Chicago's Literacy Crisis Requires Phonics-Based Instruction and Parental Accountability, Not Excuses
Source: "Chicago's literacy crisis won't end until parents and schools stop making excuses | Fox News." October 27, 2026. www.foxnews.com
The Gist
The author says Chicago's kids are badly failing at reading, and that this will keep wrecking their futures until adults stop making excuses. He argues schools should go back to phonics, and that parents, who he says are most to blame, should read with their kids every night.
Conclusion
Chicago's literacy crisis will only end if parents and schools stop making excuses and become relentless in teaching children to read, using phonics-based structured literacy at school and nightly reading at home.
Premises
- Only 23% of Chicago fourth graders are proficient in reading and 53% score below basic on the 2024 NAEP, and proficiency rises only to 27% by eighth grade, so the problem affects the whole student population and is not corrected over time.
- Children who are not proficient readers by third grade are far more likely to fail to graduate on time, and adults with limited literacy face higher unemployment, lower lifetime earnings, and greater risk of poverty and prison.
- Reading is the foundational skill that opens economic opportunity, personal freedom and a path out of poverty, yet the city treats illiteracy as background noise and ranks it below issues like homelessness and immigration.
- The science of reading is settled: structured, phonics-based instruction works, and schools that use structured literacy programs see results, but many schools abandoned these fundamentals as too simple and passed unprepared children to higher grades.
- Parents bear most of the responsibility because teaching a child to read is not complicated and can be done through nightly reading and sounding out words at home.
- The author's own observations on Chicago's South Side, including young people and parents unable to read job applications, leases, or medical reports, show the real-world damage of illiteracy.
Assumptions
- NAEP proficiency scores are a valid measure of children's actual reading ability and life prospects.
- Low literacy causes poor life outcomes, rather than both being driven by poverty or other common factors.
- Phonics-based structured literacy is effective across all children and contexts and is the primary missing ingredient.
- Parents have the time, skill, and resources to read to their children nightly, and failure to do so reflects choice rather than constraint.
- Shifting blame and attitude (becoming 'merciless', no excuses) will translate into improved instruction and outcomes.
- Community-led initiatives like the author's planned school can be scaled or replicated to meaningfully shift citywide results.