When Wirepoints first dug into the pre-pandemic scores of Decatur 3rd-graders, we thought they’d been misreported. The State Report Card said just 2% of Decatur’s black 3rd-graders could read at grade level. Just 2%?
We found a similar story in cities across Illinois. Only 7% of Rockford’s black, 11% of Elgin’s Hispanic and 10% of Waukegan’s black 3rd-graders met reading proficiency requirements in 2019. And this isn’t just about minorities. Just 16% of Decatur’s whites were reading at grade level.
And yet, despite those dismal results, 74% of Decatur students graduate. 66% do in Rockford. And 84% of students graduate in Elgin. Those districts give diplomas out every year to hundreds of students who are unprepared for either college or a career.
How can this happen? Who is it that’s allowing such bad outcomes to persist without intervention? Administrators? School boards? The Illinois State Board of Education? State lawmakers? And where are the parents in all this?
Wirepoints looked across Illinois’ education system to find out. The Illinois State Board of Education shows districts automatically move kids on to the next grade, even when they’re not ready. We found grossly inflated teacher evaluations – in Decatur alone, 99.7% of teachers were rated “excellent or proficient.” In Rockford, it was nearly 95%. And we also found a number of feel-good “accountability” metrics. “On track to graduate” and “commendable schools” all help to deflect blame from the system's failures.
The data is damning and we’ve documented it all in our Special Report: Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
What’s worse, too many are enriching themselves off of a growing, $38 billion educational-industrial complex that’s protected by a weave of labor laws, a sprawling bureaucracy, generous salaries, constitutionally protected pensions, powerful superintendents and even more powerful unions.
No one wants to upset the apple cart, leaving parents and students trapped in a system where reform is virtually impossible.
Is it any wonder that a majority of parents want to escape? A recent EdChoice survey found that 80% of Illinois parents favor some form of school choice program for their children.
Check out Wirepoints’ full report to learn who is responsible for the failures in Illinois education and how we can restore power to parents and children through school choice.