Enrollment at Chicago Public Schools has dropped by 31,905 students since 2019. The district’s staff has increased by 5,472 full-time equivalent staff members over that same period. CPS now has 323,251 students and 43,255 staff members, including teachers.
This coming Independence Day, motorists fueling up in Illinois will be paying even more at the gas pump.
Chicagoans reported 7.8% more violent crime from June 2023 through May 2024, led primarily by a spike in robberies. West and South Side residents bore the brunt of the increase as arrest rates continued to decline.
Chicago Ald. Will Hall, 6th ward, proposed 16 new tax and fee hikes to fellow city council members in a survey.
In 2023, just 35.4% of Illinois public school students were proficient in reading and 27.1% in math. For low-income students in particular, the numbers were distressingly lower.
Data shows Illinoisans who would have been working a generation ago are not today.
This edition of The Policy Shop is by policy analyst Hannah Schmid. If you were given $68,000 per student and two staffers for every three students, what do you think the result would be? National Honor Society graduates with Ivy League schools clamoring for their presence? Well, not if you gave that money to the Chicago Teachers...
The relationship between family formation and prosperity is accepted across the political spectrum.
Time-consuming steps in Chicago’s affordable housing program stops the city from seeing more housing.
Illinois' employment growth lags the nation and neighboring states in May.
Families trying to escape poverty are sometimes worse off with greater incomes because of benefits cliffs hidden in public programs.
Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke, once the longest-serving member of the city council, was sentenced to two years in prison and pay a $2 million fine.
Illinois’ average in-state tuition to public universities is among the highest in the nation. Getting an education is crucial to escaping poverty, putting Illinoisans at a great disadvantage.