Quality Public Education For All Children continued

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•  Reduce excessive, punitive discipline, which has resulted in higher suspension and expulsion rates for African-Americans, especially boys, and which, in turn, increases the risk of failing in class and dropping out.  The focus in discipline should be changed, to the extent possible, to restorative justice and addressing the root causes of a child’s misbehavior.

• Increase minority enrollment in CPS’ selective public schools.  Since 2000, the number of minority students being admitted to elementary magnet schools and selective high schools in CPS has been declining.  While 84 percent of CPS students are low-income, 46 percent are African-American and 41 are Hispanic, only half of the students in selective enrollment high schools are low-income, only 32 percent are African-American, and only 28 percent are Hispanic.

Long-Term

Finally, we must achieve equity in school funding in Illinois.  More than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, Illinois not only has the most segregated public education system in the nation – with 82 percent of minority children attending majority-minority schools and 90 percent of white children attending majority white schools - but also the most unequal.  Illinois has the second worst gap in the nation between what minority school districts can afford to spend to educate each child and what their white peers spend per pupil.  Currently, per pupil spending in Illinois ranges from a high of about $23,700 to a low of just $4,500. 

The resource disparity among schools divides largely along lines of race.  African-American and Hispanic children are over-represented in schools with high poverty rates.  While African-American students make up 19.4% of Illinois’ student population, they constitute 55% of the students in the poorest schools and just 1% of the students in the wealthiest schools.  93% of African-Americans students attend school districts with low income rates in excess of 30%.  Hispanic children make up just 20% of Illinois students, but 66 % of the students in school districts that have low income rates of over 30 percent.  In Illinois, three out of every four African-American students, as a group, rank last on state tests in every grade and subject.

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