Roughly 40% of public school students in Chicago are chronically absent, commonly defined as missing at least 10% of days in a given school year, and the vast majority of the students actually showing up to class lack proficiency in math and reading. Amid these conditions, CPS asked federal agencies for funds to increase students’ “literacy for environmental justice” and to improve “mental health equity” for racial minority and “LGBTQ+” pupils, according to government spending records.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded over $400,000 to CPS in August after the district requested funds to help improve the health of its “LGBTQ+” and newcomer students, according to government spending records. The six-figure grant will help address the issues that arise from higher rates of risky sexual behavior, drug usage and worse mental health statuses among LGBT students.
Even as the proportion of chronically absent students remains high, and as test scores remain low, CPS boasts a graduation rate of 83%. The Illinois Policy Institute, a right-of-center think tank, has accused CPS of “promoting students who haven’t mastered critical skills” and argued that doing so “is unfair to those students and sets them up for frustration later in life.”
Another grant appeal CPS made to HHS cites the disproportionately poor health outcomes of black and “Latinx” students to request resources to fund “training for [a] mental health equity” program that “links mental health awareness with a foundational understanding of bias-based harm,” records show. The grant, worth nearly a half million dollars and awarded to the district in August, will train school administrators to improve their proficiency in “recognizing, preventing, responding to and transforming incidents of bias and discrimination.”
As of 2023, over 80% of CPS students between third and eighth grade failed to meet grade-level standards for math with roughly three-quarters failing to meet the standards for reading, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. While students struggle with basic literacy in Chicago, the school board has appealed to the federal government to foster “literacy for environmental justice” among students, according to federal records.
The Department of Commerce (DOC) approved a $75,000 grant proposal from CPS to prepare students for “success in civic life” by teaching them to investigate and understand “scientific solutions which build resilience to extreme weather and climate change,” according to federal spending records.
As CPS requested financial assistance to fund environmental and racial justice, the district faced a half-billion-dollar deficit coming into this school year, The Washington Post reported. The financial shortfall was the product of CPS’ refusal to make spending cuts as the district’s $2.8 billion in COVID-19 relief funding dries up. Even as the district faces an uncertain financial future, the local teachers’ union is pushing for more hiring and increased pay.
“This is what it looks like when you burn a district down,” Georgetown University education professor Marguerite Roza told The Post. “It is a level of dysfunction that feels beyond destabilizing, enough to make people lose confidence in the system.”
Amid the failure to resolve the budgetary tension with the mayor, every member of Chicago’s school board resigned in October.
CPS, DOC and HHS did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/FOX 32 Chicago)
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