The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Chicago Public Schools enrollment is down for the 10th consecutive year as the district grapples with the effects of the pandemic, and the new CEO tasked with leading the system through the turmoil says he’s prepared for difficult conversations about under-enrolled schools.
It's that bad:
Pedro Martinez, on his third day as the schools chief in the city where he grew up, said one of his priorities will be to address budget and enrollment shortcomings that have caused a vicious spiral of underfunded schools to lose students and subsequently lose more money, teachers and programs.
The numbers are rather shocking:
Martinez said preliminary data shows 327,000 students enrolled at CPS this year, about 14,000 fewer than last year and nearly 30,000 less than the year before the pandemic. The district has not yet released official enrollment figures. Martinez said those would come out soon.
Are taxpayers spending enough on Chicago government schools?
Martinez said he doesn’t believe the district has enough money to sustain underutilized schools. By state officials’ accounts, CPS is only funded at about two-thirds adequacy. It would need about $2 billion more per year, on top of its about $7-8 billion annual budget, to fully fund all its schools and programs. And while the federal government gave CPS $1.9 billion in pandemic relief money to be used over the course of three years, there are no indications that kind of funding will find its way to the district on a more permanent basis.
Parents say no to John Dewey illiteracy factories.
