Chicago Public Schools need about $1.9 billion more from the state in order to provide an adequate education, a gap that has grown over the past two years, according to data released Friday by Illinois education officials.
The news will immediately bolster growing calls for the state to give the city’s school district more money. CPS faced a $732 million deficit this year, and just last week, the school board approved a budget that included hundreds of staff cuts in central office and classrooms.
A majority of board members sought to lessen those cuts by backing a revised budget — against the wishes of Supt. Macquline King — that assumes $150 million more from the state. After passing that budget in a controversial split vote, they vowed to go to Springfield during the November veto session to pressure lawmakers to come up with the funding.
CPS is not alone. Out of about 940 school districts in Illinois, 714 have moved further away from adequacy this school year. Each district’s funding target is determined by considering student demographics such as poverty and measuring how much money would be needed to have minimum ratios of students to teachers, counselors and other central staff.
While funding has gone up overall — this year, as has happened most years under Gov. JB Pritzker, funding through the state’s formula went up by $350 million — many factors have caused the state to fall increasingly short, including that costs have risen.
CPS now only has 70% of what it needs to provide an adequate education, down from 73% last year and 79% the year before. And the number of school districts across the state with 70% or less than what they need doubled in the past year.
The Illinois Federation of Teachers said in a statement that it is “clear that Gov. JB Pritzker and state lawmakers must correct the bare-minimum approach to school funding that is currently failing students, educators, and communities across Illinois.”
“Today’s report should serve as a wake-up call,” said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union. “A child entering kindergarten today will graduate from a high school that is still underfunded.”
A 2018 law changed the way Illinois distributed money to school districts and established the adequacy target. The law called for the state to increase funding by a minimum of $300 million a year and set a goal of having all school districts funded to 90% adequacy by 2027.
But Illinois has fallen way behind. The state would need to contribute nearly $6 billion more to make all schools adequate. At the current rate, it will take another 14 years, according to the state.
Pritzker’s office did not respond to Friday’s release by the Illinois State Board of Education. He has repeatedly pointed out that public education funding has increased by $3 billion under his administration.
State Supt. of Education Tony Sanders said on a call with the media Friday that every school district will receive more funding this year. He also made the case that the state contribution wasn’t the problem, nor was the funding formula, which he said was “working.”
He said many factors are causing school districts to move further away from adequacy. Chief among them: The state changed the way it was counting the number of poor students, which led the needs of every district to grow since the formula calls for school districts with more poor children to get more money.
And costs went up, including for salaries. There was also a significant decrease in revenue from a state tax on corporations, Sanders said.
When asked if all those factors should lead to the state putting more into education funding, Sanders pointed out that “we’ve made record investments in public education, while many other states have not made similar investments.”
House Speaker Chris Welch did not respond to questions, but he recently said he wanted to provide more money for CPS — though he has not offered details.
Senate President John Harmon’s office responded that there’s “no greater supporter of public education than the Senate Democratic Caucus.”
“The Senate President looks forward to working with our allies and partners to identify resources to continue increasing our investment in students each year,” said John Patterson, spokesman for Harmon, in a statement. “We also hope our partners in Washington recognize that continued federal investment in public education is essential at a time when states are being asked to do more with increasing fiscal uncertainty.”