Chicago mayor praises school with just 2% adept readers as example of his values

Mayor Brandon Johnson celebrated Dyett High School where only 2% of tested students can read at grade level – and none can do math at grade level – as a “great example” of a schooling model the Chicago Teachers Union’s tentative contract plans to boost.

Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have a tentative agreement for a new contract, including for 50 more sustainable community schools – a model with some of the worst academic outcomes in the district.

In discussing the contract, Johnson pointed to Dyett High School as “a great example of a sustainable community school.” His reasoning? Its basketball team won the state championship last month.

But when it comes to Job No. 1, educating students? Dyett is failing. That’s not unusual because sustainable community schools produce among the worst outcomes for students in CPS.

Only 2% of students read at grade level at Dyett High School

Dyett High School is one of eight high schools among 20 sustainable community schools in CPS. Only 2% of 11th-grade students could read at grade level on the SAT in 2024. None were proficient in math.

Both the reading and math proficiency rates were about 20 percentage points lower than average proficiency rates districtwide. About 75% of Dyett’s students were chronically absent, or missed more than 10% of the school year.

Yet Dyett boasts a higher graduation rate than the CPS average with an 87% graduation rate compared to 81% districtwide.

Despite a higher than district-average graduation rate and nearly 9-in-10 students receiving a high school diploma, only 53% of students enrolled in a two- or four-year college within one year of graduation. Nearly 60% of graduates from Dyett’s class of 2022 took at least one remedial class at an Illinois community college, which are required when students have not been prepared for college-level studies.

Celebrating the hard work and athletic achievements of Dyett’s basketball team winning the 2A state championship is one thing. Celebrating Dyett as a “great example” when it is failing to prepare students for life is another.

Dyett’s struggles with academic achievement are not new. In 2015, CPS was slated to close Dyett until activists held a 34-day hunger strike to keep it open.

In 2014, the last assessment data available before the hunger strike, only 3% of 11th graders met reading standards and none met math standards on the Prairie State Achievement Examination, the assessment used at that time to determine student proficiency. That compares to a 38% reading proficiency rate and 35% math proficiency rate in CPS that same school year.

Ten years and one basketball state championship later, little has changed academically at Dyett. Students continue struggling to meet the state’s academic standards.

CTU’s contract extends a model in which only 1-in-10 or fewer students at Chicago’s sustainable community high schools can read at grade level

Supporters claim sustainable community schools extend the functioning of a school beyond the traditional realm of education. The model integrates additional student services coordinated by the school with outside organizations, such as housing or food assistance, medical or dental care, mental health services, English language or parenting classes.

CTU and the Illinois Federation of Teachers claim the model promotes improved outcomes, such as decreased absenteeism rates, increased student performance and improved school culture. With dwindling enrollment in CPS, CTU markets the expansion of sustainable community schools as an attempt at “fortifying neighborhood schools.”

But data from the Illinois State Board of Education shows CTU and IFT’s claims are wrong. The outcomes for students at these costly schools are worse than at other district schools, producing inferior academic results and greater absenteeism.

In the eight Chicago high schools using the sustainable model, proficiency is lower and absenteeism is higher than the district average. But outperforming the district average isn’t a high bar to meet when just 22% of 11th graders districtwide could read at grade level in 2024 and just 19% perform math proficiently.

Every sustainable community high school in CPS had lower reading and math proficiency than the district average for high schools.

Fewer than 1 in 10 juniors at Chicago’s sustainable community high schools could read or do math at grade level on the SAT in 2024. In two high schools, including Dyett, not a single 11th grader could perform math proficiently.

Absenteeism is significantly higher at sustainable community high schools – by 26 percentage points or more – than the district absenteeism rate. And only Dyett has a higher graduation rate than the districtwide rate, again, with only 2% of students able to read proficiently and not a single one adequate in math.

These poorer results come with a much higher price tag. Six of the community high schools spent more per student than the CPS average of $19,908 in site-level expenditures per student. At Uplift Community High School, per student spending reached nearly $50,000 in the 2023-2024 school year, nearly $30,000 more than the district average.

CTU is adding 50 more sustainable community schools despite poor results

As a result of CTU’s 2016 contract negotiations, CPS committed to creating the first 10 “sustainable community schools” in the district. Then CTU pushed to add 10 more of the schools during its strike in 2019, which forced students to miss 11 school days and resulted in a contract estimated to cost Chicago taxpayers $1.5 billion.

Now CTU’s tentative agreement with CPS includes the addition of 50 more sustainable community schools.

The expansion of community schools is part of CTU and IFT’s agenda. By creating these schools through contract negotiations, CTU, the largest local affiliate of IFT, is exerting control over the district through the collective bargaining process, binding the district to a failed model.

CTU opposes other school models, such as successful selective enrollment schools and charter schools. It succeeded in helping kill a tax credit scholarship program for 15,000 low-income kids to attend private schools.

This preference for a failed model calls into question CTU and IFT’s intent. It seems to care little about the best interests of students and just wants to add union members through a school model that costs more to produce less.

CPS is already struggling to fulfill its task to educate the children of Chicago. Instead of pushing to increase sustainable community schools and expanding the duties of Chicago schools, CPS ought to focus on its only real goal: effectively educating students so they can achieve successful futures.