CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Pedro Martinez was among the CPS and City officials who visited classrooms at Edward K. “Duke'' Ellington Elementary School at 243 N. Parkside Ave., where he said students in kindergarten through second grade are learning to read at a faster clip.
“The strategies we are doing by working together with parents, with our teachers, with our school leaders, with our community — we’re seeing significant progress,” Martinez said.
Specifically, CPS said i-Ready data, which measures several categories, shows the percentage of students at mid- or above-grade level more than quadrupled over the course of the 2022-23 school year. Martinez said it went from 9% at the beginning of the year to 39% at the end of the year.
Edward Collins is principal at Luther Burbank Elementary.
“The real value of i-Ready is that it equips our dedicated teachers with feedback on how their students are reading,” he said.
Martinez said his goal is to have all CPS students literate by third grade. Reading challenges, though, remain ahead. At Ellington Elementary School, for example, students have access to a beautiful library — but it doesn’t have a librarian.
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