WSJ: “No one thought Illinois schools were a shining beacon in the education landscape, but we didn’t know how truly awful so many of them are. A new report by Wirepoints using the state’s data shows that an epidemic of indifferent instruction and social promotion has left children unable to perform at even the most basic educational level.”
Click here to read the rest: Illinois’ Shocking Report Card. The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Why the Chicago Teachers Union Always Gets What It Wants
- Chicago’s public schools are broken. It’s time to give parents school choice.
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system
- More failure at Chicago Public Schools: About one-third of traditional schools are half empty or worse
- ‘F*** Wirepoints’ Says Chicago Teachers Union When Confronted With Facts From The School District Itself
- Don’t buy the hype: Chicago’s failing government schools aren’t a success story
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.
Congrates!! JB is calling out WP as “right wing carnival barkers” in debate with bailey over WSJ article!!!
Funny how Florida is mentioned as a model to follow yet for their statewide tests, less of a percent score in the 4 and 5 range than Illinois students. Florida passes more because 2-5 is considered passing l and not the proficient which is actually higher than rather than at grade level. Of course Wirepoints overlooks that the Illinois test was set up so that only thirty some percent of kids score in the proficient and advanced range by design and we have not adjusted what is “grade level” u like other states using a Parcc/NAEP style ranking and scale.
Dtown – not sure of the weight of your point. Historically, people would avoid Florida because of its schools. For Illinois to be compared in any way to Florida is an embarrassment, Florida has far cheaper taxes overall and a budget surplus, so whatever comparisons one wish to make between Florida and Illinois won’t ever come out well for Illinois in terms of economics and efficiency. I am disturbed over what the left has done to education. See this link to a professor teaching basic economics at Davidson. The rot is all over: https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/10/failing-introductory-economics/ One can point to this being… Read more »
The article cites “basic mathematics proficiency” is lacking. Which make sense. This cohort is one of the first to grow up full immersed in the complete disaster of common core math. I cannot understate what a disaster this new way of teaching math is for students. Students without outside tutoring or assistance in the old ways of math perform very poorly in the new common core math.
Debtsor – and to your point, you don’t need calculus (or geometry or trig for that matter) to get through basic micro and macro econ courses. This is a school where students are typically pushed into algebra in 8th grade in preparation for admission to “prestige places” – that is the cohort that gets admitted to these colleges. I do wonder just what is happening in our schools. I can only imagine what It is going on at the satellite directional public universities in Illinois. It is a global economy and the lack of competence will painfully be manifest.
What I’m saying is that the professor is probably using conventional math. He expects them to understand equations and calculations written in the language of conventional math. Common core math does not teach conventional math. They give everything new names. Addition is not called addition, at least not in my kid’s class. They use crazy techniques to learn how to add. They use number lines and number grids and vertical addition with regrouping. It’s seriously overly complicated. The teachers barely understand the stuff and often, the worksheet themselves are overly complicated, you can tell the person who drafted the worksheet… Read more »
So if these kids start off at a disadvantage because they don’t fully grasp even basic math. “Teacher, can’t I just use my fingers and count 4+3, and memorize it?” “No Juan (dead name Jenny) you must use the number grid to decompute the addend so you can recalculate the word equation using vertical addition without rejoining…” “But teacher, Zir doesn’t understand, Zir can’t figure this out, too confusing!” “Juan, you see, Bill Gates and Pearson got together and decided out of the blue that old math = bad, common core math = good, without any real evidence that common… Read more »
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/20/5625086/the-common-core-makes-simple-math-more-complicated-heres-why
The Common Core makes simple math more complicated. Here’s why.
The only conclusion is that those who push this hate both children and their parents. What other possible reason could there be?
Profit. Pearson owns all of it.
I had no idea Common Core math was this screwed up. Thanks for the link.
Add this to the lack of phonics in the recent annals of academic instructional destruction
I so very much agree with this. I am frightened by the state of education. My oldest attends an excellent business school OOS. Traditionally, it is a bit more conservative which is one reason we were thankful he matriculated there(didn’t make the cut for UC). Now, in the master’s program, he has shared stories about how pervasive illiberalness is at this level. Rot, indeed.
Where does it say Florida considers a 2 score passing? Florida considers Level 2 “below satisfactory”
Harper High School closed in June of 2021 after graduating a final senior class of 19. Most of the teachers received a Superior rating. If 11% of the class were reading at level, that august assembly of “superior” educators produced 2 graduates who could read. The CPS is overloaded with property and staff but devoid of any vision or purpose. Past time to end this waste!
The CTU controls all levels of CPS administration, so it will continue to fail students because there is no accountability. Ineffective teachers control the LSC and hire/evaluate their own principals, so principals are basically CTU lap dogs who do the teachers bidding. How can school leaders hold teachers to account under this model?
The CTU now has considerable power in school board elections. The entire system needs to be revamped.
Often the kids can’t read beacuse the teachers don’t know how to teach reading. Test the teachers ability to teach reading, then send many of them back to school. Don’t blame the union. the fault is in the teacher colleges.
This assumes they are even teaching reading. From what I’ve seen online, the only words the teachers focus on are pronouns.
Nice work WirePoints! Finally, cause of the efforts of WirePoints and some others, we are getting information we need to see and understand the key issues in Illinois, despite IL politicians obfuscation.
Yes, Ms. Preckwinkle, Ms. Lightfoot, Mr. Evans, Ms. Foxx, Mr. Prizker, Assembly leaders, et all…..many innocent people are getting hurt by your intentional (mostly) and unintentional actions…just like the many “broken promises” Ms. Preckwinkle recently cited
Congratulations, Wirepoints! Well done. Glad your hard work is being recognized.
Land of Lincoln—Ironic, isn’t it ? Lincoln who wrote the Gettysburg Address, perhaps the most succinct and eloquent statement of national purpose, went to a formal school for probably no more than 12 months total in his life.
Most students in CPS now could attend for 12 years and not begin to read or comprehend it.
Good thing Lincoln didn’t attend the Chicago Public Schools !
Why do I never see Rich Miller in WSJ, or anywhere other than his own stupid website?
And you rarely see WSJ on his site, or on Politico’s and many others. They’ve simply tried to ignore this story.
The villian here is the teachers unions. Dissolving CPS, busting CTU and IFT and school vouchers are a great start.
Not an utterance from Pritzker, which means he is fine with the epic failure of his public schools. Mediocre would be a vast improvement.
Pritzker knows that the mainstream Pravda propaganda media will bury this story and he will never be asked a single question about it. If a reporter dares to ask about it they will be banned from his press conferences and the issue will be smothered. A tyrant in action.
GREAT to see this, thanks! This is behind the WSJ paywall for some, here is the whole text: Illinois’s Shocking Report Card The Land of Lincoln is failing its children and covering it up. By The Editorial Board Oct. 4, 2022 “No one thought Illinois schools were a shining beacon in the education landscape, but we didn’t know how truly awful so many of them are. A new report by Wirepoints using the state’s data shows that an epidemic of indifferent instruction and social promotion has left children unable to perform at even the most basic educational level… Statewide, in… Read more »
These public schools have become progressive madrassas where students are guided into activism while being taught the basic concepts of critical race and radical gender theory. They’re not really learning to read, or write, or do math, but they know they are oppressed, they know who is oppressing them, and they know that they can be a boy or a girl. Teachers receive a 98% proficiency rating because they are doing a great job indoctrinating. They’re not there to teach. And it’s working too. Young people are identifying as leftist democrats, and LBDSLFJSD!_+ in increasingly large numbers. Graduation rates are… Read more »
Keeping people “dumb and poor” will increase dependency, and the dems providing the “free stuff” are thus guaranteed a permanent “reign”. This is the future the Davos elites and their ilk want, looks like the are attaining their goal of keeping most people down, while they enjoy all the riches that the world can provide. Think of ‘The Time Machine” – we are the dumb hapless dependent Eloi, and the liberal elites are the vicious Morlocks “behind the scenes”, pulling all the levers – and in their favor.
There’s only one solution: School Choice.
The issue w/ school choice is that now you end up giving vouchers to parents already sending their kids to private schools. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s a hidden cost you have to deal with. Then again, the amount of the voucher would probably be somewhere in between the higher CPS cost and the lower private school cost, so maybe those costs even out.
Nixit, that would be a big problem with a pure voucher system, but that’s not the right approach. The problem you identified can be minimized the way other states have done it, by mixing various elements — education savings accounts, scholarships and some voucher. We will later be digging into what the right mix should be for IL. One element that almost for sure that would make sense here is to let parents choose where to direct the state element of school funding be spent for their kids. That funding is negligible for wealthy districts but very high for poorer… Read more »
The gigant lib hypocrisy at CPS is there is choice in CPS selective enrolment schools (Payton, Northside, Jones Prep, etc) which are some of the best schools in state & country. and are of course supposed to be open to all but end up being exclusive school where any push-up parent worth their salt will pull every string in the book to get their kid in while still claiming to be a super lib progressive? We did it years ago. Sharkey has his kids in those schools and im sure gates as well. Lots of overachiever asians. Upperincome black &… Read more »
I should have said “class” lib progressive hypocrisy……because i never ment a low income/ middle income progressive over 30. We’re to busy trying to survive to fall for all the shaming & blaming npr bs
Indiana has a pretty big choice/ voucher program that they’ve been trying for years which includes catholic and other religious schools. If your public school district scores blow then you can apply for voucher for your kid. I think they have about 40,000 vocher kids
NB, yes, Indiana and lots of others. Arizona is the latest. We now have the luxury of looking at many states or systems with different approaches to school choice, and deciding which is best.
Absolutely. I’m sure the Illinois public schools (especially CPS) are anxious to try out all the school choice options.
Congrats to Wirepoints on getting their content national exposure once again. Now the whole country is learning that Illinois can’t even read/write or add/subtract. Employers nationwide that see a resume including a CPS education will think twice.
Such poor educational “achievements” will ensure that many will not be able to engage in even the most basic functions at a job. Thus, the “dependent” class will grow and grow, as so many are increasingly unemployable. Why do I “suspect” that this might all be “by design”, hmmmm…???
And next up, a storm of blather and harrumphery from Governor Tax Cheat, the lame stream media, the teacher’s unions and their lickspittle-n-beholden politicians telling everyone that all is actually well in Illinois classrooms.
And it is, truthfully, since even though the kiddies can’t read, write or add, Illinois schools have long been intended to function as little other than nanny-state taxpayer funded day care and woke indoctrination, camouflaged as “education.”
Good job Wirepoints!
You forgot to include a government mandated jobs program which provides Democratic Party campaign funds to boot!
Congratulations WP!! Also, from attached studies the white students scores are a dumpster fire as well. Also, if Amendment 1 passes the teachers unions will be demanding, ZERO testing of student performance, that all test scores are racist/ inequitable/etc bs. Also, looks like WSJ got the CPS black students scores wrong 30% at grade level?–“Chicago’s 30% of black third-graders reading at grade level almost seems a triumph by comparison.”……………..meanwhile on any Saturday at nw side public library by my house immigrant Asian kids are there with there tutors kicking are ass…WAKE-UP!!
Politicians and media seem to be the top distributors of mis- or dis-information.
“Partial truth” which is what lobbyists often provide under oath is, perhaps, a different sort of problem. Lawyers in an advocacy situation aren’t supposed to lie, but I know of no rule that requires them to disclose negative information about a client — other than to resign if a client lies.
How is it that the Wall Street Journal was surprised? Don’t they have a Chicago bureau?
I find the following somewhat helpful in parsing these issues:
https://www.harvard.edu/in-focus/managing-misinformation/
I would add the word uninformed or not informed to your link provided and include health officials especially on the Covid narrative. The public does not have ALL the info or even most of it only what they tell us we should do when it comes to health. The vaccine was the only way to stop the pandemic according to them. In every health situation there are multiple options to choose but not for Covid. Politicians if they were doctors would be mankind’s destruction. They never can give a simple yes or no answer. Is that mis or dis information… Read more »
I agree that many are uninformed but I’m not sure they assimilate this sort of information as well as Cubs scores or gasoline prices. Deficit and actuarial don’t really resonate unless you can fit them into a country song. (Loretta RIP)