Data recently analyzed by the Illinois State Board of Education shows that more than 7 in 10 Cook County public students now fall below grade level in English based on their 2023-24 performance in the English section of the SAT exam.

“This is our future workforce, right,” Dabrowski told The Center Square. “The more kids that graduate without being able to read properly, without being able to do math properly, they’ll become dependent on government. Few of them will have good jobs, some of them will get into crime and at best some of them may be productive, but not very productive. It’s just not a good situation.”

Of the county’s 53,925 public high school students, statistics show 71.1% of students failed the ELA portion of the exam.

“Parents are going to solve it themselves by leaving the city if we don’t address it,” Dabrowski added. “Then we just become worse and worse for it.”

With students able to receive proficiencies ranging from partially met, approaching, meets and exceeds standards, 67.7% of students across the state failed the English portion of the state exam with the overall failure rate rising in 90 Cook County high schools.

Dabrowski said he can think of one reason why lawmakers would have allowed such a flawed system to fester for so long.

“They won’t do anything because they’re supported by the teacher’s unions and the teacher’s union doesn’t want to be exposed,” he said. “The politicians have the power and the unions have all the money, so nobody wants to upset the cookie jar. I think it’s one of the biggest hoodwinking of parents there is where so many of our kids can’t read at grade level, the schools are failing and yet the school officials graduate all these kids. Everything’s working for them, but it’s certainly not working for the kids and the families.”

Dabrowski said he’s hopeful the movement toward universal school choice will continue to build, giving students and parents more choices about where they end up.

“Universal school choice is happening everywhere and it’s surrounding Illinois,” he said. “At some point, we’re going to have to buckle to that pressure and join because it’s the only right thing to do, give parents and kids the choice to pick the school that’s best for them.”

The SAT test is administered to Illinois high school students during their second year as part of an effort to keep tabs on their readiness and preparedness moving forward.