Illinois education improves, but not for all

Teacher shortage, racial equity, higher education remain problem areas

The City Club of Chicago panel on state education included state Rep. Will Davis, CPS chief Miguel del Valle, Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz, and moderator Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

The City Club of Chicago panel on state education included state Rep. Will Davis, CPS chief Miguel del Valle, Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz, and moderator Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

By Ted Cox

Illinois schools are definitely on the rise, but not at the same rate for everyone, according to an annual report on “The State We’re In.”

The nonprofit statewide education advocacy group Advance Illinois released its fifth annual report on Illinois schooling Tuesday. It was the focal point of a panel addressing the City Club of Chicago, with Advance Illinois President Robin Steans acting as moderator. The panel included state Rep. Will Davis of Hazel Crest, Deputy Gov. Jesse Ruiz, former head of Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois State Board of Education, and current CPS head Miguel del Valle.

All applauded increased school funding for K-12 education under the evidence-based-funding formula approved two years ago by the General Assembly. Steans pointed out it raised Illinois’s ranking among states in funding per pupil from from 45th in 2007 to 29th in 2017, and when other local funding is added in Illinois moved up to 24th. She added, however, that with the nation’s fifth-largest state economy Illinois could readily be doing better.

Illinois schools also made gains academically, Steans added, but even as they improved African-American and Latino students continued to place below grade level.

“Our quality of education has improved,” del Valle said. “The message there should be clear to everyone. All children can learn.” But he called for additional efforts to make sure all racial groups benefited.

“We’ve really closed gaps in graduation rates” from high school, Steans said, but that hadn’t carried over to college.

“The gap’s pretty serious there,” Steans said. “So we’re leaving far too many of our students behind.”

The report cited that Illinois spending on higher education went from 19th in the nation in 2007 to 45th a decade later. “We’ve got a ways to get back,” Ruiz said, from the damage done to the state’s public universities during former Gov. Rauner’s two-year budget impasse with the General Assembly, when college funding was slashed if not cut entirely to state schools.

“That creates affordability issues,” Steans said, and that was showing up in college enrollment. Enrollment fell 13.5 percent at state public institutions of higher learning just from 2013 to 2017, and African-American enrollment plummeted 25.9 percent

del Valle pointed out that the state had not only increased its high-school graduation rate, but the ratings for students on college readiness as well, and he mentioned improvements like expanded advanced-placement courses at many schools, and the increasingly widespread International Baccalaureate program in CPS. But that wasn’t translating into completing a college degree. He cited “a significant drop” from the 85 percent graduation rate for high school to less than 50 percent for a college degree.

The state’s stated goal is for 60 percent of all students to earn a college degree by 2025, the better for the Illinois workforce as well as their own employment and earning potential.

“We need to do more to look at the career-readiness part,” he said, as well as looking into whether student debt contributed to college students dropping out.

“The affordability issue is acute in Illinois,” the report stated.

At the other end of the education pipeline, early childhood education was also a top priority, but the panel placed its confidence there in Gov. Pritzker.

“The governor is a big early childhood guy,” Steans said.

Ruiz, whose portfolio as deputy governor includes education, endorsed that as an area for improvement, but he also mentioned the “teacher shortage” and equity issues, which sometimes dovetail.

“We have a very significant teacher shortage,” Steans said, especially in special education and bilingual education. The report cited statistics showing that 83 percent of Illinois teachers are white, and 76 percent are women. African-Americans make up 17 percent of Illinois students, but just 6 percent of teachers. The gap is widening for Latinos, who make up 26 percent of state students, but the same 6 percent of teachers.

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“We have a very significant teacher shortage.”

Advance Illinois President Robin Steans (One Illinois/Ted Cox)

Ruiz mentioned improving the “teacher pipeline.” Up to 2010, the report added, Illinois was considered a teacher export state, supplying not only its own new teachers but those for other states. But the number of teachers graduating from Illinois colleges was more than cut in half from 10,226 in 2007 to 4,889 in 2017. According to the report, 40 percent of teacher vacancies were in CPS.

The report placed Illinois 31st in the nation on education equity issues. “That’s where I think we have the most room for growth,” Steans said.

According to the report, about 12 percent of Illinois students are learning English as a second language, and half are from low-income households. In fact, over the last decade, the number of school districts with more than 35 percent of students living in poverty rose from 306 to 554.

Davis said he wanted to see not a “level playing field,” because that implies bringing some high-achieving school districts down, but an effort to “lift everybody up.”

All agreed schools need to do more to fund positions for nurses and social workers, but they appreciated that — even with the increased state contribution — schools were still struggling just to reach adequate funding. According to the report, the number of districts statewide that were below 60 percent of adequate funding dropped from 168 in 2017 to 80 last year and just 34 this year, but almost 400 of the state’s 852 districts remain funded at under 70 percent of what’s considered adequate. That included CPS, which came in at 67 percent of adequate funding.

Ruiz said he wanted to see the state retain more of its seniors graduating from high school — and many state universities posted gains on that just this fall. Davis echoed that, saying, “We do a terrible job or recruiting our own students,” but he meant that literally, calling on state universities to recruit more of the promising athletes coming out of Illinois.

No doubt Illinois coaches Lovie Smith and Brad Underwood would love to comply.