Second City Shambles In fact, more than one-third of Chicago’s 473 traditional public schools are currently running at half-full or worse, according to data released in December. Douglass High School, which bills itself as “The Jewel Of The Westside,” has a capacity for 888 students, but just 34 are enrolled, and not one of them is proficient in reading. In the past ten years, the city’s total public school enrollment has gone from over 400,000 to 322,000 and the bleeding shows no sign of abating.
The teacher union-controlled school system in Chicago is an abject failure.
The numbers are jaw-dropping. In 30 Chicago public schools, not a single student can read at grade level. In total, just 20% of third- through eighth-graders in the Windy City are proficient in reading and only 15% are proficient in math.