I'm sure we'll be able to solve this problem with more money, right?
If only we paid teachers more maybe kids would learn how to add!
Yes, at 53 schools in Illinois, this group was unable to find ONE kid who could do math at grade level.
Not one.
Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner at Wirepoints reported these findings and, as much as I would like to say they come as a shock, they really don't.
Spry Community Links High School, in the Heart of Little Village in Chicago, says its vision is to "provide a challenging and supportive environment…to enable our students to succeed in the 21st century." Number one on the school's focus list? "Increasing reading and math scores to or above grade level."
But a look at state data that tracks reading and math scores for each Illinois school reveals two frightening facts about Spry. Not a single one of its 88 kids at the school can read at grade level. It's the same for math. Zero kids are proficient.
Spry is one of 30 schools in Illinois where not a single student can read at grade level. Twenty-two of those schools are part of the Chicago Public Schools and the other eight are outside Chicago.
A school that's main goal is to teach kids to read and do math at grade level is completely incapable of reaching this goal.
What are public schools for if they can't teach kids to read or do math?
Now, The Left will tell you that this is because we aren't giving schools enough money. A big city like Chicago and its suburbs can't afford to run a school.
Anyways, here's the chart showing how much money is spent per student at each school that can't teach kids to read.
No school spends less than $5,000 per student, most are in the $13-$18,000 range, and some schools are spending more than $50k PER STUDENT to have ZERO who can read at grade level.
And I've been told that homeschooling your kids puts them at a disadvantage and that the government should be setting all the educational standards.
And at $50k per student government schools can't even meet their minimum standards.
And it's even worse for math:
This represents THOUSANDS of kids who cannot do math at grade level.
How did they continue to graduate from grade to grade without the necessary skills?
I bet they can name about 57 different "genders" though.
It's almost like the entire public education system is designed more to create radical and uneducated woke zombies and not to educate children.
This column focuses on schools where zero percent of kids are able to read or do math. But we could have just as easily looked at the 622 schools where only 1 out of 10 kids or less can read at grade level. That's a whopping 18 percent of the state's 3,547 schools that tested students in 2022.
And only 1 out of 10 kids or less can do math at grade level in 930 schools…that's more than a quarter of all schools in the state.
Defenders of the current system are sure to invoke covid as the big reason for the low scores. But a look at the 2019 numbers show that the reading and math numbers were only slightly better than they are now.
Yeah, sorry Illinois, I think we need to just scrap the entire system. It's not working.
What's really incredible is that many of these schools are rated "commendable" by the Illinois State Board of Education. That's the 2nd-highest of four "accountability" ratings a school can receive.
Not a single one of the 113 students at Sandoval Sr High School can read or do math at grade level. And yet the school is "commendable."
Same with Ralph Ellison Chicago International Charter School. Over $24,000 spent on each of its 172 students. Labeled "commendable." And none of the students are proficient in either reading or math.
