School performance is uneven — right through college

Residents of the region believe strongly that education is the key to opportunities both for individuals within the region and for the region itself. Participants in community forums consistently ranked educational achievement and opportunity as their number one priority.

Ninety-one percent of residents declared that the region is weakened if individuals are left behind in terms of access to education. Nearly as many felt it was at least very important that the Chicago region is a place “where preschoolers in all communities are well prepared to start kindergarten.”

		Infants and toddlers in all communities will be prepared to succeed in school.

Recent research shows that the quality of care and nurturing of children in the first years of life have a critical effect on how children adapt to kindergarten. Two indicators provide a base for measuring the region’s performance in this area: the percentage of parents who read regularly to their children and the rate of first births to single mothers under the age of 20 without a high school degree (“at-risk” families).

Most parents of children under age six read to them every day, but 10% do not read to their children at all. In 1998, 732,000 children under the age of six lived in the region.

The rate of “at-risk” families is growing in most parts of the region. The actual number of at-risk births increased in every county except Cook, where the number declined from 4,960 in 1992 to 4,660 in 1997. As a share of overall first births, at-risk births increased from 13.9% to 14.2% between 1992 and 1997.