While Gov. Bruce Rauner was busy this week working on his 2018 campaign for reelection, the education advocacy group Advance Illinois was doing work that needs to be done. Releasing its biennial report on the sorry state of education in Illinois, the group showed that low-income students are falling further behind their wealthier peers. Just 20 percent of low-income fourth-graders are reading proficient, and only 20 percent of low-income high-schoolers are college-ready. Poverty is increasingly concentrated in public schools, with 43 percent of school districts having a majority of students from low-income families, compared to 13 percent 10 years ago. This calls for fixing the state’s worst-in-the-nation school funding formula, but the Rauner administration is miles away from solving real problems like this one. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and publisher
Editor’s note 12/15/16
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