Story by Christine Flores | 9/20/2024 | News Nation
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.’”