OM DENNE EPISODE
Welcome to Political-Review with Ray Hanania and myself Frank Calbrese … It’s Monday, August 24, 2026
Frank is a political consultant and analyst at FrankCalabrese.com and I’m a former Chicago City Hall reporter and columnist at Hanania.com
This Video Podcast on politics focuses on specific political developments, issues, and controversies in Chicago and the Chicagoland area and is broadcast when those issues arise … each week, or each day … published at
Political-Review.com for August 24, 2026 on Chicago Public Schools
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This episode looks at the opening day of schools and challenges facing the school budget, school board …
What’s going on, Frank, with school spending … has anything really changed other than the costs rising faster than student grades?
Chicago Public School FACTS
316,224 students returned to classrooms today, the first day of the school year
The schools account for more than 60 percent of our property taxes, and yet the system is not delivering …
Chicago Public Schools owns and maintains 803 buildings across 522 campuses.
The budget for Chicago Public Schools for fiscal year 2027 totals $10.11 billion.
Chicago Public Schools has 316,224 students enrolled for the school year. The district includes 626 total schools,including Charter Schools
That’s $31,623 per student spent …
30 percent of the school/campuses are half empty …
Approximately 50 elementary and high schools combined in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) serve fewer than 200 students, though CPS does not publish a static, isolated roster exclusively naming every individual high school under this threshold.
Frederick Douglass Academy High School on the West Side, 543 N. Waller Ave. in Austin, which has reported enrollments as low as 33 students. The high school is spending just over $68,000 per student compared to the district average of $18,287, statistics from the Illinois State Board of Education show.
with average administrator salaries ranging between $130,000 and $160,000.
Total Administrators: CPS typically employs over 1,100 school-based administrators (principals and assistant principals) alongside hundreds of central office and network administrators.
In 2013, Mayor Emannuel closed 50 schools and caused severe public backlash and community disruption, making large-scale closures politically toxic.
Local politicians, community activists, and the Chicago Teachers Union strongly oppose closures, arguing they disproportionately harm Black and low-income neighborhoods and destabilize communities.
Union job protection is more important than the quality and performance of the Chicago Public Schools
CPS does a poor job of teaching Chicago students
Five years ago, only 26 percent of the students met the minimum reading proficiency level … so they lowered that level and now only 43 percent meet the reading proficiency level …
READING PROFICIENCY IS TERRIBLE instead improving teaching, the schools lower the passing grade to make it look like more students are doing better.
Roughly 43% of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students meet grade-level standards in reading today, compared to about 26% to 30% five years ago. However, state officials altered the scoring benchmarks during this timeframe, which artificially inflated recent performance metrics on paper.
Reading Performance Over Time
- Five Years Ago (Post-Pandemic Onset): Following the pandemic disruptions, elementary reading proficiency plummeted. Only about 26% to 30% of 3rd-through-8th graders met or exceeded expectations on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR).
- Today: According to the latest Illinois Report Card data, reading proficiency for 3rd-through-8th graders is at 43%, while 11th-grade reading proficiency sits at 40%.
