Ahead of the Chicago mayoral election, I warned Brandon Johnson was 100% beholden to the teacher’s union. Unfortunately, I was correct.
“Equity” Reimagined
Please consider a case of “Equity” Reimagined in the Windy City
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson’s December 14 decision to eliminate the city’s 11 selective public high schools, which use standardized tests to determine student admissions, is the latest example of this new notion of equity at play.
The Windy City’s selective public high schools are among the star institutions of the American education system. U.S. News & World Report ranks Walter Payton College Preparatory High School, for example, not only as the top public high school in Chicago and the top high school in Illinois, but also as the tenth-best school in the nation. Northside College Preparatory High School, Jones College Preparatory High School, Young Magnet High School, and Lane Technical High School all follow close behind.
Under the Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) school-choice system, eighth-graders can apply for admission to any of the city’s public high schools, as opposed to having to enroll in their neighborhood school. Students can rank up to six selective-enrollment schools and 20 other choices. The first 30 percent of seats at the selective public high schools go to the city’s top-scoring students, while the remaining 70 percent get divided among four socioeconomic tiers. In this second round, offers of admission go to the top-scoring students within each tier. As a result of CPS’s school-choice system, 76 percent of students attend a high school that is not located in their neighborhood, with many vying for a spot at one of the city’s 11 selective-enrollment schools.
Mayor Johnson, CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, and the Chicago Teachers Union, of which the mayor used to be a member and a labor organizer (and which donated over $2.3 million to his campaign fund), blame the school-choice system for the “long-standing challenges and opportunity gaps” that afflict Chicago’s “Black and Latinx students” in particular. “This is the foundation,” a recent CPS Board of Education resolution stated, “upon which our current school choice system was built—an under-resourced system that has pitted schools against each other and has had the effect of sorting students based on performance outcomes and selective admissions criteria, which ultimately reinforces, rather than disrupts, cycles of inequity.” Johnson and his colleagues plan to eliminate CPS’s school-choice system—including the selective public high schools—within the next five years, at which point students will be required to enroll in their neighborhood schools.
Consider Brooks College Preparatory Academy. At this selective public high school in Chicago, 79.3 percent of students are black, and 46.6 percent of students are Hispanic. Of Brooks’s black students, 60.7 percent are proficient in English Language Arts (ELA), 46.5 percent are proficient in math, and 80.9 percent are proficient in science. For black students in the district at large, these numbers are 16.5 percent, 8.1 percent, and 24.4 percent, respectively. And while 71.7 percent of Brooks’s Hispanic students are proficient in ELA, 56.7 percent are proficient in math, and 82.1 percent are proficient in science, for the district, those numbers are 21.2 percent, 13.6 percent, and 35.6 percent, respectively.
The student body of Walter Payton College Preparatory High School is only 9 percent black and 24.4 percent Hispanic, but—contrary to what CPS officials contend—that hasn’t kept these minority students from thriving, particularly when compared with peers at regular district schools. At Payton, 51.7 percent of black students are proficient in ELA; 48.3 percent are proficient in math; and 76 percent are proficient in science. For the school’s Hispanic students, these numbers are 81.7 percent, 73.2 percent, and 90.8 percent, respectively. Chicago’s other selective public high schools tell a similar story.
Mediocrity, not excellence, perpetuates gaps in educational outcomes for marginalized students; lowered standards rob the gifted and the driven of opportunities to succeed. If Johnson follows through with his plans, Chicago’s underprivileged youth will pay the highest price.
What Equity in Chicago Means
- More money will be siphoned off for a corrupt teachers union who clearly don’t give a damn about the kids.
- Taxes will go up to support teachers who cannot teach.
- It won’t be mediocre results as the article proclaims. Rather it will be piss poor performance all around.
In the name of “equity” no student will have a good chance get ahead.
Lori Lightfoot Asks Teachers to Encourage Students to Help Her Win Reelection
On January 13, ahead of the election, then mayor Lori Lightfoot Asks Teachers to Encourage Students to Help Her Win Reelection
Loti Lightfoot was caught offering an “externship program” in which students could earn “class credit” for helping to get her reelected in a 9 person race. It was my hoot of the day.
Hoot of the Day
Lightfoot ran for mayor in 2019 on a platform promising to root out corruption at City Hall and toughen the city’s ethics regulations in an attempt to break the grip of the city’s “corrupt political machine.”
Lightfoot should be locked up, but won’t be. Nonetheless, you can kiss her goodbye. It’s a 9-person race and she will not be one of the final two.
But don’t expect anything in Chicago to improve, because it won’t. I suspect many of the other candidates are even worse. One is from the teacher’s union, guaranteed to be no improvement.
I apologize. I should have said “guaranteed to be worse“.
The mayoral winner, Brandon Johnson, was a “legislative coordinator” for CTU. He was hand-picked by the union to run for mayor.
After the election, one of my readers commented “Mish, After the results of Chicago’s mayoral race, you must be relieved that you don’t live in Illinois any more. The voters of Chicago have just proven that a bad situation can always get worse.“
Indeed.
Meanwhile, this is what the union leaders are doing.
- CTU President Stacy Davis Gates picked a parochial high school for her own son so he could pursue athletics and academics unavailable at his public school.
- Illinois Education Association chief lobbyist Sean Denney failed to shackle private schools with the same statewide pandemic mandates public schools followed, yet sends his children to a parochial school in Springfield.
Paid by the Union While Campaigning
The Illinois Policy Institute comments on CTU Funding for Johnson.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was questioned during his campaign about whether he would be able to separate himself as mayor from his then-employer, the Chicago Teachers Union. He never answered the question.
Records filed by CTU in October with the U.S. Department of Labor show the union paid Johnson $75,014 during its fiscal year, which did not end until June 30, 2023. Johnson announced his bid for mayor on Oct. 27, 2022.
Unless he was paid his entire salary of $75,000 from July 1 through Oct. 31 – at more than $18,500 a month – CTU continued to pay him while he was busy campaigning.
Being paid by a special interest group with something to gain by his election – coupled with his failure to explicitly distance himself from CTU – doesn’t bode well for Chicagoans.
Now he will be sitting across the table from his former CTU colleagues when they negotiate a new contract in 2024. Elected leaders should represent taxpayers and be a neutral arbiter of what’s fair. But the tight relationship between Johnson and the CTU effectively places CTU on both sides of the bargaining table.
Then within the first month of his inauguration, Johnson expanded the current parental leave policy for Chicago Public Schools teachers to up to 12 weeks when it had been from six to eight weeks. That expansion, which did not go through the typical bargaining process, was announced in a joint statement by the city and CTU.
I Despise the Teachers’ Unions
I absolutely despise Teachers’ Unions, especially in Illinois. They hold kids hostage for unjustified wages and benefits and the union protects incompetent teachers, even child molesters.
Chicago Teachers’ Union President Stacy Davis Gates will not send her own kid to public schools. Nor will Illinois Education Association chief lobbyist Sean Denney.
Letter by Franklin D. Roosevelt on Public Unions
Please consider a few key snips from FDR’s Letter on the Resolution of Federation of Federal Employees Against Strikes in Federal Service, August 16, 1937, emphasis mine.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable. It is, therefore, with a feeling of gratification that I have noted in the constitution of the National Federation of Federal Employees the provision that “under no circumstances shall this Federation engage in or support strikes against the United States Government.”
Not Just Chicago
On November 13, I noted School Choice Dies in Illinois, Congratulations Teachers as 35% Read at Grade Level
Scores for public schools were just released and showed only 35% of students in grades 3 through 8 could read at grade level in 2023, according to the Illinois Report Card. Only 27% met proficiency in math.
High school juniors taking the SAT posted similar proficiency: 32% could read and 27% do math at grade level.
What Equity is Really About
Also in the name of “equity”, the teacher’s union and Gov. J.B. Pritzker killed scholarships for 9,600 poor children.
That’s how deep rot is in Illinois. Offering a chance for even 9,600 kids to get ahead is too much for the unions to handle.
The teachers’ unions do not want anyone to get ahead because it will show just how bad they are. But they cannot admit that. So they seek to eliminate any evidence of how bad they are by eliminating magnet schools and scholarships.
That’s what’s really going on. And they hide behind “equity” punishing innocent kids seeking to get ahead to hide their own incompetence and greed.
Congratulations to Everyone from Illinois Who Left
On December 21, I offered Congratulations to Everyone from Illinois Who Left
For the 10th consecutive year, Illinois lost population. Only West Virginia was worse.
Expecting Change is Madness
Anyone who thinks Illinois will change is delusional.
The only escape from Illinois madness is by leaving Illinois. Just don’t go to states equally bad if not worse, especially California, but also New York and New Jersey.
Do It For the Kids
Get the hell out of Illinois, especially Chicago, as soon as you can.
As the teachers say, do it for the kids. Except this time, it really will be for the kids (and yourself too). Illinois is madness from both a tax and education standpoint.
Totally corrupt unions run Chicago and the whole damn state. No change is in sight. Leave now. If for no other reason, do it for the kids.
Correction
I used the word “close” in my original title. The schools will remain open, but in the name of equity, the admissions process will be changed. Standardized tests are out. These schools won’t be closed, but they will be ruined.
So typical. Lower the bar of excellence. Don’t encourage better learning curriculum. Instead, lazily make excuses for the education system and lowered standards. Yeah,…this won’t be a problem for our society… /s
chicago – city bankrupt, CUSD – even more broke
It will just speed up exodus of smart kids
they’ll home school and move to places were SMART still means something
my guess is jabril will still be able break down and 8 ball
Rush hour, they put the slowest cars in front. Indianapolis 500, they put the fastest cars in front. It reduces the number of crack ups.
Chicago has a reputation for corruption, and here is evidence of it. The teachers are the epitome of corruption in Chicago. How do they justify their performance to the public?
¿ Has the public fallen to the pre-freemarket level of thinking that the only way to get ahead is by taking from others?
In third-world nation examples such as Nicaragua and Venezuela, there are no free and fair elections. Despite laws that hinder the dead from voting and election workers from stuffing ballot boxes, has Chicago gotten that bad?
Will we see similar to third-world levels of migration out Chicago to seek a better life?
— I recently read a book review that immigrants bring with them some of their culture. Will so many people migrating away from economic ruin bring the ideas of economic ruin with them? Is there a Marxist inevitable law of history that free-market prosperity will be destroyed by people wanting to take instead of contribute?
The majority of the citizens of Illinois are no different from people everywhere and are the example of where society is headed. They keep voting for people who are lowering societal standards and don’t see cause and effect. Unfortunately, there is no solution for this and the decline will continue. People like their enslavement.
I think it would be safe to say, that most Democrat Cities are beholden to the Teachers Unions. You can certainly toss in some Republican Cities as well. Power and Money corrupt in many cases, and many say it occurs in Chicago for certain. I can’t say that I disagree with that theory.
It would appear to me, that Johnson has not a clue what “Equity” means. Quickly it’s “The Quality of Being Just and Fair” Correct, there is absolutely nothing about outcome in the quote, meaning of, or intention of, in the quote. I am not sure about reimagined, but he certainly imagined something others apparently don’t see or imagine.
So by closing down the “Best” Schools, and leaving open the “Worst” Schools, Johnson is creating the quality of Fairness? Sounds Unfair to me, when you take away the Best option, and force only a lesser option in its place. I also wouldn’t consider that a Just outcome either. That would however Fit the familiar theory we all know and have heard about.
The real and true best option for the Children, Parents, Community and Educational System, is obviously and proven “School Choice” It is my understanding that Johnson and his colleagues are looking to also Eliminate this option, by doing away with the CPS’s School Choice Plan.
The Public School Choice System is a mess. The grades are horrendous and nothing changes because of them all getting a big as# bite, from the same big as# Apple (No pun to NYC but…).
This is Chicago, and has been Chicago, and will continue to remain the same Chicago, until the majority of people of Chicago demand and force change. It’s really that simple.
I absolutely love the reference to Roosevelts Letter, which is Priceless!!!
Harrison Bergeron, by Kurt Vonnegut, 1961.
In the year 2081, the Constitution dictates that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General’s agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear “handicaps“: masks for those who are too beautiful, earpiece radios for the intelligent that broadcast loud noises meant to disrupt thoughts, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.
It was not intended as an instruction manual, but neither was 1984.
Chicago, which was already degentrifying, will degentrify much faster if people have to send their kids to the local high school. That was one of the reasons we left 10+ years ago. Our kids were going into high school in the near future and we did not want to deal with the system. Though if we did, we would have applied to one of the good schools they are apparently shutting which is inasne. Also, if you want to send your kids out in Chicago it means you are going out. With our 5 acres in Minnesota if the kids want to go out you just say ok see you later
A friend of ours was the head of Math at Walter Payton. I will have to ask him what he thinks.
Lots of people will simply leave the city. Already the traders are gone as there is no floor trading left.
Cities like everything else go in cycles. Chicago is headed back down.
Idiots like Brandon Johnson are doing their best to make the movie Idiocracy become reality. When I ran my local little league I recommended a couple of really good charter schools in my local Los Angeles area to my players parents. The public schools suck bad in the inner city here. My home schooled daughter, now a Fed lawyer, went to Santa Monica community college initially with a bunch of graduates from city honors high. All dropped out. Not a single one could hack community college.
One can see the connection between Mayor Johnson and the Teachers Union. The media seem to avoid the connections of Johnson, Kim Foxx, Sheriff Dart and Chief Judge of Cook County Tim Evans. They all lead to one person: Toni Preckwinkle.
I talked to a staunch liberal about this situation. Their answer was tutors after school. Ok. Who is going to pay for the tutors. And who are these pious tutors going into rough neighborhoods in the evening?
She didn’t want to answer these questions because she knows these are ignorant retarded answers that have zero chance of success and the conversation ended.
There is only one solution and it involves parents. Not single mom’s and dad’s either. Parents raising their children and making sure they do their homework, making sure they understand the homework and focusing on things the child struggles with.
Not much of that going on in inner cities.
I agree that tutors after school is an excellent idea. Pay for this with all the welfare money dished out for doing nothing. The tutors will be other students that excel in the subject they are tutoring. NO CPS teacher is allowed to tutor. You can’t expect these kids to stay out of the welfare system if they can’t read and/or write. Stop ALL welfare programs except SNAP and WIC. SNAP, WIC, Medicaid, etc. should only be allowed for 2 years PER person LIFETIME. Some children want to learn but fall behind. I see regular postings on Next Door Neighbor looking for tutors for their children. These postings are from parents living in the suburbs.
Yeah, you DO realize that between 20% and 30% of children are part of Single Family homes depending on the area…RIGHT?!?!?
So between one-quarter and almost one third of kids are going to be dealing with a situation that you pretend isn’t an option / solution. As a result, your “one solution” is NO solution for between a quarter and one-third of all kids.
There is NO silver bullet…nor is YOUR solution (which you don’t even specify WHAT parents do other than “make sure they do homework / understand homework”)…not much of a plan…and not a good solution for many people.
Clearly you don’t have an Education background…nor much of an understanding of how society works outside of your little bubble.
I’ve launched Tutoring Companies (in the past)…I know how effective before or after-school Tutoring is for students of ALL ages, yes even University Level and the same goes for After-School learning / skills based activities for students, that don’t involve Class Tutoring have an impact on students / kids. This goes for students and kids WITH Two Parents and single parent households as well.
Harrison Bergeron by Vonnegut was prophetic
So was ‘Idiocracy’, the movie.
True school choice could solve so much of this. Parents could focus on what their child needs. Folks who want to focus on drag queens and porn in the library could get it. Folks who want to focus on STEM, english, and civics could get it. Folks whose children are more arts focused could get it. There could have been a Harvey Milk school a decade earlier at a fraction of the cost (and if not, then shame on the LGBTQIA++2SQ… community for not helping support one). School choice could get the angry parents out of the school board meetings and instead volunteering at a school that focuses where they want. But the unions hate anything that helps students and parents … and diminshes union power.
“High school juniors taking the SAT posted similar proficiency: 32% could read and 27% do math at grade level.”
They are getting closer to equity. When none are proficient, they will have achieved it.
So they want to promote charters and home schooling. They are stark raving nuts.
This is all intentional. An attach from outside the country? Whatever. To me it is evil.
It’s the Zimbabwification of Illinois.
As the woke left caters to the lowest common denominators and the degenerate fringe, expect living standards to drop. These knuckleheads are kneecapping the talented and special in the name of social justice. We stand on the shoulders of giants but the left wants to chop the giants down to size. There’s no fixing stupid.
It’s a Brave New World. This is how you maintain an underclass. Legalizing drugs keeps the underclass occupied.
This same struggle is ongoing in New York, Boston and San Francisco (to name a few). Lowell High School’s status in San Francisco was restored when (mostly Asian) voters tossed out several school board members. But Diversity still is making claims on that school, and Lowell’s status is still in doubt. Unless your city has Asians in large numbers, the future of your elite high schools is not good. And the brain drain will continue.
Proficiency in American public school system doesn’t imply world-beating proficiency.
Particularly Asian students have a vacation time in the system, until they are moved to some private school.
When the reserve currency status is over, you know the song.
Hi Mish. What gives this weekend in the Chicago ‘burbs? Peotone, Tinley Park, New Lennox, Lockport, Lemont, Aurora, Kankakee and others?
The busses from Texas are dropping off the migrants/illegals in all these towns and then advising them how to get to Chicago from their drop off location.
If 79.3 percent of students at Brooks College Prep are black and 46.6 percent of students are hispanic, what percent of students are black and hispanic?
Yeah I noticed that. Sort of like being half Italian, half Irish, and a quarter english. I was playing w/the numbers to see if I could figure out where the mistake was … then figured Mish would fix it somewhere along the line.
Multi-Racial…it happens. Get out of your suburb and explore the world.
What happens when you eliminate academic programs for high achievers? The parents with the money and/or motivation to leave will leave the public school system. This serves to weaken public schools further which “ultimately reinforces, rather than disrupts cycles of inequity”
As has been remarked, by W. Churchill I think, among others, as the talented flee the city of Chicago the remainder of its population becomes more equal, more equally impoverished and miserable!
There is the challenge for leftists, to show that their system enables people to excel and prosper. (I strongly doubt they can show it.)
The main problem with minorities underperforming is because of their domestic situation. Education is not valued or promoted at home, most of the families are single parent. If you pay someone to reproduce and not work this is the result. Same situation in Detroit. Throwing money at something like this will not fix it. The experiment in the Baltimore school district proved that. I believe hundreds of millions were donated by a group of wealthy donors during the Obama administration and the fanfare when it was rolled out said it would be a shining example of what proper funding could do. It was a collosal fail. The test scores went down after all was said and done.
No amount of education can overcome genetics.
I don’t think it’s genetics. I think it is far more nurture than nature.
Agreed, a kid with a 90 IQ who puts in the hours to learn a subject can perform as well as the 120 IQ kid who needs to spend only minutes. The problem is in certain areas few kids of either IQ even puts in even a minute to study so they both graduate as dumbarses.
No amount of genetics can overcome foolish stupidity Comrade.
Read-“The Bell Curve”.
I’m a HS math teacher in GA, and everything you say is legit. The people of Chicago voted for Johnson, so it’s time to pay the piper, but it would be interesting to know how the parents of these great schools voted.
Illinois ranks in the Top 20 in National Math Scores in the US.
Georgia ranks in the Bottom 40% of the US on Math Scores…basically nobody in the South should mention anything about Education until they pull their states out of the educational gutter.
Fortunately for Georgia they’re surrounded by some of the LEAST well educated states in the country…so they look like “Math Beauty Queens” compared to Alabama, Mississippi, etc.
So you may be a Modern Day Carl Freidrich Gauss…but your compadres in GA are dragging in the bottom two quintiles.
Selective public schools were the best use of taxpayer’s money. Students actually learned and could then escape poverty. Chicago Teacher’s Union is a fox guarding the hen house.
Have you done an analysis of the Illinois pension system and bankruptcy?
I am retired from CPS. I watch my pension fund. It will all blow up some day. Hope I’m not here when it does.
Nothing in public education changes as long as teachers unions control the schools. They must be crushed. Public education is essentially institutionalized child abuse. Can it be reformed long term? Possible, but a heavy lift. Saving children now can only be accomplished by leaving the corrupt Marxist education system. Separation of School and State!
Just leave the country…we’ll ALL be better off. Hungary needs more angry people.
The folks in Chicago deserve what they vote for.
Yes, perhaps
But the kids sure don’t
They are innocent victims
Agreed. And nobody is asking these kids what they want.
Since when has Chicago had a fair election?
“Chicago ain’t ready for a reform mayor.” – Paddy Bauler ,1955
as quoted by By Edward McClelland
January 13, 2020
And it’s only going to get worse. Enrollment in CPS is drastically down. Rahm Emanuel closed 50 schools and everyone was in an uproar. Brandon Johnson will probably have to close another 50 to 100 schools during his time as mayor as the funds will dry up. The Teachers union will be in an uproar.
Treason!