Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the $9.96 billion budget Chicago Public Schools passed for the coming fiscal year is generating some controversy. OK, so whenever CPS does anything it engenders controversy. But in this case, some legitimate issues are on the table.
That’s because in a split vote, the CPS Board passed a budget that includes $150 million in state funding the Illinois General Assembly hasn’t authorized. The board members who voted for the budget noted the speaker of the House and Senate president have publicly indicated a willingness to get more state funding for CPS this year, and including the extra $150 million averted the need to lay off roughly 760 teachers, 800 or so support personnel and 41 assistant principals.
Those who opposed the budget aver it’s not fiscally prudent to bake dollars into CPS spending that haven’t been appropriated by state lawmakers and could hurt the CPS credit rating. While acknowledging key state legislative leaders have voiced support for bumping Illinois investment in CPS, the board members who voted no emphasize those legislative leaders haven’t identified any specific dollar amount of additional funding. They’re also concerned the political pathway to getting more money for CPS is difficult, especially during the veto session, when a supermajority vote is required to pass legislation.
The imbroglio over the CPS budget is heated. But if everyone takes a deep breath, it also affords a rare opportunity to consider fiscal concerns in context of the larger public policy issues being implicated — in this case, education funding.
In 2017, Illinois replaced its former school funding formula, which was then derided as the least-equitable in the country, with the Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act or EBF. The EBF ties school funding to covering the cost of those educational practices that research shows actually enhance student achievement, on everything from test scores, to graduation rates and college matriculation rates. Tying taxpayer dollars to paying for what’s been proven to work academically is really good public policy.
When it passed, the funding formula called for the state to fully fund it within 10 years, which would be this year. But that hasn’t happened. In fact, the aggregate shortfall in K-12 funding has increased each of the last three years and currently sits at $4.2 billion. That means most Illinois school districts — including CPS — still don’t have the resources needed to fund those educational practices the research shows work.
So why’s that problematic? Well, over the last few decades, the economic importance of educational attainment has grown significantly. All the data shows that individuals with college degrees have lower rates of unemployment and higher incomes than those who don’t complete college.
Shortchanging students
Consider that in 1979, the median earnings of full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree were 38% greater on average than workers with just a high school diploma. By 2024, that wage gap had jumped to 84%. Moreover, communities with a greater number of college-educated folks have lower crime rates, better overall health and higher wages for all workers, not just those with postsecondary degrees. The Federal Reserve of Cleveland even found that states with the best high school and college graduation rates also have the highest per capita personal incomes.
And this trend isn’t going away. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found by 2031, 72% of jobs will require some postsecondary education credential. Which in turn means the K-12 education students receive has to be of sufficient quality for them to develop the numeracy and literacy skills needed to graduate and gain that post-high school credential. Hence, shortchanging public schools equates to shortchanging the ability of the students who attend them to make it in the modern economy.
So who are the students being shortchanged? In the case of CPS, 71% are low-income, 80% are Black or Brown, and 27% are English learners. The vast majority of these children have been denied opportunity throughout their young lives. Getting a quality K-12 education, however, will arm them with the academic skills needed to pursue higher education and become qualified for the type of jobs that’ll make them economically self-sufficient.
Unfortunately, last year CPS had $985 million less than what the evidence indicated it needed to provide an adequate education to its students. So those board members who approved the new CPS budget decided to put some pressure on state lawmakers to close $150 million of that gap this year.
And if the additional state funding doesn’t materialize? CPS could offset the shortage by implementing the roughly $145 million in cuts from furlough days and midyear hiring freezes it previously identified but put off implementing until it sees whether the General Assembly steps up to the plate. That seems, well reasonable, even if not ideal from a pure budgetary policy standpoint.
Ralph Martire is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank, and the Arthur Rubloff Professor of Public Policy at Roosevelt University.