North Cook News

Critics are right to call out Evanston Township High School (ETHS) for its segregation of minority students from white students in several Advanced Placement classes. The move is likely unconstitutional and even if challenges to reverse it fail it flies in the face of decades of civil rights actions to bring students together.

But as bad as the segregation attempts are, they pale in comparison to the district’s wholesale treatment of minorities. Evanston’s blacks and Hispanic students are passed along from grade to grade, and on through graduation, despite the fact the overwhelming majority never learn to read or do math at grade level. Ninety percent of black ETHS students graduated last year even though only 23 percent and 12 percent were proficient on the SAT in reading and math, respectively. Hispanic results were only slightly better.

Look at the results below to see the district’s hypocrisy on full display. Administrators blame “white-supremacy” and racism to justify those segregated classes, but at the same time they expect little-to-nothing from most of their minority students. That, in one of the nation’s most progressive, DEI-focused school districts that spends over $33,000 per student.

Just passing them along

Evanston officials embrace one of the most destructive policies in education: They push students from grade to grade even when they’re not ready. A look at every single grade in Evanston’s school system shows how administrators never care to ensure black students are proficient in reading before advancing them to the next grade.

It starts at third grade, the most crucial for students being able to learn in later years. In Evanston’s feeder schools, just 19 percent of black third-graders students could read at grade level. Nevertheless, they are passed along.

It’s what happens all the way through high school. Just 23 percent of 11th-grade black students can read at grade level. There’s no change for Hispanic students either – they’re stuck at 25-30 percent across the years.

The hypocrisy of administrator policies reach a crescendo in high school, where the district ends up graduating 90 percent of minority students despite their rock-bottom proficiencies.

As we noted above, money can’t be the issue. The district spends, all-in, a whopping $33,000 per student. ($123 million in total expenditures divided by an enrollment of 3,700).

And it can’t be the teachers. At ETHS, virtually all teachers have been rated “excellent or proficient” every year since 2018 – just like across the rest of the state.

Nor can it be the lack of a big-time, executive leadership at the district. Last year’s superintendent, Eric Witherspoon, made $395,000 in base salary. And the new superintendent, Dr. Marcus Campbell, is getting $275,000.

The bigotry of low expectations strikes again

It’s no surprise Evanston administrators are resorting to gimmicks like segregating classes. Instead of focusing on raising expectations and improving reading and math curriculums, officials continue to blame racism as a way to scapegoat their own failures. 

Consider their statement in 2017: “There is a persistent and unacceptable opportunity gap for students of color in District 65. The District’s leadership team attributes the racial predictability of achievement and disciplinary outcomes to institutional racism, a huge problem that can only start to be solved by acknowledging the history of white supremacy in Evanston/Skokie Schools.” 

The hundreds of students who graduate every year neither reading nor math proficient are the victims of those excuses.