CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools is facing criticism over the alleged mishandling of migrant students’ education inside city classrooms.
Some district administrators reportedly instructed several elementary school teachers to give migrant students passing grades even if the child displayed severe academic deficiencies, as first reported by NewsNation affiliate WGN Radio’s Sylvia Snowden. The discovery came after the news outlet spoke with several teachers anonymously.
According to Snowden, none of the teachers interviewed worked within the same network or exact school under CPS. Still, all shared a similar story of instruction to give migrant students a passing grade regardless of their academic performance.
“The teacher said specifically that she was instructed to give the student a passing grade and send her on to the next grade level even though, in this particular case, the student was testing at a kindergarten level,” Snowden told WGN-TV via Zoom on Thursday.
Snowden spoke with CPS teachers who worked at different schools in predominantly Black neighborhoods on the city’s South and West Side where, according to the report, no English as a second language support was offered.
“I was told the experience was extraordinarily challenging, firstly, because this was a teacher who spoke no Spanish, and she was given a student who spoke no English,” Snowden said.
Concerned parents of newly arrived migrant students reportedly contacted Baltazar Enriquez, the director of Little Village’s Community Council.
“They just tell them, ‘Sit there, read a book, or they let them be on their phone,'” Enriquez said. “They’re not understanding anything that’s going on. And they want to understand. They want to learn.
“(Parents) are the ones telling us, ‘My son is not learning. They’re not even teaching him in his language.'”
WGN Radio cited an Aug. 26 interview with CPS superintendent Pedro Martinez, where he initially maintained that instructors held migrant students to the same academic standard as students born in Chicago. However, a CPS spokesperson later acknowledged to WGN Radio that the guidelines were “modified to serve the specialized needs of English language learners.”
WGN-TV contacted CPS for additional confirmation. A CPS representative said it could not check the veracity of the claims because the names of the students, schools, and teachers were unknown. The representative added that this past summer, 465 elementary school English language students met the criteria for promotion to the next grade; 84 were retained.
Enriquez, who continues to work with the families, added that city teachers are doing their best, but more work is needed to rectify the issue.
“We’ve seen some of the teachers frustrated because they can’t communicate with the students,” he said.
Snowden affirms investigative work on the issue will continue as the new school year progresses.
“We want to make sure that what’s best for them and their futures is really what remains a focal point in the story,” she said. “As we continue digging, we are going to see what other supports these students have or haven’t been getting.”
