Chicago City Wire

The selection of U-46 Superintendent Tony Sanders as state superintendent by the Illinois State Board of Education is drawing contempt from critics. 

“Tony Sanders is the perfect choice if you want to protect the power of teachers' unions while punishing students,” talk radio station AM 560 The Answer said on Facebook. 

Sanders became the superintendent of Elgin-based School District U-46 in 2014. Elgin U46 is the state’s second-largest school district with over 39,000 students in 40 elementary schools, eight middle schools, and five high schools. He received criticism after several incidents of bullying were publicized. 

“They are letting the anti-mask children –– they’re calling them –– be assaulted, literally assaulted, and they are congratulating those students,” Elgin parent Joshua Martin claimed, according to the Kane County Reporter. “She got her hand shook by the teachers and my child.” U-46 also continued a mask mandate policy after mandatory masking was struck down. That rule would have enacted mandatory masking based on COVID rates in the school district.

He was promoted to be state superintendent despite a nine-year tenure for which Wirepoints pointed out ended with poor outcomes for many students. “At U-46, just 1 in every 10 minority students can read at grade level. For all students, it’s just 2 in 10. Sanders has been in the district since 2007 and was named superintendent there in 2014,” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner wrote.

Wirepoints followed up on Facebook. “Anybody following Wirepoints’ recent reporting on Illinois’ educational crisis already knows the numbers: statewide just 1 of every 10 black students can read at grade level, and for Hispanics, it’s just 2 in every 10. For white students, it’s a better but still dismal 4 in 10. It’s not an exaggeration to say the state’s public schools are condemning an entire generation of #Illinois children to failure,” Wirepoints posted. “So when Governor JB Pritzker recently had the chance to name a new Superintendent to lead the state, he could have picked somebody to shake up the system, somebody whose district was actually leading the state in reading and math outcomes. Maybe somebody from outside the system or outside the state. Somebody who would, finally, prioritize merit, achievement and competence. Somebody who would obsess about dramatically raising student scores.” 

“But he didn’t," Wirepoints added. "Instead, Pritzker chose Tony Sanders, Superintendent of U-46 in #ElginIL, the state’s second-largest school district with 35,000 students. Sanders' record at U-46 is dismal. There, just 1 in every 10 minority students can read at grade level. For all students, it’s just 2 in 10. Sanders has been in the district since 2007 and was named superintendent there in 2014, so he owns those numbers.”

Former state senator and gubernatorial candidate Paul Schimpf is warning Illinoisans of the powers the state superintendent of education holds. On Twitter, Schimpf stated that people would be shocked if they would "knew how much power this un-elected bureaucrat will wield as State Superintendent. This should be an elected, statewide office that is accountable to voters.”