A new report showed that declining enrollment in Chicago leaves about 150 of its schools half-empty.
The report, authored by ChalkBeat and ProPublica, found that 47 schools are operating “at less than one-third capacity, leading to high costs and limited course offerings.”
Chicago Public Schools had roughly 325,000 students enrolled this year after losing 70,000 students from a decade ago, according to the report.
“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. Those estimates are based in part on the city’s sharply falling birth rates. Citywide, from 2011 to 2021, the number of births dropped by more than 43%,” the authors of the report wrote.
While the city faces enrollment struggles, the city spends about $18,700 per student. Some schools are “double or triple” that number the report stated. One school that enrolled 28 students costs $93,000 students.
DuSable High School, which had declining enrollment, costs almost $50,000 per student, according to the report. DuSable is among 47 schools operating at less than one-third capacity.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Dillon B
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.offthepress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
