Numbers tell a story, but rarely without help.

Partially buried in a flurry of veto session and federal immigrant enforcement headlines was the late-October release of the State Board of Education’s annual statewide school report card.

It’s almost a crushing amount of data, which is to be expected with 864 districts operating 3,827 schools teaching 1,848,560 students – almost 15% of overall population.

The information is available at illinoisreportcard.com, along with historical data from 2006 through 2020, all available at the individual district level. The state-level figures are interesting – we’re down two districts, eight schools and 2,730 students from 2024’s snapshot – but the tool probably is more widely useful for people who want to look into local districts, either as parents,

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