Weekly Review

To date, much of the conversation around education has focused on funding and quality differentials between the wealthiest
school districts and the most impoverished. Certainly, the contrasts there are striking. The untold story, however, is even more compelling. It focuses not just on the very top versus the very bottom, but rather the differentials between the wealthiest school districts in Illinois-versus the vast majority of districts that provide
public education to over three-quarters of the children in our state.

Last Thursday, CTBA released the report, Money Matters: How the Illinois School Funding System Creates Significant Educational Inequities that Impact Most Students in the State. The data is stark and telling, revealing meaningful differences in school funding, teacher quality and academic performance that are truly statewide.

Main Findings:

There are significant differences in key metrics such as teacher quality and student performance, between the wealthier Flat Grant and Alternative Formula districts on the one hand, and the Foundation Formula districts which the vast majority of Illinois students attend on the other.
Significant funding and educational differences also emerge when affluent, Flat Grant districts are compared to "downstate" school districts, defined as school districts located south of Interstate 80.
The significant qualitative and outcome differences between wealthier Flat Grant and Alternative Formula districts on the one hand, and Foundation Formula districts on the other, is strongly related to both available local resources and instructional expenditures per student.
There is a strong correlation between increasing instructional expenditures per student by anywhere from $1,000-$2,200, and academic performance, as measured by the Illinois State Achievement Test.
This strong correlation between increased instructional expenditures and improved academic performance is evident in both school districts with low poverty (3%-8% low income rates) and significant poverty (27%-32% low income rates).
Minorities, particularly African Americans and Hispanics, are significantly over-represented in schools with high poverty rates, with over 93 percent of all African American children and over 66 percent of all Hispanic children attending school districts with low income rates of 30 percent or greater.
Disparities in both quality of teachers and academic performance between primarily Caucasian and primarily minority school districts in Illinois are material, and correlate to instructional expense per child, local property wealth, and inadequate state funding.
The $2,324 difference in average instructional expense per student between wealthy Flat Grant districts that only 4.5 percent of K-12 students attend, and the Foundation Formula districts that 77 percent of all K-12 students attend, is greater than the $1,003 average per child instructional expense difference between the lowest and highest poverty school districts in Illinois.
The greatest differential of $2,421 in average instructional expense per student exists between Flat Grant districts and downstate districts (located south of Interstate 80).

Complete with almost 30 charts and graphs, Money Matters focuses not just on the very top versus the very bottom, but rather the differentials between the wealthiest school districts in Illinois versus the vast majority of districts that provide public education to over three-quarters of the children in our state. The data reveals meaningful differences in school funding, teacher quality and academic performance that are truly statewide. the report also analyzes schools in new and different ways such as comparing quality in schools north and south of Interstate 80.

Read: Money Matters: How the Illinois School Funding System Creates Significant Educational Inequities that Impact Most Students in the State.
View the PowerPoint Presentation

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