Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Illinois facing another steep “ramp”

Posted in:

Illinois

* Karen Ann Cullotta at the Tribune..

The new statewide education justice coalition, PEER IL, was created “to ensure the state is fulfilling its promise to provide Illinois public school students fully funded and fully resourced public schools,” PEER IL officials said.

When then-Gov. Bruce Rauner signed Evidence-Based Funding into law in 2017, the legislation aimed to “comprehensively overhaul the state’s school financing system,” PEER IL officials said.

According to the report, reaching the adequacy benchmarks put forth in the law requires more than $7 billion additional dollars in state funding to properly fund school districts in the state, with a goal of reaching full funding by 2027. […]

CPS is funded at 74% of adequacy, an annual $1.4 billion shortfall, CPS officials said.

* Trouble is, CPS school funding is mainly based on student population, not equity…

Currently, schools get a set amount of money per student, plus a few centrally-funded positions, such as principal and school clerk. This system – implemented in the wake of the 2013 closings – has been criticized by the Chicago Teachers Union because it penalizes schools with fewer students and sets them on a downward spiral of declining enrollment and disinvestment.

Chicago, with 322,106 public school students, should also get its act together.

The full study is here.

posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 9:32 am

Comments

Schools with fewer students penalize the kids that attend them.

Chicago Public Schools getting it’s act to together cannot happen until CTU gets it’s act together.

Since CTU

Comment by Lucky Pierre Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 9:56 am
Kam Buckner introduced a bill to make CPS find schools using an equitable formula. He’ll probably bring it up in his mayoral campaign.

Comment by Chicago Parent Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 10:31 am
The report states average per pupil funding for high poverty districts is $15,527. Those districts alone would rank #15 nationally on an average per pupil basis, more than the average pupil in California, Ohio, and Minnesota receives in funding.

Comment by City Zen Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 10:51 am
Prior to the per-student funding situation at CPS, school funding was actually largely based on the squeaky-wheel model. Loud and powerful schools and aldermen were able to get central office to create “positions” at their local schools, creating a huge imbalance and a significantly-less equitable outcome.

But, they kinda stopped there. They should have created an equitable approach to funding that said that schools in communities with greater burdens need smaller classes, and more supports, not the same. Unfortunately, that approach would have largely conflicted with Rahm’s public messaging at the time that school classrooms needed to be optimized for 28-30 seats per class (justification for school closures).

There is still time to get it right and shift to an equitable model.

Comment by Ok Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 10:53 am
The Evidenced Based Funding Formula does take need into consideration, not necessarily specific to a district but more in the general sense of what the framers of the formula thought were needed to provide a quality education.

The ISBE does not require a particular method of distributing the funding once received by a district, but equity is the new favored terminology from the ISBE, especially Carmen Ayala. Every year we have to complete a report that shows how we spent funds by building. I am sure that will ultimately guide policy. I would love to see the CPS report. I cannot imagine what that would be like to create and I can only guess at its’ accuracy.

Comment by JS Mill Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 10:54 am
Is this the same CTU that demands even though a school is built to accommodate 1200 students, and there is only 458 in the whole school CPS must keep that school open? That CTU?

Comment by NotRich Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 11:33 am
In 1995 we had the Edgar Ramp.

Looks like back in 2017 we had the Rauner Ramp.

Comment by AcademicUnionStateEmployee Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 11:41 am
so where are the kids who aren’t going to the schools? perhaps they are not there because the Roman Catholic schools are closing down or merging left and right in the city boundaries and there are not that many charter schools. certainly the kids are not around many of these public school buildings. there are big areas of the city with vacant land. that means no people. while public resources should not follow a business model and close down every facility that is underutilized, you have to think that it is unrealistic to keep many open buildings for so few students. when a building could accommodate more, IF there are not students to be had in that neighborhood, choices must be made.

Comment by Amalia Monday, Oct 3, 22 @ 1:08 pm