Posted on 07/12/2024 7:11:40 AM PDT by george76
Douglass Academy High School had 35 students with nearly 900 seats unfilled. None were proficient on the SAT. The Chicago Teachers Union wants to add at least eight staffers there and at every other school in the district at a cost of $1.7 billion.
Only 35 students enrolled in Douglass Academy High School for the 2023-2024 school year, but the building can hold over 900 students.
Logic would say it should be closed, but the Chicago Teachers Union prohibits closing it and other underused schools. In fact, CTU sees the 23 staffers at Douglass as inadequate.
CTU’s new contract demands would put at least eight additional staff members in the school. That would mean 31 staff members for 35 students.
Douglass already spends over $68,000 per student. All that money and all that potential staff attention, yet it failed to produce even a single student who was proficient in either reading or math on a recent SAT.
CTU’s leaked contract is filled with costly demands, including additional staff members at every school which will cost Chicago Public Schools an estimated $1.7 billion and threatens to increase Douglass’ already exorbitant per-student spending. The new demands that could be estimated tallied over $10 billion, with billions more than could not be accurately calculated.
If anything, the numbers show the more Chicago spends on public education, the worst the academic results.
Douglass Academy High School spends the most in CPS, but sees some of the worst results..
Douglass Academy High School spends the most per student compared to any other school in CPS, according to the Illinois State Board of Education’s 2023 Report Card.
With that kind of spending, one would expect academic proficiency to soar, but that’s not the case.
The most recent test data available shows no 11th grade students could read or perform math at grade level on the SAT in the 2021-2022 school year, and 86% of tested students scored in the lowest proficiency level for reading. Test data is not available for the 2022-2023 school year. It has been redacted according to ISBE’s rules for results involving fewer than 10 students.
The last school year in which any 11th-grade Douglass students could read or perform math at grade level was the 2016-2017 school year. Just 2.4% of students could read or perform math proficiently then.
The school also experiences an absenteeism problem. In the 2022-2023 school year, 64% of students were chronically absent, outpacing the district average of 40%. Also, nearly half of the teachers at Douglass had 10 or more absences during the school year.
Not only are many students and teachers missing instruction days, but countless seats at Douglass Academy High School have been left empty. The school can fit over 900 students, yet only 35 students are enrolled. Only 4% of the building’s ideal capacity is being met. Douglass Academy High School is the emptiest school in CPS.
CTU demands would mandate additional staff at Douglass Academy High School
As of March 2024, Douglass Academy High School had 23 full-time staff members for its 35 enrolled students, according to CPS’ employee position files. CTU wants to add at least eight staff members to the school’s roster, a nearly 35% increase.
CTU’s leaked contract demands include adding multiple staff positions to every school in CPS. The new positions include: librarian, librarian assistant, social worker, newcomer liaison, case manager, restorative justice coordinator, reading specialist and interventionist (elementary schools), three elective teachers (middle schools), technology coordinator, “Climate Champion,” and gender support coordinator and/or LGBTQ+ lead/specialist and option to expand LGBTQ+ faculty support teams at each school.
Douglass Academy High School already has a technology coordinator on staff, but CTU’s demands would mean the addition of the other eight new positions to the school’s employee roster.
With fewer than 10 incoming freshmen each year, it’s hard to imagine what a newcomer liaison would do each workday or how much assisting an assistant librarian could do.
The total additional cost to CPS districtwide for the new staff members is estimated to be $1.7 billion. The addition of eight staff members to Douglass Academy High School threatens to increase the school’s already highest-in-the-district spending per student.
CTU more concerned with union jobs than student outcomes
While about three-quarters of students in CPS can’t read at grade level and even fewer can do math, CTU leadership is pushing a lengthy list of costly demands. Many of these demands don’t impact learning in the classroom. Those include housing for migrant students, subsidies for weight-loss surgery and drugs such as Ozempic, and environmental initiatives such as an electric school bus fleet.
Students at Douglass are struggling in the classroom. Chicagoans and CPS parents have already expressed their concern about “students not learning enough academically” in CPS. Still, CTU seems oblivious as it pushes expensive demands for new staff members rather than prioritizing students’ outcomes.
In deference to these commies, look what they have to work with. The average IQ of students in the district is below 80.
But, you cannot spend your way out of an IQ deficit.
The article stated this same point in about 4-5 different ways, but the upshot is clearly this: it's not 'cause and effect'... spending does not make all things better.
P
At 68K per student, they would be better off using vouchers to send them to a private school
Tuition at Yale is $67,250.
GIGO.
The 35 are how many are enrolled but not how many bother showing up. How many breakfasts and lunches does the lunchroom make every day and how many excess meals go home with the employees? Also, are all computers and visual aids accounted for or have they ended up at employees’ homes or the pawn shop? Same question for all equipment and supplies. What meds are ordered by the school nurse? What interesting chemicals are ordered by the science teachers? Do they have any sort of trades or homemaking that tools and refrigerators, etc. are needed every year? How about school vehicles like the special ed bus/van, the principals’ and custodial vehicles? The list of potential stolen property is endless.
Heck, rent out classrooms as room and board and make a little money on the side.
Parents (yeah, where’s daddy and where’s mama half the time) can’t be bothered to make sure their ignorant kids attend all day every day, behave themselves, strive to learn and hand in their completed homework on time.
Can’t be any garbage in if the kids can’t find their way to the front door. But, yes to garbage in for the administrators.
Solve the broken family is the quickest way to solve this major social problem.
Oh, and the Democrats and leftists caused this problem.
If they just had more pay..........
We watched a 1930’s movie the other day where the old fashioned school marm was the teacher. I recall the days as my aunt was one. Their job was not only to teach but to see the kids had decent morals. The townspeople of the era hired teachers with impeccable moral standards. A teacher was well respected by the entire community and parents trusted them. Kids actually learned the 3 R’s.
Today, like everything else the left touches, is bass-ackwards. We need to get back to old fashioned standards where the kids do not think of sex all day and actually turn out to be functional adults.
You can’t improve IQ by spending money.
Douglas Academy - it’s in the Austin neighborhood, which as per the data at the “Hey Jackass” site leads the 50 or so Chicago neighborhoods in the number of murders this year.
What’s also interesting is if you visit the school’s web-site two kids apparently got academic scholarships to Northern Illinois University despite the claim in this article that nobody there can read or write at grade level.
The scholarship award process used by Northern Illinois University most likely serves as an example of DEI in action.
Yeah but they feel good about themselves. And to a leftist, that's all that matters.
Clearly it’s the students. Go with all administrators and the problem goes away.
Pro tip: It's the students.
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