Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
18 Comments
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
A good thing? I suppose, if you love sitting in traffic for 3+ hours a day on roads that are under permanent construction, or love taking dilapidated and overcrowded public transportation. That’s a big reason why many have moved into the city as renters — probably more so than to get that whole ‘cultural experience’.
“There’s still the issue of what the workforce experts call “job-skills mismatch” — many impoverished city residents lack the qualifications that the available jobs require.”
And of course, CPS has nothing to do with producing tens of thousands, if not more, graduates who enter the workforce barely able to read or write. It’s a ‘job-skills mismatch’ because the skills required are the ability to read at a 12th grade level and rudimentary english.
I’m with you on this topic. Why do we keep pouring tons of money with so little obvious benefit from it. European countries used to give tests at varous levels, weeding out those of lesser ability and/or study habits. The stronger students went on to state supported higher levels. The weaker ones had some schooling still taxpayer supportedd but not at that higher level. Education here in America has become way, way too expensive to assume every child is going to be a doctor, lawyer, rocket scientist, etc. We need either some kind of weed-out tests as I described or… Read more »
Why do we do it? Because one of the most consistent things in all polling is people saying in large majorities that they want to see more spent on education. It has been true for decades, so that’s what politicians do. Never mind hundreds of studies over many years showing almost no connection between spending and results.
“But first, I’d like to say a few words about the state of public education in the U.S. By and large, schools are still falling short on the key metrics of a quality education – math scores, English scores, international comparisons, and college completion. While much has rightly been made of the OECD data that shows lagging performance of American students overall, the national averages mask a bigger story. When disaggregated by race, we see two Americas. One where white students perform along the lines of the best in the world—with achievement comparable to countries like Finland and Korea. And… Read more »
This “teaching to the test” nonsense has got to be one of the biggest blunders in recent educational history.
BTW, debtstor, did you see where it’s recently come out that the esteemed Mr. Gates was flying on Epstein’s private jet as recently as 2013? And our former pres turned to him for guidance in educating our nation’s children…
Chicago essentially outsources the education of their professional downtown workforce to suburban and out-of-state school districts. That’s true of most large cities. I’d love to get statistics of how many doctors, lawyers, programmers, etc working downtown have a CPS diploma.
Ask yourself…if CPS disappeared, would Chicago’s business district miss a beat?