 Illinois spends the most per student of any state in the Midwest.
On average, Illinois schools spend $13,077 per student.
Nearly half of the money Illinois spends on education goes to fund pensions.
But some advocacy groups are demanding the state spend up to $6 billion more per
year on education.
Money is not the problem. Demands for more money only serve to distract from the
real problems with education funding: the billions of dollars trapped in
Illinois’ education bureaucracy due to out-of-control pensions, duplicative
school district administrations and executive pay.
$13,077 per student
Illinois already spends the most money per student of any state in the Midwest,
the 13th-most per student in the nation, and far more than any other neighboring
state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Illinois spends 40 percent more per student than Kentucky, 37 percent more than
Indiana, and 32 percent more than Missouri. The neighboring state that spends
most comparably to Illinois is Wisconsin, which still spends 17 percent less
than the Land of Lincoln.
If critics really want to address what’s wrong with education finance in
Illinois, they should focus on the real problems.
Nearly 50 percent of state appropriations to education (excluding Chicago) are
consumed by teacher pension costs. Pension costs for teachers were just 20
percent of state appropriations in 2005.
Costs have risen because of an explosive growth in teacher benefits. Benefits
owed to teachers and current retirees have grown to nearly $110 billion in 2015
from just $10 billion in 1987. Up by nearly 1,000 percent, benefit growth has
been far faster than taxpayers’ ability to pay for those benefits over the past
30 years.
[to top of second column] |
 Too many school districts fuel nation’s highest property taxes
The other major drain on education funds is the growing costs of
Illinois’ excessive number of school districts and the
administrators who run them.
Many of those district administrations are duplicative or
unnecessary. Nearly half of Illinois school district administrators
serve just one to two schools, and over one-third of all school
districts serve fewer than 600 students. An additional layer of
bureaucracy in those districts is inefficient.
Many of those unnecessary districts are run by administrators who
receive executive-level pay. Over 80 percent of Illinois
superintendents currently receive six-figure compensation packages,
and they’ll each receive $2 million to $8 million dollars in total
pension benefits over the course of their retirements.
Fixing education means tackling foundational reforms
Advocates of tax increases and higher spending don’t want to be held
accountable for poor educational outcomes and fiscal mismanagement
in Illinois, so they blame the state and a lack of funds.
Reforms that could unleash those dollars to benefit Illinois’
classrooms and children are blocked by the very advocacy groups
calling foul. They’d rather demand billions in additional taxes on
Illinoisans to protect the status quo and their bureaucracies.
If critics truly wished for more funding to reach Illinois’
students, they’d push lawmakers to reform pensions, consolidate
districts and increase accountability – not demand more from
struggling taxpayers who already pay the highest property taxes in
the nation.
That means changing the status quo in education by moving new
teachers into 401(k)-style retirement plans, easing the
consolidation process for school district administrations, and
giving parents the power to hold their schools accountable.
Click here to respond to the editor about this article
|
