PEER IL Response to Governor Pritzker’s FY25 Budget Address
Governor J.B. Pritzker’s 6th annual Budget Address recommends a FY2025 Budget that includes increases to important education priorities, but fails to make the kind of bold and strategic investment necessary to meet the Illinois’ stated commitments to advancing education equity.
The Governor adopted the Illinois State Board of Education’s budget recommendation which falls well short of the $1.4B investment that would be necessary to fully fund the state’s Evidence-Based Formula (EBF), the primary mechanism for delivering funding to Illinois’ 852 school districts. Continuing to invest in EBF at the $350M minimum annual increase fails to meet the crucial moment that Illinois’ students and school communities face and perpetuates the same funding inequities it was designed to address.
Passed in 2017, EBF is a commitment made by Illinois lawmakers to adequately and equitably fund our K-12 education system and direct funds to the most under-resourced school districts. An analysis conducted by the Education Law Center (ELC), national experts and partners in the fight for school funding equity utilizing publicly available ISBE data, found the current EBF funding gap stands at $4.8 billion in K-12 Evidence-Based Funding (EBF). This amount is calculated at 100% adequacy as outlined by the Evidence-Based Funding for Student Success Act itself. Naming this full gap is crucial in order to advance advocacy for the state to fulfill the promise of EBF.
State officials and policymakers celebrate EBF and argue that it is working. However, the lived experiences of impacted school communities, as well as the state’s own data, demonstrate that consistent underfunding of EBF perpetuates a system that is still far from the adequacy and equity targets it set for itself. Furthermore, ELC research ranks Illinois 44th out of the 50 states for equitable school funding, and Illinois consistently receives an "F" grade for its efforts to ensure equitable funding. ISBE’s own data indicates that 84% of students in Illinois, more than 1.5 million, attend underfunded schools, including 92% of all Black and Latine students. The Governor cannot claim to champion Illinois’ children and fail to address this persistent reality.
In addition to confronting persistent funding gaps, Illinois students and families continue to navigate the persistent impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic which disproportionately impacted communities of color and low income communities. While recent state testing data shows some gains in student performance, students, educators and parents know the day-to-day academic and social-emotional challenges that Illinois’ students continue to face. Students served in schools furthest from their adequacy targets will also imminently face the detrimental effects of the looming ESSER fiscal cliff. Research suggests that the end of ESSER funding coming in September 2024 will mean painful budget cuts for school districts and threaten advances made in equity. Budget cuts that will disproportionately impact students in high-needs districts where ESSER funds were used to address operational deficits. Robust and urgent investment in EBF investment is necessary to forestall these imminent impacts.
Illinois cannot purport to champion equity in our education system while continuing to underfund EBF, the systemic tool most readily available to advance equitable funding in our public school system.
The Partnership for Equity and Education Rights (PEER IL) is a statewide advocacy network of students, parents, community members, organizers, and advocates fighting for reinvestment in public schools so that every child receives an excellent education. Every parent and student has a stake in education, but it is our legislators’ duty to make sure that Illinois public education is fully funded. Your voice is critical in holding our leaders accountable. Add your voice to the movement, sign up for our newsletter, and follow us on social media to join us in this fight towards fully resourced public schools.