How Illinois Is Failing Our Students

The Promise That Never Was

Nearly three years ago, Governor Pritzker declared during his Illinois State of the State Address that Illinois will be “the best state in the nation to raise a young family.”

Three years later, less than 16% of the Chicago Public School’s 300,000 minority students can read at grade level – including only 11% of Black students and 17% of Latino children. Yet in 2021, 100% of CPS teachers were “evaluated as excellent or proficient by an administrator”.

If our public education system is graduating students who cannot read and our internal assessments are validating teachers as excellent or proficient, we need to do better.

I’ve taught in hundreds of public high schools and teachers are rarely the issue. Contrary to what you may read, the vast majority of teachers care deeply about their students; the issue is a system that fails to hold itself accountable. The status quo pits parents against educators, because it’s easier to attach face to our frustration. Culture wars have effectively demonized the job of being a teacher, but in reality, great teachers should receive our highest praise.

Instead of scoring political points talking about banning books or closing charter schools, we need to focus on literacy and student outcomes. Because in the words of Cris Gulacy-Worrel, a fellow Yass Prize Finalist from Oakmont Education: “Every book is banned when our students can’t read.”

Never Let Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Story

Chicago Public Schools spent nearly $30,000 per student – up more than 70% since 2008. It’s the highest spending of any state in the Midwest with the highest teacher salaries in the region and the largest median pension benefit in the country of $2.9 million.

We’ve arrived at this situation because our leaders have prioritized increasing budgets instead of students’ learning. Rarely do we hear about the need for independent teacher evaluations that could actually show teachers where to improve. Instead of exploring educational alternatives or supporting innovation, our leaders make endless solicitations for more funding.

We never talk about aligning this funding with student enrollment; and so, the bureaucracy continues to flourish while teachers are underpaid in the classroom.

This past legislative session, our leaders went to Springfield, decided not to renew tax credits that offered families an educational alternative, and scrapped a program which cost less than 1% of the State’s K-12 budget. Despite 71% of Black voters and 81% of Hispanic voters supporting the Invest In Kids tax credits, we discarded economic opportunity scholarships that provided students and parents with a way out of the underperforming public school system.

The Myth Of Funding

Illinois doesn’t need more education money. No state in the country has grown its spending more in the past decade and money has not translated into greater student outcomes.

By avoiding accountability, we’ve institutionalized a self-serving relationship with the primary goal of protecting the status quo: a status quo in which Chicago Public Schools self-reports that 89% of students are on track to graduate, 100% of teachers are excellent or competent, but less than 25% of students are able to read.

The biggest victims are students and the second are actually teachers – teachers who entered the education system to make a difference in students’ lives but have become bogged down in a vast web of bureaucracy.

What we’re left with is a $38 billion system that compensates itself handsomely for the glowing results of self-administered evaluations. A system where leaders have the audacity to attack educators who have dedicated their lives to improving outcomes for students; and a system where parents have no choice but to send their kids to failing schools.

The Real Victims Are Our Students

GCE Lab School was a project-based, experiential learning high school in downtown Chicago that strived to provide a world-class education for students, regardless of zip code. They were the first school to pilot Rapunzl and instrumental in our growth. Over 86% of graduates attended a 4-year accredited institution versus 20% of Chicago Public School students; and over 10 years, 125 students earned over $10 million in merit-based financial aid.

GCE achieved these results spending $13,500 per student less than Chicago Public Schools. There was never a question of if a graduating student could read. Admissions were need-based, not merit-based, and these outcomes are a testament to the power of diverse and innovative teaching models in our education system. GCE Lab School provided families with a viable path to realize our Governor’s ambition for Illinois to become the best state in the nation to raise a family, until the State’s General Assembly chose not to renew the Invest in Kids Act, and GCE Lab School lost $14,000 in tuition support per student.

Bennett Day School, one of the last bastions of hope for education in Chicago, was willing to take GCE’s students for the upcoming academic year with no support from the state, but finding a solution does not negate the existence of a problem.

The problem is that we should be encouraging schools like GCE Lab School, not stifling innovation in favor of a system that is so clearly failing.

This Is Only The Beginning…

GCE Lab School closed this Summer, but their fate is not an isolated incident; it mirrors a broader crisis across the country where those who are working to improve our education system do not have the time to fight policy. Urban Prep Academy, another Chicago high school, is losing its fight to maintain control of its two campuses in Englewood and Bronzeville.

The story has become too common: when one side is working in classrooms, trying to help students read, and the other side pours valuable classroom funding into lobbyists and lawyers profiting from a manufactured crisis of their own making, how can integrity prevail?

More than 72% of Chicago parents support school choice, but we continue enacting policies that placate the 28% of individuals who don’t. Why?

In the words of Dr. Howard Fuller, “The problem has never been about school choice. It’s about who has it.”

When lawmakers pass legislation that opposes the desires of their constituents, they are making a school choice for all of us. If we eliminate funding for every competing institution, then we will have no other option but to increase funding for public schools. When it comes time to evaluate student achievement, the system will cry for more funding and the choice of which schools we support will be made for us.

Education Is About Kids, Not Politics

Politics should never impact a child’s future, and a one-size-fits-all model in education fits no one, and student results speak for themselves.

It’s not fair to blame educators that tirelessly teach in classrooms. We cannot blame well-intentioned teachers trapped in a broken system. The narrative around bad teachers cannot persist amidst an acute teacher shortage. We need to innovate.

We need to improve our schools, ensure that education funding actually makes it to the student, and give families a choice to send their kids to schools like GCE, Bennett Day School, or Urban Prep Academy. Only then can the dream of Illinois being the best state in the nation raise a young family actually become a reality.