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The Illinois State Board of Education has completed an analysis of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s amendatory veto of an education funding bill, but the administration said it won’t release the results until a review is completed, a spokeswoman for the governor said. Rauner spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said the education board delivered its analysis to the governor’s office late Monday afternoon. That analysis is expected to show how his changes affect school districts across the state.

“Given the complexity of the education funding formula and the fact that this type of analysis requires cross-collaboration between multiple state agencies and departments, the governor’s office has requested a meeting with ISBE Tuesday morning to review the analysis. We will release the numbers once the review is complete,” Patrick said. Rauner has predicted the analysis will show that what he is doing is “right and just and fair” and that his plan will “carry the day” even as independent government watchdogs have found that his changes could mean school districts across the state gradually lose money in future years.

* More from Public Radio…

But spreadsheets are the school-funding equivalent of Cliff Notes, a shortcut that skips nuances that might show up on the test. That’s especially true with this new funding model. It has built-in recalibration mechanisms to annually rebalance what each district needs to achieve adequacy against its capacity to bear that cost.

Take, for example, student enrollment: “Under SB1, if you lose student population, you’ll get less money from the new state distribution,” said Ralph Martire, director of the bipartisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, “because your adequacy target will be reduced. It’s not as if the formula ignores it.”

Martire has been working on this school funding model since 2010.

“But, if you’re below adequacy, you still get more money than you got the prior year, so you can move towards adequacy,” he added. “That’s the beauty of how SB1 works. The math actually accommodates all situations — student population growth or loss.”

This particular feature got the axe under Rauner’s veto. He would cut dollars for schools with declining enrollments, even if they’re already underfunded. The prime example of such a district is Chicago Public Schools.

This AV is all about CPS. More in a bit.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 9:44 am

Comments

Is this analysis going to come out of “review” taped together with smudge marks and white-out all over it?

Comment by JohnnyPyleDriver Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 9:50 am
I hope the shemp-erstars remember to erase the IPI DRAFT shadow off of it.

Comment by Porgy Tirebiter Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 9:58 am
===This AV is all about CPS===

And TIF, don’t forget TIF.

Comment by Ducky LaMoore Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 9:59 am
Why in the world would the results be held for review? Is this standard operating procedure for all other runs? Did Senator Manar get a first look at SB 1 before posting on ISBE website? What happens if the Governor doesn’t like what he sees? Too many questions and not near enough transparency.

Comment by Betsy Ross Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:00 am
== the governor’s office has requested a meeting with ISBE Tuesday morning to review the analysis. ==

Translation: we don’t see the numbers we expected to see.

Comment by RNUG Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:04 am
It was always all about CPS, and about the mass privatization of public education.

Comment by thunderspirit Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:05 am
=== … this type of analysis requires cross-collaboration between multiple state agencies and departments … ===

Translation: The analysis shows a lot of damage to downstate districts and we now have to figure ways to hide, conflate or deflect the information that may convince GOP members to vote to override.

Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:06 am
This reminds me of my former life at BoB/GoMB. We had a division chief who would often give dollar amounts as bill impacts in senior staff meetings, and them come back to his staff and tell them to do an analysis that matched to the amounts he had given earlier without any analysis. Fun times…

Comment by Silent Budgeteer Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:06 am
If your facts and numbers do not compute, you must either have to reevaluate your facts and the assumptions behind them or ditch the numbers.

Which will Rauner choose?

Comment by Aldyth Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:34 am
I trust multiple media outlets have submitted FOIA requests for the original ISBE report that was provided to the Guv’s office yesterday.

“Cross-collaboration between multiple agencies” means those numbers are about to be changed.

Comment by Roman Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:47 am
Hmmmmm. I guess the answer to all the problems we hear about in the CPS would be solved by massive cuts in funding. Who knew?

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:53 am
I smell the books a cookin’.

Even if there are no uh, “Executive adjustments,” as almost everyone on this thread thinks there will be, just looking at all the data for 852 school districts isn’t a quickie project.

Unless, of course, one’s sole interest is Cook 299.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 11:08 am
I see the IPI spin has begun.

Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 12:02 pm
I can’t believe that Mikey doesn’t have a mole insde the SBE see he would get an advance copy.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 2:27 pm
- thunderspirit - Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:05 am:

- Norseman - Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 10:06 am:

- Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 11:08 am:
You all hit the ball out of the park. Spot on.

Comment by Mama Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 5:16 pm
ISBE never had to use multiple agencies to run simulations before. It appears the governor has a problem real math, and needed another agency to fudge ISBE’s numbers.

Comment by SB1isCooking Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 5:29 pm
The mole would get fired for leaking an advance copy of their numbers. I doubt that you will ever see ISBE’s real numbers.

Comment by SB1isCooking Tuesday, Aug 8, 17 @ 5:32 pm
Get the algorithm. Any number appearing in that report ought to be able to be manually derived from someone with the algorithm used in the model that produced the report. The code may be being changed as follows and manual calculations via the algorithm can catch that type of shenanigan:

If algorithm_calculation

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, Aug 9, 17 @ 6:22 am