Teachers in Chicago are the latest to voice their concerns over how illegal immigration is changing the landscape in America. Or in this case, how it’s shaping what’s happening in the classroom.
According to WGN Radio, teachers in the city have revealed that “they were instructed by school administrators to give their migrant students a 70% in every subject and pass them on to the next grade … even if their migrant students displayed severe academic deficiencies.”
It appears “Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez assured that migrant students were held to the same standards as Chicago’s American students.” However, it was only last month that a study from the University of Illinois System proved there was not much of a standard to live up to.
Even beyond the migrant students, many of whom reportedly do not speak English, numerous students throughout the city of Chicago “are still struggling to catch up academically from the learning loss that occurred when schools were forced to close” due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the study found, “[O]nly about one-fourth of all public-school students are back to pre-pandemic performance levels in English language arts, while even fewer have returned to pre-pandemic levels in math.”
So, while it’s not looking good for the Chicago public schools as it is, teachers have further admitted that part of their orders to pass migrant students has led to “deliberately falsifying grades”—which applies to both classroom grades and academic standardized testing scores.
Sylvia Snowden, a reporter who spoke with several Chicago teachers, explained, “When the tests have been proctored, after they’ve been evaluated, the teachers are able to see the scores. And when the teachers saw the scores, they saw that the students were not at grade level, yet they were instructed to give them 70% in every single class, which is the minimum C and pass them on to the next grade.”
When asked for an explanation, the Chicago Public Schools responded with this vague statement:
Chicago Public Schools aims to provide a rigorous, welcoming, inclusive pre-K through 12 environment for all students, including those who are newly arrived in Chicago with their families from around the globe.
As a district, we have high expectations for all students and policies and promotion guidelines in place that are modified to serve the specialized needs of our English language learners, and offer in-school, after-school year-round interventions developed with the principal/counselor/teacher and parents to target the students’ described deficiencies.
As Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education studies at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand, “This report of teachers being instructed to pass students should invoke concern, regardless of the type of student involved.” She emphasized that “moving underperforming students through the system robs them of their education” because “they are denied the chance to understand, comprehend, and build understanding and command of facts that build culture and the ability to contribute to society and one’s own success.”
But amid the ongoing learning issues at hand and the concerns that go with them, a quick glance at what Chicago has endured in recent years demonstrates how its education department is not the only area tainted by the border crisis.
Millions of illegal immigrants have flooded into the country, and Chicago, being the self-designated sanctuary city that it is, has taken in nearly 50,000 migrants since 2022. In only two years, $400 million have gone toward funding the migrants, which has put a significant dent in the city’s money and resources.
Nearly all aspects of life in Chicago have been affected by the newcomers.
“People are angry about the lack of resources in their community,” said Richard Wallace, a man involved with organizing community affairs. “People are angry about joblessness. People are angry about the cost of living skyrocketing.”
Evidently, the decisions affecting the American education system and overall quality of life are not free from having long-lasting consequences—particularly for the younger generations, Kilgannon emphasized. Considering the failing test scores and poor learning environments, she concluded, “When Gen Z ‘quietly quits,’ they are simply following the example that was set for them by a public school system that quietly quit teaching them.”
Originally published by The Washington Stand