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 Chicago Public School enrollment is down by roughly
9,000 students from last year, marking the 11th consecutive year of declines.
Total enrollment has declined by 82,000 in a decade to about 321,000 for the
current school year, according to a preliminary tally compiled by WBEZ from
school-level enrollment figures.
There are fewer kids in CPS, but nearly $2 billion in additional funding. Only
21% of students in 3rd through 8th grade scored as proficient in reading and 16%
in math for 2020-2021, the last school year for which student test score data is
available.
“If our mayors, including this one, can’t keep Black families from leaving by
supporting and funding Black communities and educating Black children, then they
have failed Black people,” Chicago Teachers Union President Stacey Davis Gates
said.
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Davis Gates is right that if a family can’t afford to live in Chicago, they’ll
leave regardless of the local school’s funding. However, bigger budgets with
worse proficiency means more funding is no magic fix.
As a result of the decline to 321,000 Chicago students, Miami-Dade County Public
Schools with 325,000 students is on the verge of surpassing CPS as the nation’s
third-largest school district.
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