Elmhurst Student Scores Unacceptable: Group

ELMHURST, IL – Members of an Elmhurst parents group often complain about lessons that they say promote Marxism and critical race theory.

They say they want to improve local schools' academic performance. But they rarely go into specifics publicly.

On Tuesday, one of the group's members did get into details. He spoke at an Elmhurst School District 205 board meeting.

Elmhurst resident Isaac Yue said he was on the analytics team for the local group, Elmhurst Parents for Integrity in Curriculum, or EPIC, which formed in January.

While other members of the group have denounced the school administration, Yue gave Superintendent Keisha Campbell and Associate Superintendent Scott Grens a measure of praise.

"We have definitely seen a change in the way they look at numbers that we have not seen before," said Yue, an orthodontics professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Yue urged the board to focus on core competencies such as English language arts and math.

"We have noticed over the last five years – this is outside COVID – the numbers have dropped," he said.

He noted the proficiency of non-low-income students is at 60 percent in math and 67 percent in English language arts. In other words, about a third do not reach proficiency, he said.

"Those numbers get worse with low-income," he said. "Those numbers are dramatically lower. We at EPIC want to make sure this rises. We're not just talking about the high-income people. Everyone must rise."

He said with low-income students, proficiency rates are 20 to 25 percent.

"That's just not acceptable," he said. "You would not accept that in going to a restaurant or your computer not working 60 percent of the time... You would not have that happen."

Yue asked the school board to re-examine over the summer how it could change the curriculum to improve scores.

"How do we get all these students to reach 100 percent proficiency?" he said. "Ninety percent would be great. We are not there yet."

The school board doesn't respond to public comments.