Our Chicago: Back-To-School and Learning Loss

Chicago Public School students return to class on Monday, August 26.

The 2024-2024 school year is the second time the district is dealing with a bus driver shortage.

This impacts general education students in magnet or selective programs.

Some students will get a CTA Ventra card. Others can be dropped off early or picked up late.

"We made so much progress this year compared to the last two years," Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez said. "So, we're up almost 25% in drivers. So, we're actually routing more students than ever today. The challenge is we also have more requests for transportation."

Martinzed added that some students will want to remain on a financial stipend the district gives them. Others will be routed as soon as the school year starts.

CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said progress is being made to address the bus driver shortage.

Something new at CPS, school funding will not be based on enrollment, but need and equity.

"I remember going to my neighbor's school that I didn't even have access to art as a separate period," Martinez said after explaining he was a CPS student in the 1970s and 80s. "It might have been built into some of the work I was doing. This year, every school will have not only teachers for physical education, but art and music. And then even at a minimum, a third elective teacher. Whether that's another art or music class, a world language class, that's up to the school."

As the new school year begins, there have been reports of tensions between Martinez and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and that the mayor wants to push out the schools CEO.

"I want to be clear, in terms of our overall vision, there is more alignment today between the Mayor's office, City Hall, us and our unions. We want our schools to be fully resourced. We're prioritizing our schools that have the highest needs. And from, you know, changing our budget, implementing parental leave. We're the first district in the country to implement parental leave, which is going to just help maintain more of our staff so that they can stay working in our schools, there's alignment. The challenge is that our schools are not fully resourced. We have significant challenges in funding. Federal funding is expiring this year. We're trying to work that out. We're also negotiating the contract right now."

He said his message to parents, "We're going to focus on having the best school year ever. Because, I know, this will be our strongest year ever."

ABC7 Chicago reached out to Mayor Brandon Johnson's office about Pedro Martinez's future with Chicago Public Schools, but we have not received a response. But when asked about the matter earlier this month, Johnson said he does not discuss personnel matters publicly.

The pandemic was tough for students across Illinois. A new study from the University of Illinois system demonstrates just how much of an impact it had on performance levels in English and Math.

Dr. Mariana Barragan, is a researcher at the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative at the University of Illinois.

Researchers found that only about one-quarter of all public school students are back to pre-pandemic levels in English language arts.

Even fewer have returned to pre-pandemic levels in math. Dr. Mariana Barragan, is a researcher at the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative at the University of Illinois.

They partnered with the Illinois State Board of Education to study how the pandemic changed students' test scores.

"We find that Illinois recovery is strong but it's uneven. What we see in the data is that elementary and middle school grades have recovered more rapidly and they're almost back to pre-pandemic levels in English. Not in Math. Something else we see is that high school students' test scores are just stuck. They have consistently declined since the beginning of the pandemic. And, in fact, only 15% of high school districts are back in Math to pre-pandemic levels," Barragan said.

She explained one possible reason for the disparities between the grade levels is absenteeism.

"High schoolers are missing school days more than before the pandemic, more than ever before, actually. And so we think these high rates of absenteeism could be affecting their learning," she said.

The study also found that districts with high concentrations of Black, Latino and low-income students remain furthest from their pre-pandemic performance levels. They also tended to be the districts that relied most on remote learning.