Chicago Public Schools announces an ‘equity’ funding model will be used in schools, preserving teachers’ jobs and staffing levels.
By Eileen Griffin
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will use a new funding model to share resources with “equity.”
School district officials are in the process of finalizing a budget for the 2024-25 school year using a model designed to guarantee a minimum number of teachers in all core subjects, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The calculation will be based on an “opportunity index” score which incorporates the number of students who come from impoverished families or other vulnerable groups. A score is assessed for each school based on need.
Paul Vallas, policy adviser for the Illinois Policy Institute, told Heartland Daily News in an email, “Chicago Public Schools announced the end of student-based budgeting, citing a desire to implement a funding formula based on ‘student needs.’ The current formula already funds based on needs: schools with more students in poverty or with special needs get more funding. By abandoning student-based budgeting, the district no longer wants the money to follow the students,” Vallas said.
In the past, funding for each school in the Chicago system was based on student enrollment, ABC reports. The new formula ignores enrollment and focuses on “equity.”
“Even if a school is severely under-enrolled, like Frederick Douglas High School, it will get a base level of staffing,” writes Sarah Schulte for ABC. “With a faculty parking lot almost empty, the West Side high school has only 33 students.”
For the last 11 years, enrollment in Illinois schools has been declining, the Illinois Policy Institute reports. The 2023-24 school year was the first change of direction, but it is largely attributed to the influx of migrant students into the school system.
Of the students currently enrolled in the public schools, 25 percent are non-English speakers. The racial make-up includes more Hispanic students but a decline in Black students.
“Districtwide, there were many schools where no students in some grades could read or perform math at grade level,” writes Hannah Schmid, Policy Analyst for the Illinois Policy Institute. “To establish a new trend of increasing enrollment, CPS must get a grip on the failing proficiency rates plaguing the district’s students.”
Attendance at public schools has been in decline as many parents choose private schools or homeschool options. Across the country, the demand for educational choice has grown in the last few years and the trend continues, as Heartland Daily News has reported.
School choice is thriving in neighboring states such as Iowa and Indiana, but Illinois is pushing back against educational freedom.
At the end of this year the Illinois program, Invest in Kids, expires and will no longer be funded, The Center Square reports. Invest in Kids provided low-income students with scholarships to attend private schools or technical schools.
The Illinois program was popular, growing to record number of 15,000 Chicago students in the 2023-24 school year.
The loss of Invest in Kids was considered a win for the teachers’ union. When it was announced that the program would no longer be funded, several private schools immediately reported that they would be closing. Without the funding, many students will be forced back into the Chicago Public School system.
CPS is already facing a budget shortfall of $391 million for the 2024-25 school year, the Chicago Tribune reported at the end of 2023.
For two years, school districts had cash infusions under the CARES Act as part of the Biden administration’s response to the pandemic.
Federal funds were directed predominantly to low-income schools or those with declining enrollment. As the federal “emergency” funds are no longer available, schools are struggling to close budget shortfalls.
“Some districts gave out big pay raises that they’re going to have trouble affording when the money disappears,” school finance expert Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab told the Tribune. “They may have hired people and they’re always reluctant to do layoffs. Ultimately, something’s got to give.”
CPS received $2.79 billion of COVID funds designated for educational purposes (ESSER), Heartland Daily News reported. The new budgeting plan does not address the loss of the ESSER funds or any other shortfall.
“The new formula allows the district to keep near-empty schools open without making changes,” Vallas said. “The new funding model is more about the Chicago Teachers Union maintaining their staff levels amidst dwindling school enrollment than it is about helping students.”
“The best way to fund schools is by radically de-centralizing the central office, allowing more funding to flow to schools, and empowering the principals and their elected Local School Councils to do what they feel is needed to improve academic achievement.”
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