Ted Dabrowski appeared on The Perri Small Show to discuss how Illinois’ educational establishment fails to prepare Illinois’ students, both black and white, for a successful future. “Back in high school every child, at least, was working at grade level. What happened? This is the question we have to ask,” Perri told Ted.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Poor achievement, zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Video
- Suburban Chicago school district controversy: No plan to fix black academic failure
- Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system – Wirepoints Special Report
- The opportunity that Chicago – and Illinois – kids need is real school choice
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.
Freddy makes very solid comments and presents facts. It needs to be discussed and brought out into the sunlight along with everything else in the ghetto and the ghetto hip hop, weed, get rich overnight, drug infested culture. We are not changing this mentality, and you can tell by reading these comments that most of us really truly care. There is one group who has not showed up. Minorities themselves, mainly blacks but to a certain degree Hispanics as well. The narco state to the south of us is fueled by drug demand here. The morally bankrupt culture issue is… Read more »
Talk about oppression of the poor….nothing is worse than this…by far. Who’s responsible? (mostly)…the teacher’s union and our out-of-control Illinois politicians. Yes, some parents may not be making their kids do homework or go to school all the time, and many kids are from tough neighborhoods. But like if you have cancer, “playing pretend” that you don’t have cancer, cause it will force some reckoning, is not a reason for the stakeholders not to address the cancer. Typical Illinois political and teacher’s union malfeasance and corruption. We already pay (including lucrative pensions and medical benefits) teachers among the highest in… Read more »
Some of the reasons not mentioned may be ADHD or ADD/Autism which is being diagnosed more and more. https://thegrio.com/2013/02/15/70-percent-increase-in-adhd-among-black-children-study-finds/ https://www.elemy.com/studio/autism-diagnosis/delays-black-children/ Also there are no tests for autism like blood/MRI/CT/etc. https://fragilex.org/genetics/blood-test-autism-not-fast/ The diagnosis is based on behavioral criteria. The treatment doctors give too often involve medications to control behavior but never address the underlying cause which may be numerous one of which is dysbiosis or altered bowel flora https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5155168/. With the lack of healthy food choices (like too much sugar) in inner cities for both mom and baby during pregnancy health outcomes are almost all negative. It also very possible the… Read more »
Bad nutrition, bad medical care, lead paint, lead in the water, violence in and out of the home in some cases, overworked and apathetic teachers, no dads, no one to say no to them. Mom has kids with many different partners, drugs. And you expect them to learn?
How will any of this get fixed if we don’t figure out how to teach them? Spending $20k per student to get 2% to read isn’t going to fix it. Nobody is saying it’s easy, but surely we need to do something different.
How come charter schools don’t have these problems?
So they’re doomed to a life of crime, drugs and jail? Is this the best you got?
Doomed? Prison is a cot and three square meals a day courtesy of the government!
Alternative housing ,you might call it.
Why the down votes for Freddy? Some of these subject matter areas are deserving of inquiry. Although in no way approving of the authorities’ methods in dealing with the issue, Freddie Gray by all accounts was exposed to lead paint, and it greatly affected his health and development. Scientists discerned that giving changing economics the old lead paint housing stock was concentrated in Sandtown, a one square mile area in Baltimore. Of course lead paint doesn’t nearly explain all of Baltimore’s huge problems but it is real. It is valuable to know – my guess is that Decatur does not… Read more »
I know!! We need more money to teach trans gender studies to second graders and more money to teach CRT! Anyone for making mandatory The Pledge of Allegiance? How about God Bless America?
Teachers have been on the forefront of diagnosing ADHD in students for years. Rather than do their own job better, these “know it all” scholars find it easier to send difficult students, mainly minority, mainly boys, to the school psychologist for testing that eventually leads to a drug being prescribed. In large urban settings, the schools and their teachers are the source of many of their own problems!
100% agree. They implemented their philosophies and created the system, then complain that the situation is out of control.
There are many reasons that the kids aren’t reading at grade level. I think most people would be shocked to know that we’ve never had 100%, or even close to that, even in the “good old days”. They’ve always had “dropout factories” in large urban areas. It’s not solely because of “Democratic rule” either, as this population of students, poor, minority, single mom, etc…, has trouble in school almost across the board. My chief concern is the smart kid that is not being challenged because an overwhelmed teacher has so many behavioral fires to pit out in a place like… Read more »
With a 2% success rate, maybe you need to get rid of the entire system and start over! Defund schools anyone? You can start with teachers unions!
This is what ultimate reliance on the government looks like. Rely on the government at your own peril.
How are only 2% of black 3rd graders reading at grade level? Because the education establishment threw out phonics instruction in favor of the ridiculous whole language concept. They also put far more effort into improving their own financial status than into improving test scores. Now their efforts are focused on convincing us that these children cannot be taught. It’s an interesting argument- the job is impossible, but continue to pay us (with escalations) year after year. I wonder how many of them would keep paying a roofer who year after year said the roof couldn’t be fixed, while the… Read more »
I don’t think the job is impossible, but it is very difficult to teach some populations. The cultural challenges are immense. Maybe change in that regard is impossible. One of my high school competitors, one of the best athletes Illinois has ever produced, a SEC champion several times over and a multiple All American chose to earn a science education Phd. A true competitive champion in all walks of life. He sets very high standards. When he took a superintendent position in a majority black county in a southern state, he was run out by the school board for trying… Read more »
It’s a chicken or the egg situation. When people can’t even read, the social pathologies are sure to follow. And the social pathologies make the job of teaching more difficult for sure. But if we are claiming that children can only learn to read after social pathologies are fixed, we might as well give up on public education. We must try to change course in education, and it seems to me that admitting current methods don’t work is the first step. How hard would it be to go back to phonics? We can’t fix the social pathologies quickly. But we… Read more »
How hard would it be to go back to phonics?
Pearson would like to have a word with you…
The answer is always the same. Give more money to teachers or they will go out on strike.