An ambitious plan to reform the way Illinois distributes money for schools comes with laudable goals, myriad complexities and a fluctuating price tag that has so far spanned from $3.5 billion to $7.5 billion, state records show.
Those amounts, likely spread over a decade or longer, would be on top of the usual billions spent on public education every school year.
Whether taxpayers and state officials are willing to invest that extra cash in public schools is one of the major challenges of a new funding formula that has been at the center of a political fight in Springfield, according to educators, lawmakers and policy experts.
The state House and Senate approved the new formula; Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the measure and revised parts of it — though he supports key concepts — and school officials aren’t sure what will happen next as the new academic year approaches, with state dollars held up until a formula is finalized.
What’s clear is that for the first time in at least 20 years Illinois is preparing to revamp how state dollars are divvied up to schools, using an “evidence-based” approach supported by the state’s major education groups though considered uncommon nationwide.
The main theme is adequacy. The new formula would calculate how much it costs to provide a quality education for students in each district, using academic research, practices and programs to improve student performance. Those ingredients for student success range from optimal class sizes to books and technology to staff positions that help kids, including teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and nurses.
The cost of all those elements added up would create a unique adequacy target for each district to ensure kids can graduate and go on to college and careers, among other goals.
That new formula also factors in student enrollment and low-income populations, as well as property wealth in school communities.
“Adequacy is the minimum amount of dollars that we would want to spend for every student,” said Michael Jacoby, executive director of the Illinois Association of School Business Officials, one of the key groups that helped craft the new formula. However, “local communities should have the opportunity to do more than that.”
The billions of dollars come in because so many districts have shortfalls — or “adequacy funding gaps” — between their adequacy targets and the resources they have from state and local funds.
More than 700 districts — of about 850 in total — need more money, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. That includes the mammoth Chicago Public Schools system as well as districts in Aurora, Cicero, Elgin, Rockford and Waukegan.
Overall, hundreds of millions of dollars would be needed annually to fill the adequacy holes, and there’s wide agreement that a commitment to provide extra funds — not just the usual money sent to districts — is key to making the new formula work. At least $350 million in extra state dollars would be expected for the new formula this coming school year, but whether that investment will continue in ensuing years is unclear.
“There’s got to be more money each year, and there’s going to be skepticism,” said state Rep. Robert Pritchard, R-Hinckley, who sits on the House appropriations committee for K-12 schools.
“How much will it cost? It’s going to be a lot,” Pritchard said. “Will we ever reach the adequacy level? I don’t know.”
Also uncertain is how Rauner’s recent veto of the formula will affect the financial picture. His rewrite of the legislation changes how CPS would be treated in the formula, while revising other key financial provisions.
Rauner said in his veto message that the changes “will set Illinois students and schools on a brighter path with a fairer funding system.”
However, some education groups and other advocates fear the governor’s changes would stymie efforts to launch the reforms as intended.
Not only would Rauner’s changes slow down some districts from reaching their adequacy targets, advocates say, but other broad goals could be diminished. Those include addressing longtime differences in funding between wealthy and poorer districts and pushing the state to provide the majority of funding for schools.
Now, local communities provide the lion’s share of dollars for school budgets, mostly from property taxes. And Illinois is at the bottom of the list compared with all other states when it comes to the state’s share of public school funding, according to federal school finance data.
Recent Illinois data show the state contributes 24 percent of all revenues to public schools, with local revenues at 68 percent and federal at 8 percent.
The longtime concerns about disparities in Illinois’ education funding prompted Rauner to appoint a commission to revise the funding formula created in 1997, which was based on setting a “foundation level” of support for schools that is a common in many states.
That foundation amount in Illinois has been $6,119 per student for several years now, and has been the basis of distributing state aid to districts, in a formula that combines with local funds. Districts also get federal dollars. And some property-rich districts have been getting a flat amount from the state instead of the formula-driven amount.
But to have that same foundation level, $6,119, apply to every district “never made sense because districts have different needs,” said Benjamin Boer, deputy director at Advance Illinois, an education reform group that has been active in revamping the school funding formula.
The unique adequacy targets could mean surprises for taxpayers.
For example, some affluent districts spend more than $20,000 per student. But there is no district with an adequacy target as high as $20,000 in the new formula, according to ISBE’s analysis in May.
The range of per-pupil adequacy targets goes from about $9,800 to $16,650 in that analysis, which could prompt questions by taxpayers in some districts about why spending is higher than what’s considered adequate.
“That becomes a conversation at the local level on whether they (taxpayers) want to tax themselves and pay that (larger) amount,” Boer said.
The new formula, before Rauner’s veto, started with a base amount of funding that districts received this past school year. New funding would be provided based on four tiers, ranging from districts that are far from reaching at least 90 percent of their adequacy targets to those already at or exceeding their targets. The neediest districts —those furthest from their adequacy targets — would get extra state dollars first.
About 140 districts are already spending more than the adequacy targets calculated by ISBE .
The governor’s commission estimated in February it would take a minimum of $3.5 billion in additional state money over the next decade to get all districts at or above their adequacy targets. Another $2.5 billion would be needed to increase the state’s share of funding for schools. The price tag rose to $7.5 billion as lawmakers made changes to the legislation. And ISBE is now working on another analysis of the evidence-based model, in light of the governor’s proposed revisions.
There’s been criticism in some quarters of the new funding plan.
Ted Dabrowski is a vice president of policy at the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank from which Rauner has hired staffers in the governor’s office.
“We’ve been clear this model is lacking in many ways and calls for billions more money, but if you look at the underlying promises, they are very faulty in terms of outcomes,” Dabrowski said. “What they’re creating now is a system that is just really a call for more money.”
Advocates for the new formula acknowledge local school districts can spend the additional money the way they want. And although the funds are designed to improve student achievement, there’s no punitive action laid out in the legislation if there’s no progress.
However, districts will have to submit annual plans to the state on how they will use the money from the new formula, and how they expect to improve student achievement.
Schools won’t be eligible for the evidence-based funds if they’re not “recognized,” meaning they haven’t complied with all laws and rules. In the years ahead, the state will evaluate the evidence-based funding model to determine if it is achieving state education goals.
Meanwhile, school administrators and financial officials say they are still dissecting the new formula and trying to understand all the components.
In Lake County, tiny Rondout School District 72, with roughly 130 students, spends more than $30,000 per pupil and gets very little money from the state. The district’s figure is nearly three times what the adequacy target would be under the new formula.
Superintendent Jenny Wojcik said the “community has grown to having an understanding of why our costs are higher. We don’t have the economies of scale.”
Though her district is fortunate, “We are still concerned about the bigger picture and what happens to our neighbors,” Wojcik said.
“Certainly there is a desperate need to come up with a plan to support schools so that every child in Illinois has a quality education.”
At the same time, such a big shift in school funding may need incremental steps to be successful, Wojcik said. “You may not be able to … fix something quickly that has been problematic over decades.”
