From Wirepoints comes this takedown of Governor JB Pritzker’s bragging about how well education is doing in Illinolis:
By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
We’ve been asked by many readers for the real truth about Illinois’ K-12 reading and math results.
Some of them are trying to square up our recent negative piece on the newest national math and reading scores with the positive messaging they are seeing elsewhere, like the Chicago Tribune headline that says “Illinois’ eighth graders outperform peers in all but one state in national math and reading test.” Or Gov. Pritzker’s official comments, where he says the 8th-grade scores are “a testament to the great strides Illinois students are making academically.”
To help our readers, we lay out more of the National Assessment of Educational Progress data below, comparing the national reading and math averages with Illinois’ results. The NAEP tests are given to children across the country every two years. It’s the best apples-to-apples test for comparing education results across states.
Here are the major takeaways:
- The national results are dismal…so Illinois’ results would have to be a lot better to elicit praise. (They’re not.)
- Illinois’ slightly better 8th-grade scores compared to the national average mean little. Most Illinois kids couldn’t read or do math proficiently before 2024, and the results are pretty much the same today.
- Pritzker, et.al. are bragging about Illinois’ 8th-grade math results. When you look at the outright proficiency levels and compare them to Illinois’ 4th-grade results, you’ll see how little sense that makes.
1. Dismal national results. Just 27% of all 8th-grade kids nationwide were proficient in math on the 2024 NAEP test. In reading, it was just 29%. Said the other way, more than 70% of America’s children aren’t proficient in reading or math.
It’s an even worse tragedy when you look at the 8th-grade minority scores. Only 10% proficiency in math for all black students nationwide. Just 15% proficiency for Hispanics.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in their assessment of the NAEP scores, reading nationally is at near-30-year lows and math is on the decline. So the governor and other education officials should be embarrassed to compare Illinois to the national data unless Illinois students massively overperform. As you’ll see in the next section, they don’t.
And in case you were wondering, the state with the highest 8th-grade math scores in 2024 was Massachusetts…with 37% proficiency. Massachusetts also had the top reading proficiency too, of just 40%.
America is in deep trouble if that’s the very best our students can do.
2. Illinois results are dismal, too. Now check out Illinois’ reading and math results. They’re a mixed bag when you compare them to the national proficiency levels in the previous section.
In 4th-grade reading proficiency, Illinois does the same as the national average – 30%. In 8th-grade, Illinois does four points better overall, but that’s not exciting when only 33% of Illinois students are proficient.
The story is similar for math. About the same overall in 4th grade, and Illinois does five points better than the national results in the 8th grade. Better, but not praiseworthy.
And did Pritzker not see the scores for Illinois’ 4th and 8th grade black students? Just 18% and 16% reading proficiency. For Hispanics, just 21% and 24%.
The state’s education system certainly doesn’t deserve kudos for results like that. Not when taxpayers are paying more than $24,000 per student statewide.
3. Illinois’ 8th-grade math scores are far lower than its 4th-grade scores. Now look at the 2024 8th-grade math scores that Pritzker and others are bragging about and compare them to Illinois’ 4th-grade results.
The drop off between the two grades should be worrisome, especially given the outright levels of proficiency for blacks and Hispanics..
All students…down 6 points.
White students…down 9 points.
Black students…down 9 points – to 9%!
Hispanics down 2 points – to 18%!
For sure there’s a whole discussion about covid and its disparate impacts on last year’s 4th graders vs last year’s 8th graders. But there’s no reason to cheer when student results are that dismal.
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At Wirepoints, we’d celebrate student improvement if there was any level of honesty from politicians and the media about Illinois’ educational failures and challenges.
But it’s impossible to be positive when there’s no real acknowledgement of how deep the problems are; when there’s zero sense of accountability, especially considering how high property taxes are; and when the teachers unions have all the power, and everyday Illinoisans have none.
If there was any acknowledgement, you’d hear the governor and his Democratic supermajorities call for a drop in all the DEI and CRT distractions that take away from literacy and numeracy. They’d call for a halt in spending more money, acknowledging that taxpayers are overspending by the billions only to get abysmal results. They’d also strip back teacher union powers and give parents more voice – with school choice.
But those politicians haven’t made any such acknowledgments and they won’t.
Instead, the governor and his allies talk of “great strides” and “growing academics,” fooling the people, especially the most vulnerable. The media follows along, too. Obediently. Lawmakers have also given unions more powers and killed school choice.
We’ll end this with one graphic that captures just how bastardized education in Illinois has become. Chicago Public Schools is the example, but it’s pretty much the same story across the state. More and more money for increasingly bad results. Our politicians get away with this because we let them.
