Posted on 01/11/2024 7:13:37 AM PST by MtnClimber
When it comes to education, Chicago, America’s “Second City,” is nowhere near second. The kids aren’t learning despite piles of money being spent, and families are abandoning the system.
According to the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), just 15% of Chicago’s 8th-grade students are proficient in math, and 21% are proficient in reading.
Money is certainly not the problem, as Chicago Public Schools spend about $29,000 per student. So, a class of 20 students costs the taxpayer almost $600,000 per year. Additionally, Chi-town teachers aren’t suffering; a rookie teacher makes $64,000 a year and eventually can earn up to $122,000 per year—not including pension and healthcare perks.
A great deal of the reason for the poor education system in the Windy City can be laid at the feet of the Chicago Teachers Union. As with most teachers’ unions, especially those in big cities, its primary goal is to advance a left-wing political agenda. In fact, the Illinois Policy Institute reports that the union spent nearly three times more on politics in 2023 than the year before, and just 17% of its spending was on representing teachers.
As former Mayor Lori Lightfoot noted in 2021, CTU would “like to take over not only Chicago Public Schools, but take over running the city government.”
In fact, that actually happened. The recent recipient of the union’s largess, Brandon Johnson, a former CTU “legislative coordinator,” became Chicago mayor in May 2023.
One important CTU mission is to deny parental choice so that its monopoly can remain intact. In 2023, Illinois’ modest scholarship program was killed by Democrats in the state legislature, making it the first state to eliminate an established choice program. With a big financial assist from CTU, 9,600 low-income kids who tried to escape from their traditional public schools are being forced back into them. And, of course, the 20,000 plus on the waiting list now have no hope of a better educational experience.
The hypocrisy of the move is really unparalleled. In an August interview, CTU boss Stacy Davis Gates was asked if she had concerns about school choice and privatization supporters running for the school board, and she quipped, “Yes, we are concerned about the encroachment of fascists in Chicago. We are concerned about the marginalization of public education through the eyes of those who’ve never intended for Black people to be educated. So, we’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that type of fascism and racism does not exist on our Board of Education.”
Shortly thereafter, it was revealed that Gates’ son attends a Catholic high school. After being outed, she defensively claimed, “It was a very difficult decision for us because there is not a lot to offer Black youth who are entering high school in Chicago. In many of our schools on the South Side and the West Side, the course offerings are very marginal and limited. Then the other thing, and it was a very strong priority, was his ability to participate in co-curricular and extracurricular activities, which quite frankly don’t exist in many of the schools, high schools in particular.”
What Gates can’t seem to fathom or admit is that her reasons coincide with all of those “fascist and racist” parents who send their kids to private schools.
The good news is that people are waking up to the fact that the union is hardly a force for good. An October 2023 poll showed that only 37% of registered Chicago voters have a favorable view of the CTU, with 46% reporting an unfavorable view.
The Chicago school board is also a great hindrance to educational excellence. In December, it passed a resolution that endorses phasing out “selective enrollment” schools, which are a path upward for low-income students. These 11 selective public high schools are racially and economically diverse, with 90% of children reading at grade level, and rank academically among the best in the state and nationwide.
The equity-obsessed board explained that Chicago should “transition away” from test-based enrollment policies “that further stratification and inequity in CPS and drive student enrollment away from neighborhood schools.”
A bright spot in Chicago is that, as former head of CPS Paul Vallas notes, “During the past two decades, over 227,000 Black families have left CPS… Of the children remaining, 54,000 have fled to public charter schools in Chicago, where over 97% of the population is Black and Latino, and 86% are from low-income households.”
When it comes to screwing up kids, Chicago should be designated as “The Second City…to None.”
And then there is Los Angeles, where the per-student outlay is a hefty $25,000. Yet, the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) revealed that just 19% of 8th-grade students are proficient in math and 28% are proficient in reading.
Perhaps no city did more damage during the time of COVID than Los Angeles. With a massive push from the United Teachers of Los Angeles, the school district shuttered its schools for more than a year, neglecting its students the entire time.
The union contract stipulates that the professional workday for a full-time, regular employee “requires no fewer than eight hours of on-site and off-site work.” Yet during the shutdown, then-UTLA boss Alex Caputo-Pearl engineered a deal that required teachers to provide instruction and student support for just four hours per day — and also to “host three office hours for students” every week. So, instead of a 40-hour work week, teachers in LA only had to be available for 23 hours. Additionally, teachers could create their own work schedules “and were not required to teach classes using live video conferencing platforms.”
When asked about the learning loss that students incurred during the shutdown, UTLA president Cecily Myart-Cruz ridiculously replied, “There is no such thing as learning loss. Our kids didn’t lose anything. It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their timetables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup.” She even went so far as to suggest that “learning loss” is a fake crisis marketed by shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.
The enrollment in L.A. schools for pre-K through twelfth grade has fallen from 566,604 in the 2012-2013 school year to 422,276 in the 2022-2023 academic year. And many who are enrolled are not showing up. As such, L.A. school superintendent Alberto Carvalho has taken to door-knocks. Yes, the supe is visiting homes to find out why parents are not sending their kids to school.
While there are many reasons for the dwindling student population—families leaving the state, charter schools, etc.—one important factor is the district’s political agenda. In Los Angeles, the school district proudly hosts a “Rainbow Club,” which is a 10-week district-wide virtual club for “LGBTQ+ elementary school students, their friends and their grown-ups.” The poster specifies that it’s for children in TK–5th grade. (“TK,” or transitional kindergarten, is comprised of 4-year-olds.)
The sex-obsessed school district also devoted an entire week in October to celebrate “National Coming Out Day.” A “Week of Action Toolkit – Elementary,” sent from the Los Angeles Unified School District, outlines suggested lesson plans for elementary students around LGBTQ+ topics. The toolkit includes an “Identity Map activity” the purpose of which is for “students to think critically about identity and intersectionality.” It’s important to note that every second spent on this type of sexual engineering tripe is time when students could be learning their ABCs and 1,2,3s, which L.A. students so desperately need.
Also, L.A. is about to run out of COVID-bucks; the $190 billion in federal funds meant to help schools is about gone. According to Chad Alderman, L.A. could lose 2,570 teachers unless there is a new infusion of cash.
If the lower-performing teachers were to be let go, it would be beneficial. But, due to a stipulation in the union contract, the cuts will be quality-blind, and the newest hires, irrespective of quality, will be out of work.
In this “Fail of Two Cities,” it has been only the “worst of times” for government-run schools.
* * *
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views presented here are strictly his own.
During the 2019-2020 school year, there was $15,810 spent on K-12 public education for every student in the US.
“A Fail of Two Cities”
That’s pretty good.
Welfare causes fatherlessness causes crime.
“There are no fixes on the horizon.”
I can FIX the Public Schools OVERNIGHT.
Make it a FELONY with Removal of the Minor children from the Family Home and put in to foster care for ANY Public Employee that does not send their minor children to the Public School System in their district.
Watch how fast they change.
Chicago is spending about double the national average. And the results are awful. Sad situation.
Government only rewards failure.
All one has to do is look who runs them.
In NY, teachers don’t have to take a competency exam anymore. You know, the one they had to take and pass to show that they could actually teach. It was considered discriminatory. So, now NY has teachers that had their college test scores ‘pencil whipped’ who might not be able to read and write as well as the kids they’re teaching.
And then there’s those pesky unions.
I know of someone that used to be a NYC school teacher. One employee in the school had one job. To make copies. That was it. They were there to ensure that every and any copy made was counted and approved per the curriculum.
BTTT
The figure you cited is not far from the tuition at Hillsdale College, whose graduates are in such demand that the default rate on their internal student loan program is damn near zero.
A $10k voucher for every child would fix it. Add an extra $5k for those with special needs provided only 10% of the kids are eligible. All hell will break loose. Recruit nuns to work for free.
The department of education and the Chicago Education system should take on their more appropriate name. The Department of Childhood Propaganda. And the Chicago Childhood Propaganda System. Anti-family propaganda is the only purpose for public education any more. Teachers can rarely teach the topics they claim to know. Test scores are falling. When we went to school there were some very smart women who found teaching to be the only job available that allowed them to work and raise a family. Now teachers are a sad group of misfits that could not get into a better college or a better major. Teachers are simply not our best. We put these propagandists in front of our children every day. And our children are often more intelligent than their teacher. And we tell our children to jump through all the ridiculous hoops. If you can home school or get a private education try that. But private education is often no better as those teachers often come from the same colleges. Always talk to your kids about home work. And listen to your kids when they tell you about the school day.
ping
, as Chicago Public Schools spend about $29,000 per student.
The implication was that more should be spent, that we were only average.
I posted a response, “let’s find out what the lowest per student are doing and get ideas from them.”
My comment was deleted and shortly have that they dropped responses to articles.
And punishes success.
“Make it a FELONY with Removal of the Minor children from the Family Home and put in to foster care for ANY Public Employee that does not send their minor children to the Public School System in their district.”
I do not know if it is still true, but it used to be that the most common profession of the parents of children in PRIVATE schools was a public school teacher or administrator
No problem! Just do what the governor of Oregone did re bad
schools!:
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says illegal immigrants are “the heart and soul of our culture and the backbone of our economy”
Then this!
Oregon students shouldn’t have to prove they can write or do math to get a diploma, lawmakers decide!
The Oregonian ^ | Jun 16, 2021 | Betsy Hammond
Posted on 6/21/2021, 4:16:01 PM by george76
Students in the class of 2021 did not have to prove they could write or do math at a basic level to earn their diplomas. A bill headed to Gov. Kate Brown would prohibit any such requirement at least until 2027.A bill to prohibit Oregon schools from requiring students to show they can read, write and do math at a basic high school level is headed to Gov. Kate Brown after lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday. (The bill was sign by the governor, and it is now in effect in Oregone!)
The idea is to hit pause on the requirements, in place since 2009 but already suspended during the pandemic, at least until the class of 2024 gets their diplomas and for Oregon to thoughtfully reexamine its graduation requirements in the meantime. A report recommending what the new standards should be is due to the Legislature and Oregon Board of Education by September 2022.
But since Oregon has long insisted it would not impose new graduation requirements on students who have already begun high school, new requirements would not take effect until the class of 2027 at the very earliest. So at least five more classes could be expected to graduate without needing to demonstrate roughly 10th grade level proficiency in math and writing.
The decision to remove the skills requirement was largely but not entirely a party-line one, with Democrats staunchly opposing the proficiency rules and Republicans decrying what they see as a lowering of academic standards.
A spokesperson for Brown told The Oregonian/OregonLive Wednesday she has yet to decide whether she will sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without her signature. (She proudly signed the bill!)
Oregone, unlike other states, did not require students to pass a particular standardized test or any test at all. Students could show their ability to use English and do math via about five different tests or by completing an in-depth classroom project judged by their own teachers. In reality, most schools relied primarily on standardized tests and most students easily passed them.
But demonstrating proficiency proved most challenging for students who learned English as a second language, students with disabilities and students of color.
Officials on the Oregon Board of Education, when they enacted the “essential skills” graduation requirement more than a decade ago, said they hoped no student would be denied a diploma for lacking the skills but that schools would step up and help juniors and seniors who hadn’t mastered enough English or math to do so. Many high schools created special math and writing workshop classes for seniors who needed to demonstrate those skills to get their diplomas.
The bill calls on the diverse committee studying graduation requirements to come up with a recommendation “with the goal of ensuring that the processes and outcomes related to the requirements for high school diplomas are equitable, accessible and inclusive.”
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3969771/posts
It is simple, Eliminating schools as places to learn and making them serve as day care centers all day. Beginning with breakfast, morning breaks, lunch, afternoon breaks and a dinner before going home. Maybe midnight basketball.
Teachers and their unions will still be paid. Any so called classes will be conducted by supposedly graduates, and the highly paid teachers will monitor those former classes on Zoom.
More Gardeners, janitors and other custodial care at the former schools will require more union workers, managers and whatevers!
So our taxes will go up for the above B$!
https://nypost.com/2021/09/15/virginia-teacher-says-making-kids-behave-is-white-supremacy/
I have to wonder if the plans that are being implemented to destroy students in urban schools wasn’t cooked up by members of a secret society whose name I don’t think I have to mention.
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The government destroys everything it gets its hands on.
As far as the democRATS are concerned, these schools are already, absolutely ‘fixed.’ This is how they want as many people as possible. Make sure to put on a dress if you choose, eat bugs, hate meat, and never see snow again (except in winter every year).
Oregon recently announced the cancelation of the High School Exit Exam. Come to class, or not, for 4-5 years; step right up and receive your ‘diploma.’
Back in the late 1960s, some of my friends wanted the heck out of high school, so they took more courses, and graduated early. They went on to college, they just did not want to be in high school any more. I imagine that is no longer possible. The democRAT teachers union needs their daily attendance = $$$.
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