What You Need to Know About the Failing Chicago Public Schools

In major cities across America, public school students are entering their adult years far behind the curve. But nowhere is the crumbling of a major public school system more evident than in the city of Chicago.

Recently, one school's prom slogan showed in just four words how far Chicago Public Schools has fallen. That Spring, just like high schoolers at schools across America, students at Paul Robeson High School planned their prom festivities. They picked dresses, tuxes, corsages and boutonnieres. 

Signs of a Bad Public School System
But before all of that, they picked a theme: "This Is Are Story." It's an error, and an obvious one -- but it's no laughing matter. It's just the latest sign of how badly Chicago's public schools are failing the city's students. 

Consider this:

• Four out of 10 CPS freshmen don't graduate.
• 91 percent of CPS graduates must take remedial courses in college because they do not know how to do basic math and other schoolwork.
• Only 26 percent of CPS high school students are college-ready, according to results from ACT subject-matter tests.

Youngsters not Prepared for Graduation

In reference to the youngsters that do graduate, the requirements are not rigorous at all. In fact, students can fail one of four core classes (English, mathematics, science, and social sciences) each year and still advance to the next grade level. They also only have to garner just a D in each class they take to earn the 24 credit hours they need to graduate.

It is important to remember what a graduation rate doesn’t tell us -- namely, how prepared the graduating students are for college. On that front the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union is failing miserably.

According to a recent report, 45 percent of CPS graduates begin their senior year not doing well enough academically to attend a four year college. In the fall after graduation, the most common outcome for these students was to be neither working nor in school. Education should be the great equalizer; but in Chicago, public education is more of a holding cell than a launch pad.

Black Youngsters Used as Pawns
The prom slogan mentioned above is especially sad when you consider which school it comes from: Paul Robeson High School is located in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago -- one of the poorest, most violent neighborhoods in the city. There have been 156 murders in Englewood since 2007. The average per capita income is $12,255, and 23.6 percent of residents are unemployed.

And as things stand, Paul Robeson students have little reason to hope for change. They are some of the same students who, as underclassmen in September 2012, were used as pawns by the Chicago Teachers Union during a week long strike.

During this teacher contract battle, the CTU and it's members walked out on about 400,000 students at 675 schools. For that week, students and their families were left scrambling -- for daycare, for meals, for a safe place to spend the days or trying to get off work so students weren't unattended. Not to mention, they weren't learning.

This fight wasn't waged over students; it was a power struggle about how much grown-ups get paid. Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and other union leaders waged a war that locked students out of classrooms over pay increases and refusal to implement a more rigorous teacher evaluation processes.

I will talk about this recent CTU strike in my next post.

What do you think about this situation. Leave your thoughts below.