Dozens of government schools across Illinois have been unable to produce even one single student proficient in reading or math, according to new date from the Illinois State Board of Education. In hundreds of schools across the state, just 10 percent of children are proficient in the basics. And it is getting worse.

The new state data show that less than 30 percent of students in the public “education” system achieved even basic proficiency in reading, down from a measly 37 percent in 2019. Just one fourth of children tested proficient in math, down from already unfathomably poor 32 percent just a few years earlier.

This total failure to educate children on even the most basic elements of learning comes despite massive spending levels dwarfing the cost of government “education” in most other states and countries. Even as spending ballooned, academic results declined, the state board of education’s “Report Card” for 2022 revealed.

Perhaps even more astoundingly, some of the schools that failed to produce even one proficient student in either English or math were rated as “commendable” by the Illinois education bureaucracy — the second-highest ranking possible. How the schools scored so well when the students failed so miserably was not immediately clear.

Even many of the children labeled “proficient” are barely literate at best. But while the students may not be able to read or do math properly, and they almost certainly fail just as bad in science and history, they are almost all very well versed in gender theory, climate-change alarmism, race hysteria, and more. LGBT indoctrination is mandated by law across the state, too.

Breaking down the specifics of the educational disaster, there are 30 schools across Illinois — more than two thirds of them in Chicago — where not a single student ranked even “proficient” in reading. Meanwhile, more than 50 schools across the state failed to produce one single student rated proficient in mathematics. Almost two dozen schools failed to get even one child proficient in either subject.

Critics were aghast. “The absolute failure to teach even a single child to read and do math in so many schools is yet another indictment of the state’s educational system,” explained education analysts Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner at Wirepoints.org in a commentary on the educational catastrophe sweeping Illinois.

Citing the same state data, Dabrowski and Klingner also noted that almost 20 percent of government schools in Illinois — more than 600 in total — were only able to get one in ten victims to basic reading proficiency. Over 25 percent of the schools — almost 1,000 in all — were only able to get one in ten proficient in math. And yet, they continually demand more money.

This is evidence of collective insanity, Dabrowski and Klingner concluded in their widely cited analysis of the state data. “In a sane world, schools that don’t and can’t teach a single student the most basic of skills would be shut down,” they explained. “But here, they carry on…the system thrives while students wither.”

In fact, in any other industry, not only would the entity or entities in question be shut down, the scam artists defrauding and bilking customers out of billions of dollars so flagrantly would be prosecuted for fraud and then thrown in jail. It happens all the time in other sectors of the economy not controlled by government.

Imagine, for example, a fast-food restaurant where only a handful of those who ordered a meal actually got anything remotely resembling food, while most customers were handed toxic waste or a rat carcass on a moldy bun. State police SWAT teams would be kicking in the doors by the next morning, if not before. Politicians would be tripping over themselves to condemn the horror.

And yet, what is happening with government schools is orders of magnitude worse than a mere rip-off fast-food operation peddling inedible meals. In the case of schools, the minds, hearts, and souls of innocent children are being poisoned and irreparably damaged. Meanwhile, families, churches and civilization are crumbling as a result. This is an intergenerational crime of monumental proportions.

Of course, Illinois is hardly alone when it comes to the widespread dumbing-down of children in government schools. Results from across America — even in red states — are atrocious. On average, less than one in three victims of government schools are proficient in any core subject, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (also known as The Nation’s Report Card).

But Illinois spends more, and gets even worse results, than almost all other states. This is a state and national crisis. Children are in grave danger. And as President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellent in Education warned in 1983, this so-called “education” is now literally an existential threat to America’s very survival as a nation.

Parents must understand clearly that choosing to send their children to a government indoctrination center posing as a “public school” is practically guaranteeing that they will fail to learn even the most basic subjects, to say nothing of basic morality. Not only will that make it tough to have a real job and support it family, it means those children will be easy to manipulate, deceive — and ultimately, enslave.

Fortunately, for those parents who refuse to accept such a bleak future for their children, there has never been a better time to get them out of the system. Homeschooling has never been easier. Excellent Christian schools are proliferating in churches across Illinois and beyond, thanks in part to the efforts of the Illinois Family Institute.

Millions of families have already fled the government “education” system in recent years. As the latest academic results show, it’s time for many more to join them.

Written by Cliff Kincaid

Billionaire George Soros was named “Philanthropist of the Year” by Inside Philanthropy magazine for his “…fight for academic freedom in Central Europe, and his resistance to the rising tide of authoritarianism worldwide.”  The former is a reference to gender studies programs and the latter concerns his ongoing campaign to undermine existing governments, causing chaos that makes more money for hedge fund currency manipulators and short-sellers like himself.

In the United States, he is best known for almost single-handedly creating a narco-nation through legalization of marijuana, causing human suffering and environmental devastation on a scale most people do not yet comprehend.

With the nation focused on the opioid danger, and President Donald J. Trump accusing China of pumping fentanyl into the veins of American victims through Mexico, the marijuana problem has gotten less attention. Indeed, liberal politicians and prosecutors, some of them getting Soros money, are treating the dope as a harmless substance and even a money-maker for local and state governments.

For one of the most sensational examples of a notorious pothead, consider Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL star who became a convicted killer and then killed himself in prison. The subject of a new Netflix series, “Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez,” he was a chronic marijuana user throughout college and his NFL career who experienced brain damage from the drug. The case proves a direct link between marijuana, mental illness, and violence.

In California, legal dope was supposed to displace illegal dope. But illicit cannabis cultivation sites are proliferating, offering a cheaper product than the government-approved variety. The Siskiyou County (California) Board of Supervisors voted on a new Declaration of Local Emergency that refers to illegal growers being responsible for “hundreds of pervasive fire hazards, insecticides, pesticides, rodenticides, fertilizers, trash, and unsanitary conditions which severely impact health, safety and quality of life for countless county residents…”

It’s in Barack Hussein Obama’s state of Illinois that we see some of the recent damage being done.

Illinois last year became the first state to legalize the marijuana business through legislation rather than by referendum and placing excise and sales taxes on the “product.” We can already see the predictable result — marijuana-related emergency room visits are on the rise. The local ABC-TV station in Chicago quotes doctors as saying the most common symptoms of the new potheads in Illinois are restlessness, heart palpitations and anxiety, but that “In some cases we are seeing full on psychosis, agitation, hallucinations.”

Incredibly, Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton was one of the first in line to purchase the dope. She bought clementine-flavored marijuana edible gummies and paid with cash. The scene was captured by CNN as she was pictured among hundreds of early-morning customers at a Chicago marijuana dispensary.  She probably went to the front of the line, but some people waited hours in order to buy their “recreational marijuana” and get “high.”

David E. Smith of the Illinois Family Institute comments, “Not only have lawmakers failed to do their due diligence before passing this marijuana law, but they also failed to heed the compelling research that indicates how regular use of marijuana affects young people, including an increased risk of psychiatric illnesses and a permanent loss of IQ points.”

In fact, this is the plan – dumb people down so they ruin their lives and then have to be dependent on the state for the rest of their lives. The potheads are fast becoming an important new constituency for the socialist-minded.

Before they actually navigate their way to the polls, they can relieve their pain by employing another “hemp” product – CBD or cannabidiol.  CBD is being hawked all over, even on the Rush Limbaugh show, and is being advertised as a treatment for “muscle soreness” and “everyday discomfort.” But many complaints have been filed with the FDA over the false medical claims made about CBD.

Dr. Kenneth Finn comments, “These products are everywhere, but there is little scientific evidence to support the hype that surrounds them.” He says unregulated CBD products hitting the market might be contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides, rodenticides, insecticides, molds, E. coli, or fungus.

Official dope distribution is supposed to fill a financial gap. In Illinois, the sixth-biggest state, by population, Politico reporter Theodoric Meyer reports that it has seen its credit rating cut to near-junk status in the decade since the financial crisis. “Its bonds are now considered as risky as those of Russia and Romania,” he notes. “Its pension system is in worse shape than that of almost any other state.”

Writers Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner note that the population of Illinois dropped by 100,000 people between 2010 and 2018 and few of the state’s counties have been spared. “That means that 93 of the state’s 102 counties have shrunk since 2010,” they note. Adam Schuster, Director of Budget and Tax Research at the group, Illinois Policy, reports that 36 percent of the money the state allocates to education will be diverted away from teachers and students to meet required pension payments for retirees.

Former Illinois pension chief Marc Levine is quoted as saying a federal bailout may be required, making this a matter affecting all taxpayers, not just the saps remaining in Illinois.

The “progressive” politicians have virtually bankrupted the state, forcing thousands to flee, and have turned to the cruel exploitation of potheads as a sure-fire money-maker to stave off the final countdown to fiscal oblivion. But legalized dope means more wards of the state who need government help.

Now this is going national. “Once a politically dangerous subject,” notes Trevor Hughes of USA Today, “legal marijuana has become something of a de facto platform plank for the 2020 Democratic candidates: All support either legalizing or decriminalizing its use, and the differences lie in how far the candidates are willing to take it.”

Since 22.2 million people have used marijuana in the past month, this is fertile ground for votes. In a bid for votes, candidate Pete Buttigieg actually toured a “cannabis dispensary” in Las Vegas while commenting that he smoked dope a “handful of times a long time ago.”

President Trump, on the other hand, can just say no. He lost his brother to alcoholism and should consider speaking out against the Soros-funded marijuana craze before more lives are ruined and lost. His Surgeon General, Vice Adm. Jerome M. Adams, is already speaking out about the health risks of marijuana use. He needs the backing of his president.

Roger Morgan, author of Soros: The Drug Lord. Pricking the Bubble of American Supremacy, notes the elevated levels of mental illness, addiction, suicides, traffic deaths and the unseen mental and physical defects to babies and future generations from the use of marijuana and other mind-altering drugs.  He adds, “America can never be great again if a major percentage of its young people are brain damaged, mentally ill, addicted or dead.”​

This article was originally published at USASurvival.org. Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org

Why is the Illinois Family Institute publishing another article about state government employee pensions? Because excessive taxes in Illinois are putting a strain on Illinois families — and 25 percent of our state budget pays those overly-generous pensions.

Now, policy experts Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner have provided yet more evidence that “A dramatic rise in pension benefits — not funding shortfalls — caused Illinois’ state pension crisis.”

People like pension expert Bill Zettler pointing out that out a dozen years ago. Whenever I have the opportunity, I mention it as well in my articles. Did people believe Zettler or me? It doesn’t matter — now they must contend with Dabrowski and Klingner.

Their new report is linked here:

Illinois state pensions: Overpromised, not underfunded – Wirepoints Special Report

Wirepoints also has articles about it here:

Illinois politicians: stop guilting taxpayers

Illinois’ pension crisis: Incompetence or malice?

Here is just an excerpt from that last link:

The actual growth in benefits handed out to state workers and retirees since 1987 has dwarfed everything else in the economy, from incomes to inflation to population to the state budget. Multiples times over.

This has all kinds of obvious implications for the economy, growth, outmigration and most importantly, the lives of ordinary Illinoisans.

Pension growth — at nearly 9 percent a year for 30 years — is swamping everything else. It’s no wonder why Illinoisans in so many parts of the state are struggling with high taxes, weak job prospects and stagnant incomes.

Also, Dabrowski calls it corrupt (as I do):

[A] financial mess like this would normally be investigated. Any business that ignores or hides a massive liability for decades will end up on the brink of, or in, bankruptcy.

. . .

If this state were a corporation, think Enron or Worldcom, all kinds of regulators would be sniffing around and asking all kinds of questions. How did lawmakers get this so wrong? Was the extreme growth in benefits due to incompetence or was it purposeful?

“Though the odds of a real investigation happening in Illinois are zilch,” Dabrowski writes, “it’s still worth asking the right questions.”

The answers are easy, as Bill Zettler wrote in his book. The system is a scam, orchestrated and carried out by those betting that taxpayers will never learn just how ridiculously high the retirement benefits are for many saintly teachers, school administrators, union officials, and various other groups employed by our governments.

Illinois continues to make national news due to its inability to do basic math. Here are a few examples:

Rising Tax Rate Can’t End Illinois’ Economic Drought
Yet leading candidates to replace Gov. Bruce Rauner think the only problem with the state’s income tax rate is that it doesn’t go high enough.

In Illinois, Public Pension Funding Cannot Keep up with Pension Benefits’ Growth
Pension benefits have grown six times more that state revenues, 8.4 times more than household incomes, and 9.5 times more than inflation. A major driver of this benefit growth is collective bargaining, which allows government employee unions to negotiate with public officials over pay, benefits, working conditions, and other matters. Unlike in the private sector, where employers have strong incentives to rein in labor costs, public sector unions face relatively little employer resistance to their demands, since both sides in the negotiations are employed by government.

Here are two quick things from Pension Pulse:

The Pension Storm Cometh?
Public employee unions have managed to extract promises from state and local governments that are simply impossible to keep. And those governments have been papering over the extent of their obligations with accounting assumptions that are so overly-optimistic as to be deceptive.

In this article, Pension Pulse touches on the legal wrangling over the pension systems:

The way the courts interpret the pension promise may be legally sound but it is economically absurd.

Who made this “legally sound”? Our AWOL conservative elected officials at all levels, who have failed to bring attention to this kind of excess.

I must say, though, I love the use of the word “absurd.”

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-and, please-

As Illinois continues to lose population (we are now the sixth largest state, not the fifth), our politicians in both parties continue to run up debt and unfunded liabilities.

Here is Meaghan Kilroy writing at Pensions & Investments (www.pionline.com):

Illinois has the highest pension burden among all 50 states, said Fitch Ratings’ 2017 state pension report released Tuesday.

According to the report, Illinois’ unfunded pension liabilities amounted to 22.8% of residents’ personal income at the end of fiscal year 2016, compared to a median 3.1% for all states and 1% for Florida, the least burdened state.

Since it is the Christmas season, I chose not to title this article “The Dumbest People in America.” But how else do you describe a state that has 25 percent of its budget going to pay government employee pensions and its voters who continue electing the same people who won’t do a thing about it? And “[u]nder Fitch’s calculations, Illinois’ net pension liabilities totaled $151.5 billion at the end of fiscal year 2016.” Please know that other sources calculate that number as substantially higher.

The Wall Street Journal recently featured a related article titled “Illinois Drives People Away: The taxpayer migration continues from the Land of Ever Higher Taxes.”

Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

From the Journal article:

The Prairie State lost a record $4.75 billion in adjusted gross income to other states in the 2015 tax year, according to recently IRS released data. That’s up from $3.4 billion in the prior year. Many of the migrants were retirees who often flock to balmier climes. But millennials accounted for more than a third of the net outflow in tax returns.

. . .

Too much for us to distill in one editorial, but suffice to say that exorbitant property and business taxes have retarded economic growth. Illinois’s corporate tax rate is 9.5%, and pass-through business owners pay 6.45%. Though Illinois’s flat 4.95% income tax rate is relatively low compared to its neighbors, Democrats have found other ways to clobber their citizens.

You can let your eyes glaze over at these numbers if you want, but understand that you will be paying more every year if you do.

To paraphrase one radio talk show philosopher — we should all be able to tie half of our brain behind our back and still realize something is amiss.

This helps explain why Illinois’s economy has been stagnant, growing a meager 0.9% on an inflation-adjusted annual basis since 2012—the slowest in the Great Lakes and half as fast as the U.S. overall. This year nearly 100,000 individuals have left the Illinois labor force. The University of Illinois Flash Economic Index, which measures corporate earnings and investment as well as personal income, hit a five-year low in October.

Merry Christmas! Feeling poor yet? Well, at least we know our retired government employees will be enjoying the holidays.

In a recent op ed, Illinois policy experts Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner put it rather simply when referring to what Illinois politicians are increasingly good at: “they offer government worker retirement benefits that are no longer affordable to the residents that pay for them.”

Illinois News Network recently quoted State Sen. Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods:

Whether it’s through their property taxes or because of the recent income tax increase, they just can’t afford to [stay here].… This day of reckoning is fast approaching us. I don’t think we want to wait until the absolute last minute to try and do everything we can to really right the ship.

Allow me to define reckoning: It is time to stop talking about “reforming” the government employee pension systems in Illinois. You cannot reform what is purposefully corrupt and completely insolvent.

The Illinois Constitution’s line prohibiting the lowering of government employee benefits should be ignored if it’s not repealed. No clause in a constitution can make this math work. The systems should be cut off from the taxpayers and sent into bankruptcy.

Any candidate suggesting that the pension systems can be reformed is not telling you the truth.

Happy New Year!

End-of-Year Challenge

As you may know, IFI has a year-end matching challenge to raise $160,000. That’s right, a great group of IFI supporters are colluding with us to provide an $80,000 matching challenge to help support IFI’s ongoing work to educate, motivate and activate Illinois’ Christian community.

Please consider helping us reach this goal!  Your donation will help us stand strong in 2018!  To make a credit card donation over the phone, please call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.  You can also send a gift to:

Illinois Family Institute
P.O. Box 876
Tinley Park, Illinois 60477

Now that the possibility of a tax hike passing with the help of “16 lame duck” legislators is not going to happen, Republicans cheer and Democrats lament, right? Not necessarily.

According to our state’s constitution, the governor has a lot of power when it comes to preparing the state’s budget, and, in fact, is constitutionally bound to present a balanced budget every year. Long-time Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan has no such constitutional requirement.

Several Republican Illinois legislators have long assumed that Bruce Rauner would willingly sign a tax increase as part of a budget deal with Madigan. Those aren’t the headlines Rauner wants going into 2018’s gubernatorial election, however, so a super-majority Democrat controlled General Assembly doing the dirty work without the need of his assistance would have been ideal. And, of course, Democrats raising taxes again supplies a terrific weapon for all Republican campaigns.

Except that now, as Rich Miller reports, the Democrats won’t be doing Rauner that favor. So it’s back to the status quo, which really isn’t the status quo in that the numbers don’t stay the same, they continue to get worse.

Neither party has offered an honestly balanced budget in many years, and Governor Rauner, as chief executive, might possibly be blamed for the little things — here are just a few facts from the Illinois Policy Institute article “Illinois’ $204B Debt Crowding Out Payment for Social Services” (we have put them into bullet points for easy reading):

• Illinois will spend $1 billion more on annual debt payments than it will on human services in fiscal year 2017.
• Social service agencies in Illinois, such as The Center for Youth and Family Solutions, on average wait almost a year to get paid for the services they provide to the state’s low-income families, disabled and seniors. Many agencies have closed their doors, unable to pay their employees and rent.
• Illinois is sitting on a mountain of debt worth $204 billion.
• Illinois spends so much on debt that those costs now consume almost 18 percent of the state’s general fund budget.
• Illinois’ backlog of unpaid bills is what often gets the most public attention. While significant – the money due to vendors reached $9 billion in November – it only makes up a small part of Illinois’ total debt.
• The real burden lies in Illinois’ $28 billion in bonds and its $111 billion unfunded pension liability. The $139 billion total is double what it was just 15 years ago.
• Another $56 billion is owed on government-worker retirement health insurance liabilities.
• Combined, these debts all add up to $204 billion. And that’s the rosy scenario. If more realistic investment-return assumptions are used, Illinois’ pension debt nearly doubles.
• Unfortunately, the state has just $79 billion in assets to meet its $190 billion obligation, leaving a $111 billion hole for taxpayers to pick up.

So is raising taxes a solution? Fiscal conservatives understand the answer is “no” — the Illinois Policy Institute’s Ted Dabrowski recently laid out the ABC’s:

For many, tax hikes look like the only solution to Illinois’ fiscal woes. But tax hikes will only make things worse. Illinoisans are already burdened with some of the highest taxes in the nation, including the highest property taxes of any state.

As a result of Illinois’ dysfunction, the state is bleeding people and its tax base. Between July 2014 and July 2015, approximately 300,000 people left Illinois for good and only 200,000 moved in, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This resulted in a loss of 105,000 residents on net to other states – an all-time high for Illinois. Tax hikes will only chase more residents away.

So what is the solution? Fiscal conservatives understand that, too — again here’s Ted Dabrowski:

The only way to keep Illinoisans here is to bring fiscal sanity back to the state through major spending reforms that bring Illinois’ budget in line with what ordinary Illinoisans can afford.

Fiscal sanity? Spending reforms? Uh, yes, and maybe that’s a nicer way of saying it than the plain truth — which is that Illinois needs to cut its spending by many billions of dollars if it is to ever make the budget math work.

Since Democrats have no wish to cut spending, and Republicans completely lack the ability to draw up a genuinely balanced budget and then sell it successfully to the people of Illinois, it’s a good bet we’ll just see more of the same. The budget can will be kicked down the road into the 2018 election year when tens of millions of dollars will be spent by each party trying to portray the other side as the villain.

The Illinois GOP has just launched yet another crusade to make Democrat House Speaker Mike Madigan as the chief villain. Here’s a better idea. Since Madigan knows how to win, Republicans should work on converting him into a Republican fiscal conservative. With Madigan’s political and communications skills, Illinois can then get back on the right track. Who knows, with Madigan’s abilities and Illinois’ potential, our state might soon be competing with states like Texas for businesses and experience the growth levels it once enjoyed.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email to your state representative and to Governor Rauner to urge them to do the hard work of cutting the waste and bloat in Illinois government instead of constantly looking for new ways to tax the people. The size of government is the problem!

Here are just a few recent headlines for your reading pleasure:

State Budget Deadlock Continues To Harm Social Service Organizations

Illinois’ Billions: Pension Debt and Unpaid Bills Total More than $140B

State of Illinois’ Pension Debt Jumps to $130 Billion

Social Services in Illinois Say Situation Still Bad With Temporary Budget

The Illinois Family Institute is completely dependent on the voluntary contributions of individuals just like you.  Without you, we would be unable to represent our Christian values in Springfield or fight the radical agenda being pushed by the godless Left in our culture.

Please consider chipping in $25 or $50 to support our work to stand boldly in the public square.

Click HERE to make a tax-deductible donation.

To make a credit card donation over the phone, call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.