their outstanding leadership and dedication to advancing public education in their communities.”
Whatever merits or achievement Desmoulin-Kherat may have to deserve such a reward, student outcomes at Peoria SD 105 are definitely not one of them. Only about 1 in 10 minority students can read or do math at grade level at the majority minority (80%) school district. Dr. Kherat has been superintendent in Peoria for more than a decade.
The disparity in outcomes is even more pronounced at Peoria’s high school. District officials allow 80% of black students to graduate even though only 5% score proficient in reading and only 2% score proficient in math on the SAT.
And for anyone who thinks covid is an excuse, it’s not. The district’s student achievement numbers were just as bad in 2019, before covid hit.
Yet Desmoulin-Kherat didn’t embrace Wirepoints’ concerns about Peoria’s dismal results when we wrote about the district last year. Instead, she made excuses and dismissed the state’s own test data, calling it a “a narrow view of success and use of data” and saying that “Historical racism/classism has contributed to the marginalization of most of our student population.”
To be clear, we don’t mean to diminish Dr. Kherat’s many other achievements at the district. But for us, literacy and numeracy – along with accountability for reaching ever-higher literacy and numeracy targets – must jump to the top of the list. Without that, Peoria’s children will struggle for life.
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Desmoulin-Kherat’s national nomination follows her award as Illinois’ own “Superintendent of the Year” for 2025.
Kherat, who earns $280,000 at Peoria, is one of the many Illinois high-paid superintendents running school districts with abysmal results. Just take a look at the table we did for school administrators in just the Southland area of Chicago. Top admins with compensation in the $200K-$500K range, all to manage districts where less than 2 in 10 black students can read at grade level.
We made the same point about Tony Sanders when Gov. Prizker appointed him as the State Superintendent of schools. His failing record at Elgin U-46 – where just 2 in 10 minority students could read at grade level after his many years there – should have disqualified him from the superintendent role.
The public education establishment, both in Illinois and nationally, may continue to pat itself on the back year after year. But the reality is that the public school monopoly fails to teach children even the basics of reading and math.
It’s no wonder so many states have embraced the only alternative to that monopoly: school choice.
It will take parents demanding better for Illinois to finally do the same.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Systemic failure in Peoria Public Schools. Same as in Decatur or Rockford or Chicago.
- Only half of Chicago Public Schools’ $10 billion in yearly spending makes it to the classroom
- We don’t need “experts” at the U.S. Department of Education. We need disruptors. We need School Choice
- Fresh data: Illinois officials graduate record 88% of students despite tragic literacy, numeracy rates
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
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.
Bring back auto shop, wood shop, machinist shop, industrial arts, drafting shop (which today would be CAD/CAM), electronics shop, trade apprentices. Bring back the work/study programs. High Schools today are operating under the false assumption that every student must prepare for college (indoctrination). Bringing these back may not solve the issue, but it is a giant gaping hole in curriculum that many boys would be likely to gravitate to.
My neighbor teaches shop at a more exurban suburban high school. The demographics of the school has changed greatly over the years and the number of students attending four years colleges have plummeted. He says that the kids these days, many of them either immigrants themselves or 2nd generation, they don’t have the ability to understand the highly technical ‘shop’ stuff anymore. Some of them don’t understand fractions, especially those that grew up with the metric system, making it difficult for them to measure twice and cut once. They can’t grasp the more complicated concepts necessary in the trades. They… Read more »
Well your neighbor has his work cut out for him. Vocational education needs to step in here and abundantly. SAT tests are meaningless for many of these kids who would be better off if measured by developing a skill rather than prepping for an SAT. Meaningless, so stop it. If they don’t have the vocational alternative, where do they go in the system? If a student is not cutting it in a college bound track, the vocational track needs to be equally robust for them, especially in Peoria. There are literally hundreds of vocational areas once you start to list… Read more »
Once upon a time many kids went to Catholic schools and learned basic skills.
Yep, Old Joe. In the ’60s in our Catholic grammar schools, we had around 35 kids per classroom, and we did just fine.
I have an issue with the continual use of the students’ SAT scores as the single factor to determine if they are proficient in reading or math for high school students. The vast majority of the students in the District 150 are not going to go to a 4 year college in which their SAT scores are pertinent. That means those students are not accountable to performing well on that test. That makes those scores virtually worthless. I have no illusions that a lack of accountability means the students are receiving an amazing education but the use of a test… Read more »
The test scores that you claim are virtually worthless are in fact a far more accurate predictor of future success than the inflated grades handed out by the school system. What about the terrible scores for 4th graders? Is that also because the kids know they aren’t going to college? What would you suggest as an alternate measure of effective education?
I agree wholeheartedly that the SAT and/or ACT is an excellent predictor of future college success. I’m not as confident in either tests’ ability to predict success in trade school or in the work force. I looked briefly to see if I could find any studies to support that conclusion and didn’t find any.
As to the success of 4th grade students. I can only guess that most students at that age know those tests don’t count for anything and they are not the highest priority of the students. I apologize for being cynical.
I see your point. In my area for example many students are, for lack of a better term, not college material. Many go on to get excellent jobs in the skilled crafts and trades others however haven’t mastered classroom skills such as math to qualify for for the apprentice programs. What then do you suggest as a more proper evaluating method?
I’m afraid there isn’t an appropriate quantitative measure for education in the United States. If you look internationally the GCSEs of the UK (possibly just England as I think Scotland and Wales have a different test) is a valid measure because there’s a national curriculum with a standardized test. Pretty sure that wouldn’t fly in the US!
The PISA and NAEP tests interest me, but I’m not even sure how many students take those and how often. They seem like a snapshot of the data rather than a comprehensive look.
If you look at a map of the school districts most of them are in close proximity to each other each with a super and assistant super. Within a 40 block radius there are at least 11 different districts. Why can’t they be consolidated? One super could easily take care of them.
The biggest scam going is the school superintendent job. Get a big paying job, big pension and do nothing.
Correct. There are 1,968 students in Dolton district 148 so what does the super do from hour to hour/day by day to earn that type of compensation? What are his responsibilities? There are districts with 150 students or less and they have a super that does what besides counting his/her money? In Florida they have unit districts comprising of 40K students each with one super in charge which means Illinois would have only 50 or so supers not 868. Rockford 205 has approx 28K students and the super earns about $250K.
Just go a little north of Rockford. Hononegah, 1 school, district superintendent. Kinnikinnick, 4 elementary schools, district superintendent. Prairie Hill, 2 elementary schools, district superintendent, Rockton, 4 elementary schools, district superintendent, Shirland, 1 school, district superintendent, South Beloit, 1 high school, 1 elementary, district superintendent. Enrollment in all of these schools is probably less than 6000 total students. How much tax money on administration, a couple of million. Consolidation of this mess would save a lot of $$$.
Totally correct. But first I want to say Merry Christmas to you and everyone on the site.
I believe in McHenry County there are 18 school districts all with duplicative services.
And I imagine 18 union bargaining districts to deal with.
That’s true as well
Because it’s never about improving education. It’s about grift. People wirh temp IQs, who couldn’t hack it in a classroom, found a way to get their admin degrees paid for and moved up the bureaucracy ranks. Then, they bring their fellow mouth-breathers along with them. That’s why CPS has 17 networks, each with its own chief, plus 50-75 staff with various do-nothing “responsibilities”. Heck, just in my school, I have a principal, an AP, an instructional coach (?), two “interventionists”, two counselors, and a restorative justice coordinator. All of these people used to be in the classroom. Instead, they now… Read more »
The generation of kids who were told: “go to college”, no matter what, are now the teachers-of-tomorrow; today.
His lack of success makes him a solid choice for the WOKE dominated educational plutocrats.
Self accolades on steroids. Just like all these movie stars who get Oscars for films which most people have never seen or heard of.
The smug, self-satisfied education elites congratulating themselves for their supposed virtue. Their self absorbed claptrap is condemning students to marginalization on a massive scale.
People in Peoria who are serious about their kids education do 1) Send them to Parochial or Christian school 2) Move to the county Everyone else who can’t do this is pretty much screwed. The education establishment(s) is happy as they are well fed.
Do you Illinois taxpayers really think you aren’t somehow complicit in what’s happening? You’re feeding a machine that victimizes children. Stop making excuses, take some responsibility, and go find a state that isn’t so evil.
DEI hire that checks all the boxes will always be a better superintendent than one that has a school district full of educated students in IL.
And these DEI hires aren’t exactly Rhodes scholars either. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat has a doctorate from ISU which is one step removed from a correspondence at this point.
Correct! Education Doctoral degrees are worse than useless, on the same level as an MSW (Master of Social Work) degree. For proof, read “Dr” Jill Biden’s Ed Doctoral “dissertation” – rife with typos and spelling errors and all. It’s a “credential” for lazy stupid people…
At the undergrad level, ISU has a 89 percent acceptance rate. The ACT range from the 25-75th percentile is 22-27. Their endowment is a relative pittance at $224M. They have to keep acceptance rates high because with virtually no endowment they need the tuition. This is not uncommon with many public universities (JMU in my state has the same challenges, a higher rated school than ISU). The rigor must be impacted with these numbers. One in five teachers in the state are ISU grads. I am not picking on the school. My father who was kicked out of three schools… Read more »
The value the degrees add? More money for the teachers. Teacher compensation system is not based on merit. Based on years and degrees,
The taxpayer is paying for these degrees. They put their loans into forbearance or income based repayment status and after 10 years of teaching the loans are forgiven under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. The Biden Administration alone has forgiven $78 billion for 1,062,870 borrowers in the past four years under the PSLF program. There are also a lot of scholarships for DEI graduates to offset the cost. In many ways, the universities are giving away their products for free, and doling out the spoils to preferred ethic groups on your dollar. No wonder so many non-DEI students are… Read more »
My AP biology teacher at my North Shore high school in Lake County in the 70’s had a Phd in biology from Northwestern. Not an education Phd but a biology Phd. Of course we benefited and the whole class obtained scores of 4’s or 5’s on the AP exam. This was not that unusual for the district. I recall our superintendent who wrote my recommendations stating that if there is any way we can achieve excellence, we will do it. I went to a school that has a 6 percent acceptance rate today. No worries about rigor no matter what… Read more »
You would never get that now, a real phd in a high school. it would be a fake phd from National Lewis or ISU. As for colleges with 6% acceptance rate, those figures are a little misleading. It’s a lot easier to apply to a larger number of colleges now especially because it’s all online so my understanding is that kids apply to far more colleges today – even stretch schools – than they did even a generation ago, when students did the “2 safe, 3 realistic and 2 stretch” philosophy. I only applied to four schools and that was… Read more »