Dabrowski said Illinois’ 8th grade students outperforming national averages in both reading and math on “the nation’s report card” is not the metric to be looking at.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, has been dubbed the “Nation’s Report Card.”

“The right metric is to look and see how many kids are reading and that points at a disaster for Illinois,” said Dabrowski. “It’s a bad thing to compare to the national average when the national average has been collapsing, some of the worst scores in a long time.”

State Rep. Reagan Deering, R-Decatur, expects Chicago Public Schools to request more taxpayer money this legislative session. The Illinois State Board of Education is requesting an additional $497.2 million in this year’s education budget, in total taxpayers are being asked to pay $11.4 billion in fiscal year 2026.

“We’re trying to prepare our students for a successful future, whether that be continued education, [entering] the workforce, in general being a contributing member to our society. Illinois has some of the highest spending levels per pupil in the nation. If we were looking for direct correlation there, then our reading and math scores should be significantly higher than they are now. I don’t necessarily feel that more spending is the answer. I think we need to take a hard look at prioritizing our spending,” said Deering.

Dabrowski points out neighboring states like Iowa, Kentucky and Indiana are spending $6,000 to $7,000 less per student, and they got the exact same proficiency results.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement that Illinois students are proving what he’s always known, when schools are supported, students thrive.

“Illinois students are proving what we’ve always known – when we support our schools, our kids thrive,” Pritzker said. “The 2024 Nation’s Report Card shows our 8th graders outperforming the national average in both math and reading, a testament to the great strides Illinois students are making academically.”

Dabrowski said Pritzker can’t make that statement if you actually look at the results for some of these kids.

“Just 9% of Black eighth graders are proficient in math. That’s horrific and sad. He should be adamant about exposing that, not us [Wirepoints,]” said Dabrowski. “He should be holding massive town halls and meetings to improve literacy, but instead he’s just bragging about how good things are. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t acknowledge it, and Governor Pritzker won’t acknowledge the problem.”

Deering said in Illinois, there’s a lot of high-paying administrative jobs that account for a large part of school districts’ budgets. She points out Illinois schools don’t have classroom assistants or response to intervention (RTI) staff members anymore.

“I applaud citizens who are showing up to those [school board] meetings and highlighting their concerns about the education that their students are getting through Chicago Public Schools. When they have instances where building occupancy is less than 50%, there’s got to be ways that we can save money and tighten up our spending and really put the priorities on the kids and their success, which is where it belongs,” said Deering.

Deering said Pritzker shouldn’t be celebrating the NAEP results.

“When two-thirds of our students can’t read and do math at grade level, that’s certainly nothing to celebrate,” said Deering.

Overall reading and math proficiencies derived from NAEP show Illinois 4th and 8th grade students were either the same or down compared to pre-covid 2019, according to Wirepoints’ analysis.

“The latest NAEP results give Illinois students, educators, and families cause to celebrate with steady or increasing results seen on the ‘Nation’s Report Card’,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tony Sanders.