Thursday, March 1, 2018

Chicago, IL – A claim that spurred backlash from Cairo students themselves landed Chris Kennedy in hot water with fact checkers. The Better Government Association rated Kennedy’s claim that “zero percent of kids in Cairo are college-ready” as false.

BGA: Fact Check: Chris Kennedy Flunks Data Interpretation 101 With Cairo College Readiness Claim

Kennedy tried to make a point about inadequate state school funding when he declared “zero percent of kids in Cairo are college-ready.”

But school officials in that deep southern Illinois community report a majority of current seniors have already received acceptance offers from at least one college.

Kennedy backtracked on his original statement when news media sought clarification, though he did not admit error. In the second go-around, he pointed to slightly better numbers from a different set of state-collected test data. […]

The confusing set of numbers and assertions reeled out by Kennedy to bolster his comments about Cairo students make it clear he didn’t do his homework before claiming initially that no members of the graduating class of 2018 were prepared for college. For that reason, we rate his statement False.

“Chris Kennedy should get his facts straight and take time to understand the needs of the communities he’s so thoroughly insulting from the campaign trail,” said Pritzker communications director Galia Slayen. “Public education is the lifeblood of the Illinois economy and students are the future of this state, but Kennedy seems intent on badmouthing them instead of bringing people together to move Illinois forward.”

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