Chicago Democrat sounds alarm as 40 schools report either no proficiency in math or reading: 'Very serious'

[Valletta]

There were 22 schools who had no students who could read at grade level, and another 33 schools claimed no students could perform math at grade level. . .

Just this fiscal year alone, Illinois has allocated $9.4 billion to Chicago Public Schools, while the federal government has also allocated an additional $1.8 billion to the school system through the American Rescue Plan.

\\Chicago Democrat sounds alarm as 55 schools report no proficiency in math or reading: 'Very serious'

Correction: Note there are only 40 schools, some were counted twice.

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

There were 22 schools who had no students who could read at grade level, and another 33 schools claimed no students could perform math at grade level. . .

Just this fiscal year alone, Illinois has allocated $9.4 billion to Chicago Public Schools, while the federal government has also allocated an additional $1.8 billion to the school system through the American Rescue Plan.

\\Chicago Democrat sounds alarm as 55 schools report no proficiency in math or reading: 'Very serious'

The article you linked to is wrong. If you follow their link ( Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools – Wirepoints | Wirepoints )to the actual data, 15 schools are on both lists so it is only 40 schools. As a Christian, I am sure you are concerned with the truth so it will be great when you update the thread title and the OP. Thank you.

 

[durangodawood]

I bet private schools just cant wait to take these kids!

 

[Pommer]

There were 22 schools who had no students who could read at grade level, and another 33 schools claimed no students could perform math at grade level. . .

Just this fiscal year alone, Illinois has allocated $9.4 billion to Chicago Public Schools, while the federal government has also allocated an additional $1.8 billion to the school system through the American Rescue Plan.

\\Chicago Democrat sounds alarm as 55 schools report no proficiency in math or reading: 'Very serious'

What standard is “grade level”?

 

[Valletta]

What standard is “grade level”?

In our country there are grades one through twelve before college. A 4th grader, for example, would be expected to understand the material presented in the 4th grade to the level set by the educational authorities. That doesn't mean perfectly, but I would think the standard would be around average for the country in past years.

 

[Bradskii]

What standard is “grade level”?

I think it's the expected level of proficiency for each grade. For example, from here: Math Skills by Grade Level - Braintrust

Grade 1: Students now learn various addition and subtraction strategies and can solve addition and subtraction problems within 20. They should be able to count to or above 100 and begin comparing measurements of objects. They should also be able to tell time on an analog clock to the hour and half hour.

The link gives a list of maths expectations from Grade 1 to Grade 8.

As a comparison, for 2018 the Program for International Student Assesment (PISA) as regards maths and reading/writing has 6 Asian countries in the top 7, Canada at 8, the UK at 13, Australia at 21 and the US at 25 (out of 77 countries). PISA 2018 Worldwide Ranking - average score of mathematics, science and reading - FactsMaps

 

[Valletta]

In our country there are grades one through twelve before college. A 4th grader, for example, would be expected to understand the material presented in the 4th grade to the level set by the educational authorities. That doesn't mean perfectly, but I would think the standard would be around average for the country in past years. The educational system is failing these kids, the lack of discipline and lack of expectations are major problems. Although it's back a few years, if you ever see the movie "Hoop Dreams" you can get an idea of the lack of control the teachers have in Chicago public school classrooms. A CRT type curriculum is making the situation worse.

 

[Bradskii]

Ah yes. A great opportunity to slip in some crt...

 

[Valletta]

Ah yes. A great opportunity to slip in some crt...

Telling the kids that white privilege is the reason they don't succeed does not help, it lowers the expectations. It also takes time away from learning math and English. Just like crime (Guilliani's approach to crime in New York City), like the southern border (remain in Mexico policy, deal firmly with foreign countries involved by threatening to cut off their aid, and patrol and secure the border) we know what works for education in the inner city (Joe Clark with Eastside High in New Jersey.) Yet the hard left is pushing in the opposite direction of what has been successful for our country. Their agenda is to change the U.S. into a Marxist type country with an elite ruling class. You can see that agenda against our way of life in the Omnibus bill that was quickly passed before it could be read.

 

[dzheremi]

Telling the kids that white privilege is the reason they don't succeed does not help, it lowers the expectations. It also takes time away from learning math and English. Just like crime (Guilliani's approach to crime in New York City), like the southern border (remain in Mexico policy, deal firmly with foreign countries involved by threatening to cut off their aid, and patrol and secure the border) we know what works for education in the inner city (Joe Clark with Eastside High in New Jersey.) Yet the hard left is pushing in the opposite direction of what has been successful for our country. Their agenda is to change the U.S. into a Marxist type country with an elite ruling class. You can see that agenda against our way of life in the Omnibus bill that was quickly passed before it could be read.

I assumed that Bradskii was joking, but maybe I need some CRT lessons, too...Comedy Re-Training...

 

[The IbanezerScrooge]

Ah yes. A great opportunity to slip in some crt...

I also love how he edited his fairly coherent, apolitical and informative response to inject his political ideology which is completely off-topic for his own thread and then reposted it as a quote of himself.

 

[Bradskii]

Yet the hard left is pushing in the opposite direction of what has been successful for our country. Their agenda is to change the U.S. into a Marxist type country with an elite ruling class.

Now if I was going to complain about scholastic standards I would have first checked to see how Republican states were doing against Democratic ones. So that I wouldn't look foolish complaining about 'the hard left' and Marxist plots.

Here's a table showing how each state is doing in regard to education: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education.

You'll notice that 8 of the bottom 10 are all Republican states and 4 of the top 5 are Democratic. Illinois just misses out on a top ten place at 11th.

 

[Bradskii]

I assumed that Bradskii was joking, but maybe I need some CRT lessons, too...Comedy Re-Training...

Maybe Valletta should have done some regarding education. As in Check Republican Track record.

 

[HTacianas]

The article you linked to is wrong. If you follow their link ( Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools – Wirepoints | Wirepoints )to the actual data, 15 schools are on both lists so it is only 40 schools. As a Christian, I am sure you are concerned with the truth so it will be great when you update the thread title and the OP. Thank you.

So does that mean these kids are having trouble reading or that they are not having trouble reading.

 

[Diamond72]

another 33 schools claimed no students could perform math at grade level. . .

I worked for the stage hand union one summer and there was no one that could do math at anything higher than an 8th-grade level. The reason I could do the math is that I had been to private schools. Public schools are like a dog chasing its own tail. Public school teachers do not know math to teach it. They just expect you to read the book and figure it out with no help from them. If you complain to the school they find a way to suspend you for being a troublemaker and for complaining about how incompetent they are.

Teachers are gifted and talented to teach, but it is up to the school to provide material for them to teach.

 

[Valletta]

Maybe Valletta should have done some regarding education. As in Check Republican Track record.

The public schools are very much controlled by the left. Wealthy Democrats do send their children to excellent schools, I live in a heavily Democratic area, there was a Republican elected to my district last in the 1940s, I don't know what happened, maybe it had something to do with World War II. The very top schools are academies or charter schools, and the rest are also in very wealthy areas. But the kids in the poor areas are don't in reality have much of a choice. This has been the situation for a long time, remember Joe Biden stood with Robert Byrd to try and stop black children being allowed to be bused to white schools. I should say too that even the wealthy schools are having less discipline, boyfriends and girlfriends are let into a classroom for "support" and there are fights.

 

[Valletta]

The article you linked to is wrong. If you follow their link ( Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools – Wirepoints | Wirepoints )to the actual data, 15 schools are on both lists so it is only 40 schools. As a Christian, I am sure you are concerned with the truth so it will be great when you update the thread title and the OP. Thank you.

Nice catch! How I can update the title?

 

[iluvatar5150]

I worked for the stage hand union one summer and there was no one that could do math at anything higher than an 8th-grade level. The reason I could do the math is that I had been to private schools. Public schools are like a dog chasing its own tail. Public school teachers do not know math to teach it. They just expect you to read the book and figure it out with no help from them. If you complain to the school they find a way to suspend you for being a troublemaker and for complaining about how incompetent they are.

Teachers are gifted and talented to teach, but it is up to the school to provide material for them to teach.

I went to private schools (small, church-run schools) and I've also worked as a stagehand and/or with stagehands. IME, the stagehands were no worse at math than the general public or anybody I went to school with, but they were exceptionally handy. Perhaps my favorite example of how clueless my teachers were is that my high school algebra teacher spent nearly the entire year teaching us to solve for X (because some students just couldn't get it) and maybe a week on line slopes, not appreciating the fact that understanding line slopes is the basis of calculus.

 

[Gene2memE]

As someone who has been a teacher, I suspect something is going on with the reporting/testing due to COVID-19 interruptions, rather than there being 0% grade proficiency in reading and/or mathematics at some of these schools.

Particularly because some of the schools listed are high end private schools with tuition rates of $15,000-20,000 a year (or more) and graduation rates above 95%.

A little digging shows some schools listed had high levels of reading and math proficiency in 2020 and 2021 (some above 80%), but then show up as 0% for 2022. I consider such a decline statistically unlikely.

Others have self reported reading/math proficiency for 2022 well above the 0% given in the scorecard. For instance - Hope Academy is give a 0% math proficiency score from the ISBE, but it's self report is 49% (down from 61% in 2021, thanks to COVID-19).

In other cases, some of these schools might expect 0% proficiency scores - at least one of them appears to cater exclusively to students with developmental delays or intellectual disabilities. Another appears to be for adults who dropped out of school at an early age and are re-attending later in life.


I don't think this is a case of these schools having poor reading/math proficiency overall. I think this is the case of the reporting party not taking the time and care to investigate what's actually going on and just relaying some numbers for shock value, without any background understanding or context.

I'm going to guess that the reporting website is probably conservative leaning, with a bunch of stories about 'woke' education and "hur dur public schools bad, waste money" and "Democrats/unions/woke teachers failing at education" articles.

 

[Bradskii]

The public schools are very much controlled by the left.

Then I guess that's why the Democratic states are doing so much better than Republican ones. Including Illinois.

I mean, you know that people are going to spend a few minutes checking what you post. It's a given knowing your posting history. So surely you'd spend some time yourself on investigating the details of what you post before you post it? It seems that you grab a headline that appears to slot in with your political views, do nothing to check the validity of the claims and then tack on any and all right wing complaints into the bargain.

I'm surprised you didn't get pipelines and climate change in there somehow...