* CNI…

Despite a $350 million increase in base funding for public schools this year, Illinois is falling further behind in its quest to bring all school districts up to adequate funding levels.

That’s according to new data from the Illinois State Board of Education, which announced Friday the details of how it will distribute $9.3 billion in Evidence-Based Funding dollars for public schools.

For the third consecutive year, the number of districts being funded at or above 90% of their “adequacy target” will fall while the overall “adequacy gap” — the amount of additional money it would take to bring all districts up to full adequacy — will increase.

According to the new distribution figures, only 292 of the state’s 850 elementary, high school and unit school districts will be funded at 90% or more of their adequacy target in fiscal year 2027, down from a peak of 327 in fiscal year 2024.

And the overall adequacy gap this year will total $6.8 billion, up from $4.8 billion three years ago.

State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said that’s primarily due to three factors: rising costs; a decline in one source of corporate tax revenue; and an increase in the number of students identified as “low-income.”

* Illinois Federation of Teachers…

In response to the new data released today, the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) called for the Governor and General Assembly to convene a special session to address the backwards motion exposed by the release of the state’s latest Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) report, which demonstrates that Illinois is losing ground on its legal requirement to adequately fund public education by 2027.

The new data released today by the Illinois State Board of Education shows the state’s school funding gap grew by more than $1 billion in just a single year, now sitting at nearly $7 billion. Of the state’s 936 school districts and organizational units, 714 moved further from adequate funding this year alone. At the state’s current minimum annual investment, adequacy is now fourteen years away, up from eleven years just last year.

The new figures make clear that Governor 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,” President of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and Chicago Teachers Union, Stacy Davis Gates, said. “A child entering kindergarten today will graduate from a high school that is still underfunded. Our students are about to report to crumbling buildings, without the food, special education support, and transportation that they need to meet the minimum of a functional school day, let alone the quality school day our students deserve.”

Schools in Waukegan, Rockford, Elgin, Aurora, Peoria, Kankakee, Urbana, Danville, Quincy, Springfield, Belleville, Carbondale, and Marion are farther from full funding this year than they were last year.

The new calculations underscore that underfunding of schools is truly a statewide problem.

To try to address the shortfall, school districts have been making painful cuts that directly harm students and their futures. In northern Illinois, Harlem School District 122 recently closed two community schools because of ongoing financial pressures. In Cicero School District 99, more than 50 educators were laid off in an effort to close budget gaps. In Peoria, large class sizes, fewer support staff, and lack of counseling services are directly impacting student learning.

The underfunding is felt from Pre-K to PhD. Higher education is feeling the same squeeze. In Macomb, students at Western Illinois University are facing skyrocketing tuition while the university cuts academic programs and staff in an effort to manage years of inadequate state investment. Meanwhile, mass layoffs hit Eastern Illinois University in Charleston last fall. These cuts land hardest on regional institutions that serve Black and Brown communities, which have absorbed the effects of chronic underfunding for decades. These are not isolated cases.

Illinois now owes $6.9 billion to fill the gap in its own school funding formula, a gap that grew by $1 billion in the last year alone. At the current pace, the state’s legal obligation to fully fund the Evidence-Based Funding formula has fallen dramatically behind schedule.

At the very least, the state should’ve tied annual EBF increases to inflation.