|
ILLINOIS
K-12 SCHOOL DISTRICTS LOSING STUDENTS, GAINING ADMINISTRATORS
Illinois Policy Institute/
Adam Schuster
Despite shrinking populations of students
and teachers, Illinois school districts have continued to grow their
administrative bodies.
|
|
 Illinois is facing a shortage of students – and a surplus of
school district administrators.
From 2014 to 2018, student enrollment at Illinois K-12 public school districts
fell by 2%, reflected by a nearly identical percentage drop in those districts’
total teachers during that time.
Despite Illinois school districts losing both students and teachers, their
administrators grew 1.5% during the four-year period.
In other words, while school districts’ student and teacher
populations are thinning, the bureaucratic layer at the top only gets thicker.
 Illinois spends more than any neighboring state and nearly double the national
average on “general administration” costs, according to data from the U.S.
Census Bureau. Meanwhile, Illinois students’ test scores trail those of many
neighboring states, as too many education funding dollars get trapped in the
bureaucracy before reaching the classroom.
[to top of second column] |
Administrative bloat comes at no small cost to
Illinois families: Illinois has 852 school districts, which together
consume nearly two-thirds of property taxes collected in Illinois.
On average, school districts in Illinois spend $581
per pupil on school district administration, or more than 2.5 times
the national average of $230 per student. If Illinois spent the same
as the national average on district administration, it would save
$708 million on unnecessary bureaucratic spending that could be
reinvested in classrooms or returned to property taxpayers.
Instead of perpetuating the same cycle of mismanagement and excess
spending, Illinois school districts need to rein in administrative
costs and put their students’ needs first.
Click here to respond to the editor about this article |
