How is American education going? In at least one blue midwestern state, not well.
Nonprofit research organization Wirepoint has looked into Illinois public schools, and their performance deserves less than an “A+.” Among more than 30 institutions of learning, zero students can read at their respective grade levels.
As for math, across 53 schools, no students are proficient.
The bulk of those underperforming campuses — twenty-two in the case of reading and thirty-three in the case of math — sit within the City of Chicago School District — where taxpayers annually spend between $5,929 and $56,311 per student.
Statewide, Wirepoint’s not impressed:
The absolute failure to teach even a single child to read and do math in so many schools is yet another indictment of the state’s educational system.
But should students be mastering such subjects in the first place? Many — in academia, even — may think not:
Department of Education Fights the White Supremacy of Math
Major University Professor Fights Math’s ‘Harbor for Whiteness’
Math Professor Says Math Education Is Racist — and Sexist and Homophobic
School District Hosts Year-Long Anti-Whiteness Training to Fight ‘Curricular Violence’ in Math
Additionally, it’s an era of evolving expectations:
University Professor Goes the Route of ‘Ungrading’ — in Math
Professor Razes the Evil of Writing Rules, Whacks White Supremacy by Gonging Grades
Arizona State University Dean Pens 350+ Page Book on How Grading Writing Is White Supremacy
In Order to Attack ‘Systemic Racism,’ a School Eliminates Failure and Time Constraints
These days, schools seem to believe they have more important things than academics to offer; social ideology has taken center stage. Educational institutions appear to have appointed themselves knights in the battle against phobias, the KKK, and the patriarchy. Perhaps loss in old-fashioned areas is calculated collateral damage. Apropos of adaptive prioritization, Wirepoint had harsh words for Illinois in June of 2022:
The data Wirepoints presents in [the] report represents an absolute dereliction of duty by those who run Illinois’ public schools. It’s not about money, it’s not about race, it’s not about curriculum and it’s not about critical race theory. It’s about a system that fails at its most basic function: to prepare Illinois children for their future.
Our assessment is harsh because student outcomes are beyond dismal and no one, it seems, takes any responsibility for them. Social promotion, hyper-inflated teacher evaluations and misleading “accountability” designations from the Illinois State Board of Education all help to deflect blame.
Will such alleged avoidance of responsibility eventually be replaced by government’s revolutionary repentance? It’s not as sure as one plus one equals two. And if America follows Chicago’s lead — which it looks to be doing in multiple ways — that comparison may in time be meaningless. So will the words that communicated it.
-ALEX
