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 Illinois state Rep. Rita Mayfield’s bill to put classrooms and
taxpayers ahead of Illinois’ growing school district bureaucracy won unanimous
approval March 24, despite heavy opposition from the district administrators who
stand to lose.
House Bill 7, the Classrooms First Act, passed the Illinois House Elementary and
Secondary Education committee 8-0 and now enters an ongoing discussion with
different stakeholders to bring it to its best possible form for students and
taxpayers before moving to an Illinois House floor vote. While 716 filed
opposition to the bill, including 113 district administrators making at least
$100,000 a year as of March 22, there were 3,420 Illinois residents in favor of
the bill – a fact duly noted during the committee hearing.
“It’s time to do what’s best for students, teachers and residents across the
state: ensure education dollars make it into the classroom. Illinois’ excessive
layers of wasteful and duplicative district bureaucracy are a barrier to this
goal,” said Adam Schuster, senior director of budget and tax research for
Illinois Policy.
“We applaud Rep. Mayfield’s efforts and that of the entire committee,” Schuster
said. “School district consolidation is a proven strategy to boost education
quality and student outcomes. Illinois residents deserve a chance to decide
directly on how many layers of district administration is right for their
community.”
The act would prioritize classrooms, students and teachers over bureaucracy in
education funding by forming a commission to study school district
consolidation, and then make recommendations for local voters to decide on the
mergers. No schools would close, but Illinois has twice as many school districts
as the national average and all that administrative duplication comes at a cost.
The Classrooms First Act aims to reduce Illinois’ 2.5-times-the-national-average
spending on “general administration” costs by consolidating 25% of the state’s
852 school districts. Nearly half serve only one or two schools.
Illinois’ student and teacher populations each dropped 2% between 2014 and 2018,
but administration grew 1.5% during that time. In 2017 there were over 9,000
school administrators in Illinois who made $100,000 or more per year.
All that excess bureaucracy leads to high costs: Illinois spent $1.19 billion on
district-level administration in 2018. California is able to serve three times
as many students as Illinois for over one-third less.
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Those costs are only related to district
superintendents and board costs, including marketing and human
resources. They do not include school principals and the bill would
not close any individual school or cost a school its team colors or
mascots.
What it would likely do is raise students’ academic
achievements.
A 2018 study found increasing the size of a district to 1,000
students improves the average SAT score by 48 points, with another
14 points added by increasing to 2,000 students.
Illinois spends $598 per student on district-level administration,
more than 2.5 times the national average of $237. If Illinois
reduced its general administrative spending to the national average
per student, it would save $716.6 million in bureaucratic costs.
That amount is over double the $350 million state leaders promised
to boost school spending each year when they revamped the school
funding formula in 2017. That promise was broken for the current
school year, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker keeping school spending flat.
He’s proposed doing the same again in his upcoming budget.
Illinois spends more than Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana on education
but gets worse results. Illinois dedicates more education dollars to
district level administrators, as well as education in general, but
all three states post better scores than Illinois in K-12 math and
reading proficiency, according to the National Assessment of
Education Progress.
School districts consume two-thirds of property taxes in Illinois.
Reducing the number of school district and the costs associated them
would make a big dent in those property taxes.
HB 7 would create a School District Efficiency Commission that would
review the state’s 852 school districts and make recommendations for
consolidating 25% of them. The recommendations would then go to
district voters as a ballot question. Both districts in
consideration would have to approve the measure separately by
majority votes to merge.
School district consolidation refers only to reducing costs
associated with district administration and the school board – jobs
such as superintendents, human resources and marketing. District
consolidation does not reduce the number of schools or teachers or
principals or guidance counselors. The bill specifically protects
schools, their team colors and mascots by prohibiting the commission
from recommending that any schools close.
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