By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Call it systemic failure. In ten of the 24 schools in Peoria School District 150, not even five in every 100 students can read at grade level.
In two of the high schools, it’s even worse. Only one of every 100 Peoria High School juniors was proficient in math on the SAT in 2022. At Manual High School, it was zero in 100.
Peoria’s failure to educate its children is not unlike what’s occurring in hundreds of districts across the state. Illinois’ “formula” for teaching kids isn’t working. Until everyone – from Gov. J.B. Pritzker on down – acknowledges the problem and obsesses about literacy, ambitious reading targets and accountability, the education system will continue to decay.
Despite the dismal facts, more than 70 percent of students graduated from both Peoria and Manual high schools. Kids are automatically passed along from one grade to the next, never mind that district reading and math data shows, year after year, that nearly none of them are ready.
And when it comes to accountability, 100 percent of teachers in the entire district were rated “Excellent or Proficient” in 2022, while a majority of the district schools were rated “Commendable” or “Exemplary” by the Illinois State Board of Education.
Wirepoints’ look at Peoria follows a deeper review of Illinois’ systemic education failures. See:
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
- Chicago Public Schools fails its Hispanic students: Only 17 of every 100 read at grade level.
Here are the details:
Most kids can’t read or do math at grade level. Peoria’s dismal results are shared by students of all races. Only 37 percent of white students in the district can read at grade level. For Peoria Hispanics, it’s 13 percent. And just 5 percent of blacks are reading proficient, according to Peoria’s school district superintendent and the Illinois Report Card.
The numbers for math are worse across the board.
The results are even worse than they first appear. Not only are most Peoria students not proficient in reading – most are far, far away from achieving proficiency.
Black children, who make up nearly 60 percent of the student body, are the worst-off. Ninety-five of every 100 can’t read at grade level and of those students, just 12 approached proficiency. Fifty-nine of those not-proficient students scored in the lowest possible category on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) test.
While the data doesn’t explicitly tell us just how many grade levels behind these children are – the board of education doesn’t share those statistics – it does show us how incompetent the education system has become.
Other demographics aren’t spared. 45 percent of Hispanics and a quarter of white students also scored at the worst level on the IAR.
Peoria just passes students along from grade to grade. Peoria’s report card data shows that no matter what grade you look at, just three to seven percent of Peoria black students can read at grade level.
Those students have been passed along year after year, regardless of their ability to read. It’s why 3rd-graders from nine years ago – today’s 11th-graders – are only 4 percent proficient in reading.
It’s the same for every student ethnicity.
Peoria graduates more students even as outcomes worsen. SAT reading proficiency scores in the district have fallen by 11 percentage points over the last five years, to just 14% from 25% in 2017.
Nevertheless, district officials have pushed up graduation rates to 80%, up from 69% in 2017.
Peoria’s accountability metrics are out-of-sync with student outcomes. The share of district teachers rated “Excellent or Proficient” grew to 100 percent in 2022 even as student outcomes collapsed to record lows.
And more than half of Peoria’s 24 schools are designated “Commendable” or “Exemplary” by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) despite the failure of 23 of those schools. Those designations are “a measure of progress in academic performance and student success,” says ISBE.
Franklin Primary School, where just 6% and 2% of students are reading and math proficient, respectively, received a “commendable” rating.
And Charter Oak Primary School, where only a quarter of its students can read or do math at grade level, is labeled “exemplary” – meaning it’s one of the “top 10 percent” of schools in the state.
Excuses
The district’s Superintendent, Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat, responded to Wirepoints’ analysis by saying that tests measuring students’ ability to read are “a narrow view of success “ and that Peoria schools support children “socially, emotionally and physically.” That ignores the fact that a student getting graduated out of the system with none of the skills they need for college or a career is socially, emotionally and physically crippling for their future.
She also fell back on blaming racism when responding to Wirepoints’ report. “These challenges are real to our city and follow our children into the classroom…Historical racism/classism has contributed to the marginalization of most of our student population.”
While some may agree with her claims, she’ll need to explain why white reading and math results have cratered to zero in two of Peoria’s public schools. Virtually no blacks, Hispanics or whites are proficient in math at Manual High School and Peoria High School.
Yes, many of Peoria’s students struggle with poverty, poor home lives, mental-health issues and the many other complexities of inner city life. There’s no denying those issues and the difficulties they create for educators. But district officials seem to only use those challenges as an excuse for dismal student achievement. There’s no sense of accountability for the results, nor does there seem to be a drive to see scores dramatically improve.
Fixing Illinois’ broken education system can’t begin until officials acknowledge its failures. Unfortunately, there seems to be little chance of that.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Wirepoints’ School District Report Card page
- Wirepoints’ Peoria Presentation
- “The results are dismal. Most Peoria kids can’t read or do math at grade level. So we have to have a higher standard.” – Wirepoints on WMBD Peoria
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
- Chicago Public Schools fails its Hispanic students: Only 17 of every 100 read at grade level.
- How many grades behind are Chicago Public Schools’ students?
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.
Wow.. terrible data. I have no clue but I went to school in CPS and Catholic schools in Chicago and the burbs..
I had a great education and excelled and won awards but this was 25 years ago.
Sad to read that the schools perform so poorly and the recent crime.
Prayers UP that it gets better.. cuz the real world is a rough place.
God bless all children and may God shed the solution.. there is no other way.
Implement a program where adults can volunteer in the classroom to help with reading and math skills.?
(correction) Implement a program where adults can volunteer in the classroom to help with reading and math skills.
There was a viable path forward for kids and their parents – it was called ‘school choice’. Pritzker, the teacher unions, and Democrats killed it.
I once read that the children of public school teachers have the highest private school enrollment rate!
So many know about all this, and do or say very little. Teachers, for one, come to mind. They know these kids can’t read, write or add at grade level when they ‘graduate’ them from one classroom to the next. This without regard to what their union or District 150’s administration may have to say ‘officially’. Komatzu, CAT, OSF-n-Carle, whoever owns Keystone Steel and Wire this month, Kroger and McDonald’s and the Happy Corner Restaurant and Bob’s Body Shop. Those managers, they all know it. They all look at the same applications from high school ‘graduates’ trying to find work.… Read more »
Many good teachers are afraid to speak out for they very much fear retribution from their union and the militants in their ranks.
You are correct. Here is an updated report about this from WREX on Rockford school district 205
https://www.wrex.com/news/13-investigates/13-investigates-rps-205-teachers-say-failing-students-still-get-moved-on-to-next-grade/article_8b8b9850-7042-52d4-8301-530f0b8293c2.html
That’s a really appropriate article to link, and thanks for it. The blather and harrumphery from Rockford’s Public Schools superintendent is of a kind with what Peoria’s had to say. Can you imagine the vaporous flibbertigibbets both would go through if someone asked them what they thought of providing two kinds of high school ‘degrees’ at ‘graduation’ – A ‘Certificate of Completion’ for everyone who (more or less) attended classes, and a diploma for those (very few) who met grade-level standards. Students who learned how to eat lunch in the cafeteria, and mostly get to the building on school days,… Read more »
IMO parents need to sue the Peoria School District and the Teachers Union.
Amen! I’d like to hear from an attorney why a class action suit can’t be filed – by Peoria parents, taxpayers or both – against any or all of the school board, school administrators, the unions, the state, the teachers. For that matter, why not sue the entire group across the entire state? Surely it can’t be for lack of standing. Parents’ children are being educationally abused. Taxpayers are being economically abused. Attorneys, please educate me.
Everywhere that Democrats and unions run the schools, illiteracy spreads
The system is filled with a lack of independence. When the people who benefit from the assessment, perform the assessment…who is surprised at the finding?
“100 percent of teachers in the entire district were rated “Excellent or Proficient” in 2022, while a majority of the district schools were rated “Commendable” or “Exemplary” by the Illinois State Board of Education.”
There is no accountability or critical measurement or cost benefit to school districts. This report illustrates the waste. These are tax dollars with no governance. Complete waste.
School system needs to be disbanded and all present employees forever banned from teaching. That said, there are cultural and family factors that also explain the total collapse of learning. And the men North of Richmond also share the blame.
“Fixing Illinois’ broken education system can’t begin until officials acknowledge its failures. Unfortunately, there seems to be little chance of that.”
Sadly, no need. A big majority of Illinois voters seem perfectly happy with their property tax bills funding vastly expensive nanny-state day care, camouflaged as ‘education.’
What we need is a throng of outraged parents and taxpayers, pitchforks and torches in hand, marching on Springfield.
What we get are crickets chirping.
Except for the ‘carnival barkers’……
Or… when the ballot box fails you, vote with your wallet, spending as little as possible in IL until you can vote with your feet and vacate Blue Turd Central altogether.
Teachers are massively outnumbered. People are just catching on and waking up. You can’t run away from everything.