Just 43% of Chicago Public Schools students in grades three through eight met the state's reading proficiency standard in spring 2025, while only 27% reached proficiency in math, according to a new report published by the Illinois Policy Organization as students return to classrooms Aug. 24. The analysis reveals that academic struggles remain severe across the district despite the state lowering what test scores count as proficient.
The numbers look slightly better than the previous year, but parents should approach those comparisons carefully after Illinois reduced the scores considered proficient starting with the 2025 Illinois Assessment of Readiness test. That shift raised proficiency rates on paper and makes straight comparisons with earlier years misleading. Among 11th graders who took the ACT, 40% met the reading benchmark and just 25% met the math benchmark. Beyond academics, 40.1% of CPS students were chronically absent in 2025, meaning they missed at least 10% of the school year with or without an excuse. That's down slightly from 2024 but remains dramatically higher than the 24% recorded in 2019, the last complete school year before pandemic closures. More than two-in-five CPS teachers missed 10 or more school days in 2024-2025, the lowest teacher attendance rate the district has recorded in nearly a decade and nearly 10 percentage points above the statewide rate.
The report finds that CPS enters the school year with a record $10.11 billion budget even as enrollment continues its long-term decline. From 2020 to 2025, student enrollment dropped by more than 24,000, a 7% decrease, while annual operating expenses climbed by $2.4 billion, a 39% increase. The district added 8,250 positions during that same period. According to the analysis, 54% of CPS schools are underutilized, operating below 70% of capacity, with 255 school buildings maintaining large amounts of unused space. Some facilities are nearly empty.
The mismatch between falling enrollment and rising spending is a major driver of CPS's recurring budget shortfalls, the report explains. The budgeting process for fiscal 2027 started with a projected deficit of $732.5 million. The final budget restored more than 1,000 planned layoffs by assuming another $150 million in state funding that hasn't been awarded. The budget also depends on temporary or uncertain fixes that don't address the fundamental imbalance between how many students CPS serves and how much the district spends. Research shows that frequent teacher absences serve as a leading indicator of student achievement, meaning Chicago students' low proficiency rates aren't helped when their instructors aren't present.
The report recommends requiring proven instructional practices, ensuring specific interventions in struggling schools, and giving families access to high-quality schooling options. It also calls for transitioning toward zero-based budgeting, where departments and schools must justify spending rather than simply building new budgets on previous years, and mandating a higher threshold for approving new borrowing. A moratorium on school closures remains in place even as enrollment declines and the district struggles to balance its budget, but that moratorium ends after this school year, making a long-term facilities strategy increasingly critical.