Prairie State Wire

For several years we’ve been sounding the alarm about Illinois’ dismal rates of literacy.

In Peoria, just 7% of black children can read at grade level. For Hispanics in Waukegan, it’s only 13%. Decatur’s whites are at just 12%. And of the black students in the Chicago Public Schools, only 17% are at grade level.

Overall, 1.2 million of Illinois’ 1.85 million school children can’t read at grade level. 

Those are numbers the education establishment refuses to acknowledge and doesn’t want parents to know. And its allies in the traditional media often help suppress the facts we frequently report on. 

So when several high profile individuals, including Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, help us expose the truth on X, we’ll take it.

Here’s how it played out yesterday:

Tech influencer i/o began the action by linking to Wirepoints’ report, Not a single student can do math at grade level in 53 Illinois schools. For reading, it’s 30 schools, and posting: “ZERO students passed the state math proficiency test at 53 Illinois public schools… At one such school — a “prep school” designed to prepare students for medical careers — the per student spending is $47,000.”

Elon Musk dropped in with various responses throughout the day: “!” “Wow” and “Yeah,” meaning tens of thousands more people saw the results of Illinois’ broken education system.

“Failing schools don’t need more money, they need accountability” wrote Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Not a single student can read at grade level in 30 Illinois schools. I bet they can name a dozen genders though and explain why white people are evil” wrote the Libs of TikTok.

 

The next day, Dr. Jordan Peterson posted his own response.

It’s all welcome attention, because attention is the best weapon we have against everything the education establishment in Illinois does to block the truth.

Most of Illinois’ children can’t read. We’ll keep shouting that fact until it gets the recognition it deserves. And that means major reforms to the system: an end to social promotion, a return to phonics, a reinstatement of high expectations, a dismantling of teacher union powers, and, of course, universal school choice.