Illinois Evidence Based Formula was designed to provide justification for generous K-12 funding increases to districts with underperforming and often under enrolled schools
When word spread the Chicago Board of Education was planning cuts to teaching staff to narrow the $732.5 million budget deficit, Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates declared their plan was “unsatisfactory and dead on arrival.” She alone demanded Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly address the shortfall claiming CPS schools are being shortchanged $1.6 billion in funding under the Evidence‑Based Funding (EBF) formula.
Since the May board meeting, Davis Gates has been joined by Mayor Brandon Johnson to demand the state step in and finally “fully fund” Chicago’s public schools. To listen to Johnson tell it, the impending budget cuts and layoffs to teachers and support staff are a sad tale of repeated betrayals, letdowns, and, above all, disappointing failures of nerve among lawmakers in Springfield to take the necessary action to meet its financial obligations under the EBF to the Chicago’s schools.
The Evidence‑Based Funding (EBF) formula was supposedly designed to ensure every school district has the resources necessary to provide a high‑quality education and to direct new state resources toward the most underfunded districts to counter historic funding inequities. Unfortunately, it has provided an excuse for continuous increases in school funding without regard to a district’s academic performance, while protecting underperforming districts from enrollment losses.
The absence of academic accountability and the financial protection for districts regardless of enrollment losses is no surprise, given who was part of the administrative adjudication that created the formula. The powerful coalition Funding Illinois’ Future consisted of school districts, civil‑rights organizations (like Advance Illinois), and teachers’ unions. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) provided critical technical analysis and data modeling to construct the formula.
How the formula works
Under the original bill, the state is obligated to add $300 million each year in new funding for Pre-K to 12th grade schools plus an additional $50 million for property tax relief grants that are awarded to certain high‑tax districts. The law also uses a formula to calculate an “adequacy target” for each district based on size and demographic factors, such as the number of students from low‑income households or students who are English learners.
The law then calculates each district’s current adequacy percentage, taking into account how much they can raise from local taxes, how much they receive in federal funding and how much they currently receive from the state. Under the law, every district is supposed to be guaranteed at least the same amount of state funding as the previous year, but priority for new funding is given to districts that are furthest below their adequacy target.
In reality, however, under the funding formula many school districts are losing funding in real dollars because of inflation. While a drop in general enrollment doesn't cut funding immediately, a decline in the count of low‑income students can reduce state funding allocations. State funding accounts for student need, so a drop in the number of low‑income students (often measured via SNAP/Medicaid eligibility) can reduce a district's overall adequacy target even though the EBF protects current cash.
A large number of districts lose state funding every year in inflation‑adjusted dollars because districts in the upper funding tiers receive little in annual state funding increases: About 99 percent of all new state funding flows to Tiers 1 and 2, leaving roughly one percent for Tiers 3 and 4. This allocation, combined with financial protections for enrollment loss, has enabled districts like Chicago to have their funding increased each year despite significant enrollment declines.
For all the talk about equity, the formula also does nothing to prevent the CPS from deliberately discriminating against large numbers of its children come from low-income households who attend often better performing non-public charter schools. Public charters have the highest concentration of minority and poverty students in the district with 98 percent of their students being Black and Latino and 87 percent from low income families. Yet public charters receive 38 percent less funding per pupil and little facility support than the district’s traditional schools.
Historic increases in funding
Since EBF’s enactment, cumulative increases have totaled more than $4 billion in additional annual funding for public schools; this includes just over $3 billion through the EBF formula. Lawmakers have also increased funding for items outside the formula such as career and technical education, transportation, and other “mandated categorical” expenses. That brought total General Revenue Fund spending for Pre-K–12 public schools to roughly $11.2 billion this fiscal year.
According to the measure, Illinois moved from 18th to somewhere between 8th and 11th in per‑pupil spending in recent years, with statewide per‑pupil spending exceeding neighboring states by wide margins. According to Wirepoints, Illinois spends anywhere from about 16 percent to 64 percent more on education than other Midwest states.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is among the highest per‑pupil spending of large urban districts, spending over $32,000 in combined state, local and non COVID federal funding per student. Since the EBT formula was enacted in 2018 CPS has seen a 26 recent increase in overall state funding including a 18.3 percent increase in general state aid, despite an 11 percent reduction in enrollment. The school districts overall funding per student has risen by 44 percent during this period.
Despite this the district continues to cry poor. According to ISBE officials, bringing all districts up to at least 90 percent of their adequacy target (the original stated goal of EBF) would cost another $3 billion. Fully funding mandated categorical expenses would cost another $600 million beyond that. Estimates place the “full‑funding gap” between roughly $5.7 billion and $7.2 billion annually to reach 100 percent of adequacy targets.
With Illinois projecting its own budget gap of roughly $2.2 billion for the upcoming fiscal year (FY 2027), its highly unlikely that Governor Pritzker and the state legislature will rush to fully fund the formula , let alone help close CPS budget shortfall. Pritzker and others correctly note CPS received about $2.8 billion in K‑12 COVID relief — on top of regular annual increases in state funding and used the funding to irresponsibly hire more than 9,000 full-time positions despite an 11 percent enrollment. Last year, the district had on full time employee for every 6.9 students.
What does the state have to show for its massive spending?
EBF funding is largely unrestricted, meaning districts are not directly penalized or rewarded based on whether they meet specific student‑achievement benchmarks. It has also been accompanied by changes in state academic standards and school accountability. Little wonder that while Illinois spends more per student than many states, it continues to lag in academic outcomes — indicating more money alone has not solved performance problems.
Recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data show only about a third of Illinois students achieve proficiency in core subjects, highlighting severe gaps. Nearly 30 percent of 4th graders and 33 percent of 8th graders are proficient in reading. In math, 38 percent of 4th graders and 32 percent of 8th graders meet proficiency standards. Significant disparities persist along racial and socioeconomic lines.
Chicago’s NAEP scores are significantly worse as proficiency rates lag behind national, state and other large cities. Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) Stacy Davis Gates has called standardized testing a “junk science rooted in White supremacy” as the union has pressured the district to all but abandon using tests to evaluate students, teachers, or school performance. The district has returned to social promotion and no longer ranks schools publicly by academic performance.
The state has followed CPS in lowering standards and altering accountability measures, evidenced by higher graduation rates even as test scores remain low. ISBE adjusted the state’s proficiency thresholds, saying the change was intended to “better align with national college and career expectations.” That change raised reported statewide ELA proficiency to about 53 percent and math to about 38 percent, figures that still leave substantial room for improvement.
Evidence‑based funding backers will continue blaming failure to reach full EBF funding as the reason for poor overall performance. The education debate will continue to be dominated by demands for increased funding rather than academic accountability and better school choices. Little wonder the state has a growing number of schools where few students test at proficiency and an increasing number of nearly empty, failing schools that continue to operate. Expect those trends to continue.
