- Chicago's public schools on the west and south sides are struggling with enrolment that has collapsed.
- Money is only part of the problem. Though, on paper, funding follows individual students, “equity” grants from the school district mean that smaller schools do in fact still get more.
- The obvious solution is to consolidate schools—reallocating some buildings and closing others. Yet that is politically difficult.
- A new teachers’ contract is due to be negotiated next year, and teachers are likely to push for pay increases.
- Just a fifth of Chicago’s high school students are able to read and do maths at their appropriate grade level, a far lower rate than in 2019.
Chicago’s public schools are emptying. Politics makes it hard to fix
Segregation intensifies a problem schools face all over America | United States
