By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
Last week Wirepoints announced a series of new report cards that puts Illinois’ 20 largest school districts’ proficiency statistics, spending, teacher ratings, property tax rates and home values in the spotlight. The results broadly showed the same worrisome trend: poor test scores, low accountability, increased spending and high property taxes. The overall state report card – with just 3 of every 10 Illinois students reading at grade level – is shown at the end of this piece.
Today, Wirepoints added the rest of the state’s 830 school districts to our dedicated webpage, meaning parents across the state now have the data to hold their local districts accountable.
Wirepoints’ Report Cards can be found here.
Take Arlington Heights SD 25, for example, one of the districts we’ve added to the full list. Just 45 of every 100 students can read at grade level, while in math, it’s just 48 of every 100 students.
Student outcomes on reading and math proficiency come directly from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). The Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) for grades 3 through 8 is one of the key data points ISBE highlights on its Illinois Report Card website.
ISBE says that only students performing at levels 4 or 5 on the IAR “have demonstrated readiness for the next grade level.”
From ISBE’s Score Report Interpretation Guide For Parents:
Since only 45 percent of Arlington Heights SD 25 students perform at levels 4 or 5 in reading, that means 55 percent of students have not demonstrated readiness for the next grade level.
The report cards contain more information than just student achievement. Data on statewide education spending, district property tax revenues and district operational spending data come straight from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Illinois Department of Revenue and ISBE, respectively.
Wirepoints hopes parents and taxpayers will use the report cards to begin to impose some real accountability on the system.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Wirepoints’ testimony to the Illinois House Committee on Ed Appropriations: Accountability, not funding, is the core problem with Illinois education
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
- Six facts Gov. Pritzker doesn’t want you to know about Illinois’ 2022 Report Card
- 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.
- Elgin’s Tony Sanders promoted to Illinois State Superintendent, though just 2 in 10 students in his district can read at grade level.
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.
Schools need to focus on basic subjects such as reading, writing, math, science, civics, and history. All schools need to ditch all woke indoctrination and politics. Public schools need to be politically and culturally neutral. Schools need to enforce discipline for bullying and disruptive behavior. This discipline should not be biased by woke norms. For example, students shouldn’t be punished for referring to a tranny student, teacher, or staff member by their biological sex. Teacher tenure needs to be abolished. Good teachers don’t need tenure and bad teachers use it as a shield against being disciplined or fired. Bad teachers… Read more »
Thank you wire points. Tomorrow I just wonder if no one can dispute these statistics. How can our system be justified? Is this not the biggest problem our state faces?
The statistics can be disputed. At the high school level the scores are based on the SAT performance. If the student isn’t going to go to a 4 year college, then there is no accountability. The only accountability is that they complete (be present) for the test. At the lower grades there is no student accountability for the scores at all.
Sir, there are people who dispute that a man is actually a woman. But in this case what is disputed is the numerical value of the results of testing students. So, are you saying the numbers really identify as higher? WTF?
If the method of measurement is so complicated that you cannot easily see the results and impacts to measure against the costs…it is a con. In all of these conversations about measurement and results, culminates in discussion about the methods, because these methods and measurements are developed by educators, who made the process complicated and impossible to tie them to results. Always an out. Always an excuse. Always some reason beyond their control to provide even the slightest shred of positive results. Its sad really…this is an industry with no accountability, no requirement for results and has the ability to… Read more »
This school system and it’s teachers are so ignorant they never changed their curriculum during Covid lockdowns. Most parents saw what and how they were teaching/indoctrinating and strongly disagreed. Teachers forgot to hide it. They thought no one would disagree or question their magnificent curriculum. What righteous fools. Gotcha!
Clearly Our State and Our Nation as Parents and Taxpayers should be very concerned. However, I question the absolute accuracy when even top preforming HS Districts such as Adlai Stevenson, Glenbrook and New Trier have 83, 87 and 75% Asian, 72, 71 and 64% cumulatively reading at grade level. As a former Board member for many years in one of these districts I do not ever recall such a large percentage of students not performing at grade level.
Education is almost a thing in the past.
Educators have no shame, only money.
And early retirements compared to those of us chumps that are taxed to pay for it.
Both our kids, 34 & 36, are college graduates. One Cum Laude/Masters Degree. The other graduated with honors. Both employed supporting themselves and families. We talked and worked with teachers on a regular basis, knew them well. Today we would make ANY sacrifices necessary to keep our kids out of these schools. We would home school because we are smarter and more invested in outcomes than today’s “so-called” teacher’s. Not a chance in hell we would EVER give our kids to this school system!
And yet, two less students in the system doesn’t matter to the administrators, teachers and unions. Though you would choose to home school them today, your property taxes wouldn’t be lowered a single cent. Until the money follows the student, expect no changes. And unless we vote with our feet or elect politicians aligned with that strategy, the status quo will not change.
That’s what “ANY sacrifices necessary” means. If things don’t change, we do whatever is necessary.
Simply pitiful.
AI (artificial intelligence) has advanced a lot in recent years and should start replacing some public school employees. It may not improve student performance, but at this point, what have you got to lose? Automation is a fact of life and can save the taxpayers money. Do you really need a human teacher for history or geography?
Spot on. Why they didn’t have one teacher for each class per school district during Covid is the 8th Wonder of the World.
The rest could have been laid off (according to union seniority of course) and saved us property tax payers a bundle.
It’s is absolute abuse and neglect that children can’t read or do math. No one here is being taught cursive so no one has a signature or can read cursive. The kids and the tax payers are being cheated.
The kids can’t read, and now with common core, math problems are reading problems, so they can’t do math either, because they can’t read the math problem. Just one look at these ‘educators’ and you can viscerally see and feel the aura of incompetence. The administrators are the same way, they have arrogant frick and frack wokesters running the show, insisting that YES, PRON MUST BE IN SCHOOLS.
I agree with a lot of you’ve said here surprising as that may seem. But, so many who complain about the CPS teachers in particular need to remember: the decline in math and reading abilities as determined by standardized tests is somewhat a nationwide problem. Its hard to believe its only–or maybe even primaril–the fault of all those teachers. There must be other nationwide sorts of factors playing into it with the most obvious one being the “home learning” that was supposed to occur in all those schools but mostly didn’t turn out that way. Just a guess on my… Read more »
Yes, it is a nationwide problem. As I’ve said above, it’s first and foremost equity and wokeness, using a common core curriculum, exasperated by covid shutdowns.
Of note, the declining SAT scores applies to every demographic except one: asian americans. Their scores have actually increased significantly over the past several years. No one really knows what they are doing right, but whatever they are doing, they are doing it outside of the school system, and it’s working.
Spot on Debtsor. Here’s something a Dem pol will never mention.
Most Asians actually know their father.
I think almost literally everyone–and especially teachers–knows that Asians typically are stellar students, if not in fact at least in comparison to more long-term American students’ efforts generally. High educational accomplishment is a “cultural pride” issue in Asian families. Amercan families overall are not all that well focused on educational excellence in terms of giving up anything personally to get to that state. No, we’re more a nation of complainers than active doers at the personal level where striving for high educational accomplishment is concerned.
Every Asian parent’s proclamation: “You don’t come home ’til you doctor!”
That’s likely about right. Americans sometimes have to ask their students IF they are coming home by contrast.
It is Nationwide. It does not fall solely on teachers. It falls on school boards and politics. A teacher can only follow the schools curriculum even if substandard. The teacher cannot hold any students accountable for anything. Don’t do homework, pass the class. Don’t pay attention and strive to get a passing grade ,pass the class.
Teachers are far very far from who’s at blame here.
You’re using logic Billme. That usually goes over like a lead balloon around here.
Logic says if you spend more than you make, cut spending. Logic says if a balanced budget is a constitutional requirement, then balance the budget. Logic says if you are born with male sex organs then you are a male. How’s that go over?
Yes, I understand and agree to all you’ve said. But, let me go one step further here to those who want to say the decline of educational achievement is due to increasingly teaching “woke” points of view. That ought to be true more in Democratic areas than Republican ones, right? Well, let’s pursue that topic. I have looked somewhat randomly at various rural school districts as to their student reading and writing achievement levels as posted by Wirepoints. I have also looked at some of the school districts in/around Chicago where the areas are likely leaning Democrat. Then, I’ve looked… Read more »
You missed the essential question. Does woke teaching improve the skills of those in the groups that are performing at the lowest levels? It strikes me not much good happens without basic literacy.
Personally I’m moderately in favor of being “woke” in the real encompassing sense of being “awake” to the plight of your fellow man. That’s not to say I agree with the reparations ideas and punishing people for the actions of their ancestors of a century or more ago. Still, we ought to reach out to our generational contemporaries with more personal and societal compassion and respect. Now, as to your question I only have the vaguest idea of what “woke” teaching means for, say, a high school math or science teacher. As far as I know their teaching duties do… Read more »
James, you’ve spent too long out of education to fully understand how ‘woke’ it has become. You just don’t understand. I strongly encourage you to spend a few hours scrolling through James Lindsey’s tweets on Twitter, he spends hours of his life every day exposing how wokeness has infected, like a cancer, every aspect of education, from the top down all the way to the school librarian in rural school districts. Wokeness is really something called critical consciousness, a theory of education “which is a belief that all of social reality is contoured by oppressive structural power dynamics that they… Read more »
Well, your comments are very illuminating. I have no rebuttal to the contrary and thank you for soft-spoken attempt to educate me a bit on that topic. Let’s just say that we likely can agree that we now seem to live in an American society where up is now down, left is now right, 2+2 = 5, etc. Apparently I’m more of a dinosaur than I had thought. I don’t care to delve into studying “woke” since mostly I don’t think I’d care for its fuller current activation even though my admittedly surface-level understanding of it does—or at least did—appeal… Read more »
Excellent explanation of wokeness, Debtsor. I’m a 41 year old childless man, but I’m familiar with the current wokeness in schools because I follow politics and current events very closely and think it’s something that everyone should fight regardless of whether they have kids. The woke change in the educational system has been relatively rapid. Towards the end of my time as a K-12 student, the culture of institutional education was becoming noticeably more liberal, but it wasn’t yet woke. My mom liked to deride it as “touchy feely.” Since I graduated high school, the education system has become woke… Read more »
James, thanks for making those concrete contributions to the debate. While I am not sure if you are right or wrong on some of them, that is where the debate should be. In contrast, I’ve had a Twitter exchange with Greg Pratt at the Tribune who says our reporting on schools “isn’t newsworthy” and he denies there is any problem. Ugh. On your points, I would say that it’s not just a matter of which districts are doing well or poorly. It’s about the trend downward for almost all of them, here and nationally, that began around 2012 to 2015.… Read more »
Wirepoints will never be able to curry favor with legacy media. They will always hate you. And when they do feign interest, they will only use it to attack, ridicule and defame you. These days there is a conservative media sphere, and a legacy media sphere, and rarely do the two cross paths. Your reporting on the schools got national attention with nearly every radio talk show host speaking about it, all conservative media jumping on it, and everyone was talking about – completely independent of legacy media. Trump made the same mistake of thinking that legacy media matters, and… Read more »
Thanks for your polite and well considered reply. I basically think there are a multitude of reasons why schools are showing dismal success rates at having their students doing almost any “basic skill” well as most adults likely would agree. For many respondents here to place continual criticism solely on teachers and derisively so shows their lack of understanding of other behind-the-scenes factors equally complicit. Teachers are “hand-cuffed” by many factors over which they little to no control, yet take the majority of the criticism.
I’m not sure the assumption that more Republican areas have more conservative teachers is a valid one. They all graduate from the same education schools, that lean left and weed out anyone who doesn’t follow the approved beliefs. Of course prospective candidates can’t be asked their views when interviewing for the job.
Simply because an area votes Republican is no reason to believe the teachers in the area are conservative. In fact, the polarization between parents and school boards is a result of those in schools having far different values from the parents in the area.
Yes, because the wokeness in education comes from the top down, it is entirely inorganic, and spreads throughout the curriculum, continuing educations, policy groups, think tanks, trade groups, etc.
It has a structure a bit like the Catholic Church. There is interpretation of the scripture and everything else is heresy. Priests who preach otherwise are excommunicated. That’s how education is. Educators who go against woke are rejected, cancelled, fired, treated as heretics, and have no future in education. Wokeness is as built into education as the Nicean Creed is part of the Catholic Church.
Yes, but in most cases teachers live where they work and eventually largely start conforming to local beliefs or suffer the social and job security consequences. Local school board members (who serve without pay by the way) who fail to do likewise will be subject to the same kinds of consequences. Eventually the schools have to be in tune with the community’s values.
The schools do not have to eventually be in tune with the community’s values for many reasons.
What is the basis of your assumption?
It’s simple: most of the school district’s teachers will surely live within some reasonably close distance to their job. So, they will experience continuing social chatter, insults or prompts to conform to those values or suffer the consequences that will arise in some cases.
James, there’s no escaping the wokeness infecting the educational complex. It’s everywhere. It’s in every curriculum. It’s in every policy, forming part of every think tank, working group, forum, interest group, trade association. It’s everywhere because that’s what education is. That’s why rural areas have superintendents and school boards, filled with educators, are just as woke as their national counter-parts. And when parents and the community scream and shout at the board and admin, they smugly look down on them as know nothing rubes, deplorables, who know nothing about education.
It’s absolutely nationwide and infects every school curriculum, educator and administrator. It’s taught in education schools and every educational think tank, working group, policy group, all of them think *exactly the same*. It’s orthodoxy. There is virtually no dissent within the educational industry with regard to wokeness infecting all of education. And then people within the education complex always insist that only educators, with *Correct* beliefs, should be in charge of the educational system. The system is corrupt and broken and it cannot be fixed from within, not with insane crazy people like union boss Randi Weingarten running the national… Read more »
There is dissent but the dissenters generally do not have power, and those in power have various ways to discourage dissent.
Education Crow.