Failure to address dwindling public-school enrollment costing Chicagoans up to $93K per student

Chicago taxpayers are paying astronomical sums to maintain “severely underenrolled” schools – as much as $93,000 per student, a recent news analysis found.

“The costs are not only financial,” conclude journalists from Chalkbeat Chicago and ProPublica. “Students in the city’s smallest schools have fewer courses to choose from and often miss out on clubs, extracurricular activities, and sports. Chicago’s underenrolled high schools are more likely to have lower graduation and college enrollment rates. They tend to struggle with chronic truancy and higher dropout rates.”

The report found 47 schools “operating at less than one-third capacity,” which is almost twice the number of underenrolled buildings spurring widespread closures in 2013.

Closures ‘often weaponized’ against officials 

These closures sparked huge opposition within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) community, journalists wrote. 

“Families there felt that their communities were being torn apart as the city moved to shutter schools with long and rich histories. After protests and angry meetings, students were displaced to schools that were farther away from home. Neighborhood hubs were mothballed.” 

The city reversed course and imposed a five-year moratorium on closing any more schools. This moratorium has been extended multiple times, the most recent to 2027. 

“There’s a lack of political courage to have this conversation [of school closures], and yet it’s often weaponized,” said former school board president Jianan Shi. 

One example of weaponization targeted the district’s latest CEO, according to the article. 

“The teachers union and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who used to be an organizer and legislative liaison for the union, are quick to shut down discussion of downsizing. Widespread anger over the 2013 closures helped fuel the union’s rise to political power over the past decade; the union has also wielded the radioactive closure issue to undermine opponents, notably outgoing district CEO Pedro Martinez.” 

Martinez, who leaves this month, blamed the district for overspending on aging buildings and refusing to consider closing or merging schools. 

“Our footprint is too large,” Martinez told reporters. “Every time somebody wants to address this issue, you see at all levels of politics, nobody wants to do it.” 

As previously reported by The Lion, the increasingly unpopular teachers union has been engulfed in multiple scandals, running its first ever deficit budget in 2023. 

Meanwhile, the city’s enrollment demographics continue to spiral downward in a reflection of national trends. 

“About 325,000 students enrolled this year, a drop of more than 70,000 from a decade ago,” journalists noted. “District officials project that three school years from now, there could be as few as 300,000 or, in a best-case scenario, as many as 334,000 students.” 

Students in tiny schools getting ‘bare minimum’ academically 

Academic performance often suffers at underenrolled schools, critics argue – despite high employee counts relative to student enrollment. 

For example, Frederick Douglass Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side has 27 employees for 28 students, raising the overall cost to $93,000 per student.

“Is a Douglass student getting a $93,000-a-year experience? No,” said Hal Woods, policy director with the nonprofit Kids First Chicago. “We can confidently say that. CPS pumps extra dollars into these schools so they can offer the bare minimum.”