Still Left Behind

On the final day of June 2009, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago published a report entitled “Still Left Behind,” which revealed a stark and disturbing reality regarding Chicago Public Schools.

The report’s key findings include:

• Nearly half of the students at nonselective-enrollment schools drop out before graduation. Additionally, more than 70 percent of remaining students at those schools fail to meet 11th-grade state standards for college preparedness. High performing students are all concentrated in magnet and selective-enrollment schools.

• The perception of improvement in the number of students meeting state standards on assessment tests reflects changes in testing made by the Illinois State Board of Education rather than improved student learning.

• To truly push improvement in the district, a more rigorous national test for student achievement must be used as the benchmark. An independent auditor must also be responsible for ensuring all reports regarding student achievement are accurate and distributed in a timely, comprehensible fashion.

• Improvement in education depends on providing quality alternatives, including expanding the number of charter and contract schools in Chicago. Those schools outperform traditional public schools and spur all Chicago public schools toward improvement.

The report’s full text can be viewed at: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/downloads/CPS.pdf.

Illinois Issues, September 2009