“There’s no good argument, really, against putting education at the front of the line when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars.”
–Chicago Sun-Times Editorial, 2/18/23
“We’re rejecting the idea that the answer to improving education is simply pumping more money into the same system year after year without making significant changes.”
-Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, 1/24/23, upon signing Iowa’s new school choice law
Who has it right in the quotes above? Bring on the debate, which is long overdue in Illinois.
The presumption of Illinois’ political and education establishments has long been the same as in that Sun-Times editorial— that there’s no good argument against more money for K-12 schools. The presumption is codified in Illinois’ school funding formula, which sets impossible funding goals thereby assuring that most schools claim “underfunding” year in and year out. It was reflected most recently in Gov. JB Pritzker’s new budget proposal, which will direct an additional $350 million to K-12 schools though that’s not nearly enough as Pritzker and the Sun-Times see things.
But that broad presumption is false. As schools flounder, it has become ever clearer that indiscriminately spending more is not assurance of better educational outcomes. Instead, a hard, very specific look at what really works is needed.
One starting point is clear, which is that many of our schools are failing — and people are noticing. My colleagues have heard gasps from parents’ groups when they presented the data about the failure of their children’s schools, on which we published a detailed report.
Over just the past week, our single column on the Illinois schools in which no students are reading or doing math at grade level has received hundreds of thousands of pageviews and many citations in national print and television media. Our earlier, fuller reports, linked below, showed 622 schools where only 1 out of 10 kids or less can read at grade level. That’s 18 percent of the state’s 3,547 schools that tested students in 2022. And only one out of 10 kids or less can do math at grade level in 930 schools – more than a quarter of all schools in the state.
Illinois is not alone. Schooling failure – here and across the nation – was also shown last fall by the standardized tests by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which are published for fourth and eight graders for reading and math. The NAEP 2022 test scores plummeted here and nationwide. While much of that is attributable to school closings and remote learning during the pandemic, the downturn in fact began around 2012, before Covid hit in 2020.
More money hasn’t helped — in aggregate, broad terms, that is.
Illinois’ per student spending grew nearly 70 percent between 2007 and 2019, the most in the nation, based on data we reviewed from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s nearly two times more than the national average over the same period. The latest Census Bureau report shows total K-12 spending per student in Illinois was $17,293 in 2020, the 8th-most in the nation. The national average was $13,187.
Chicago’s spending per student is $17,041 as the Census Bureau counts it (though it’s almost $30,000 when you include a capital budget and all sources). Only 20% can read a grade level. For blacks and Hispanics, it’s just 11% and 17%, respectively.
Comparisons of Illinois to two states we have looked at closely earlier — Florida and Indiana — are particularly striking on spending versus results.
Illinois spent, on average, 68% more per student than Florida in 2019 and 56% more than Indiana. That’s $16,227 per Illinois student and $9,645 and $10,397 for Florida and Indiana.
Despite that additional spending, educational results are no better for Illinois. NAEP test scores are one way to compare results among states. Florida and Indiana registered NAEP scores at roughly even with Illinois, as we showed in our earlier report, from 2007 to 2019. The new scores for 2022 again show each state roughly even on balance. Charts from NAEP showing those comparisons, as well as the national average, are at the bottom.
Those comparisons, however, are between just three states. For a broader outlook, countless academic studies over many years have addressed whether more spending gets better results.
Those studies split. However, academics on both sides seem to agree that smart, narrow targeting on particular educational strategies is needed for results.
A good summary of recent research rejecting the connection between spending and results was published by Reason just last week, titled “Bad schools aren’t always underfunded.” The correlation between funding and school quality, Reason says, is extremely weak.
Why doesn’t more money always help schools improve? Mainly, says Reason, “the answer is that failing yet well-funded schools often simply aren’t spending their money wisely.”
Reason used the example of Carmel High School, an exceptionally nice facility with excellent outcomes in suburban Indianapolis. A brief, student-made video of the school went viral, attracting 34 million viewers awed by such a nice school. Yet, according to the Indiana Department of Education, Carmel High School in 2020 spent between $3,500 to $6,000 less per pupil compared to the four public high schools in Indianapolis.
Note, however, that those numbers are basically expenses for operation and instruction that don’t include the capital budget for Carmel’s splendid facility. That’s a big omission.
An example of the case for the other side is made here from the Education Writers Association. It, too, emphasizes the importance of targeting money on particular strategies such as incentives that boost or reward teacher effectiveness (which teachers’ unions oppose).
Despite all the reasons to be cautious about whether and how to spend more on schools, polls show that the public reinforces that precept mentioned at the outset of this article. Sure, they tell pollsters, pour more money to the schools. Who could be against that? So the politicians oblige. Public support drops off fast, however, when pollsters tell them how much is being spent and how much their taxes would increase.
Where and how, precisely, is more spending wasted?
That’s what should be debated, but a part of the answer in Illinois is that too much money goes to pensions and administrative bloat. We’ve laid that out in great detail in two key reports: Administrators over kids: Seven ways Illinois’ education bureaucracy siphons money from classrooms and more recently in Poor student achievement and near-zero accountability: An indictment of Illinois’ public education system.
However, those explanations are not exhaustive. Other ways that money may be spent without improving outcomes are surely there.
The lesson from all this is clear: Don’t expect more money to improve schools without ensuring it goes toward a specific measure that get known, proven results.
So far, the Pritzker Administration and the Illinois State Board Education won’t even admit there’s a problem. Denial is all they’ve offered. That’s particularly astonishing given the widespread recognition that K-12 education across the country has deep problems, which is reflected in those NAEP scores charted here by Chalkbeat. They show the drop beginning around 2012 to 2015, though Illinois did a little better than the nation during the pandemic. My colleagues will be publishing a separate article shortly on Pritzker and ISBE’s denials.
It should also be clear that Illinois’ school funding formula provides no answers. The funding formula is a “monstrosity of unknown proportions,” as I wrote when the bill was passed. Among its other faults is that results don’t matter. It’s a formula only for shoveling more money. The law provides no real consequence or penalty for reducing spending on items that don’t work. “Evidence based funding” isn’t about evidence of results.
That’s among the reasons we favor school choice. Parents may not know exactly how money is best spent, but they see the final results and they know that too many Illinois schools are failing. What they don’t know is how much is being spent, and how much better a school they could find with that money if given a choice.
Finally, and most importantly, none of this should be interpreted to assign blame primarily to teachers or schools. Many may argue that bad parenting and societal breakdown are the sources of the problems, which is no doubt at least partly true. That should be part of the debate.
Bring on the debate about all of this – including school choice — but start by setting aside the broad, knee-jerk presumption that more funding improves outcomes.