The school-to-prison pipeline is sustained by social promotion and a lack of teacher accountability. Passing students from one grade to the next regardless of academic performance seriously damages them and, ultimately, society.
Can you imagine having an eighth grade or high school diploma and not being able to read or write or, if you’re of age, fill out a job application? That is the reality for too many young people. They have been passed through public schools by teachers who knew they could not read or write. Our taxpayer-funded public school system is failing primarily Black and brown kids. Children and young adults who cannot read or write are thrown into survival mode. Absent a skill or trade, they commit crimes to survive. They become easy prey for the streets and ultimately the prison industrial complex. Who failed these children?
The Chicago Teachers Union wants a 9% pay increase for teachers, which would boost their average salary to nearly $145,000 for the 2027-28 school year, according to the Illinois Policy Institute — with little to no accountability measures for student literacy. Local School Councils are not holding the CTU or teachers accountable for ensuring children can read and write. In fact, in 2022, more than a thousand LSC positions were unfilled, Chalkbeat reported.
Children who are deficient at reading will struggle to get a job. Low literacy has a direct correlation with higher incarceration rates, unemployment, reduced income and overall health. Our elected leaders in Springfield have been propped up by CTU political donations. Parents deserve school choice — however, don’t count on Springfield legislators to pass legislation that supports it.
Ensuring children and adults are literate is one of the greatest civil rights issues of our day. The Illinois State Board of Education in its 2024 Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan defined literacy as “the ability to read, write, identify, understand, interpret, evaluate, create, and communicate effectively by using visual, auditory, and digital materials across disciplines and contexts.” Laws in the United States at one time prohibited enslaved, and sometimes free, Black Americans from learning to read or write. The laws arose from fears of insurrection by enslaved people. Has CTU leadership become the latest anti-literacy advocate?
The Literacy Project noted that 85% of all minors who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate. The National Adult Literacy Survey reports that 70% of adults who are in prison cannot read at a fourth grade level.
Recent CPS data analyzing Illinois Assessment of Readiness testing noted 31% of elementary school students were proficient in reading and 19% in math, according to the Tribune.
The influx of migrant students has stabilized declining district enrollment. However, a report by WGN-AM 720’s Sylvia Snowden suggests that teachers have been told by district administrators to pass migrant students regardless of academic performance. This is setting migrant students up for failure and chaos in neighborhoods.
The tug-of-war that Mayor Brandon Johnson and the CTU are engaging in with CPS CEO Pedro Martinez exacerbates the crisis. Our children should not be used as pawns in a power struggle to further the CTU’s agenda of a full takeover of the school system. Johnson should have recused himself from negotiating a new contract between CPS and the CTU, his former employer. This direct conflict of interest harms taxpayers.
I support teachers and pay raises for them if they are tied to performance and accountability metrics for student learning. How can the CTU protect and expect to grow its membership if swaths of students fail to meet proficiency in reading and math? Student failure in the classroom leads to prison and chaos.
The following are suggestions to consider that would slow the school-to-prison pipeline:
- Johnson and CPS should bind teacher pay raises to students’ academic performance.
- Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon should enact legislation giving parents a choice of where to send their children to school.
- Pritzker and the Illinois legislature should enact legislation requiring graduating students to have completed a certified trade or skill.
- Johnson and Pritzker should launch a literacy initiative that features athletes, rap artists, local leaders and members of the business community. This could be driven through social media.
- Johnson and CPS should include a provision in the new CTU contract that makes it easier to remove ineffective teachers.
- Civil rights organizations should file federal civil rights complaints over low literacy rates among Black students.
- Church, community and business leaders should establish oversight committees for schools to hold the CTU and teachers accountable for student progress in reading and math.
I understand everything begins at home. However, in the absence of a home — it takes a community to raise a child. The CTU monopoly is harming our children.
After Chicago school board elections in November, Johnson’s handpicked appointees will maintain control of the board. Illinois lawmakers should enact legislation to create a fully elected board free of political interference. Johnson lacks impartiality when it comes to his former employer. CPS is facing a crisis — will Johnson choose union interests over the citizens of Chicago?
I write this commentary to make those comfortable with keeping our children illiterate uncomfortable.
Willie Wilson is a business owner, philanthropist and former mayoral candidate.
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