More school districts, including Chicago Public Schools, are further away from the state funding needed to meet their students’ needs, according to new data from the Illinois State Board of Education.
CPS is now considered 70% funded based on the state’s funding formula, down from 73% last year — even as state dollars increased. Elgin School District U-46, the state’s second-largest, dropped from 76% to 70%, and Rockford School District 205, the third-largest, dropped from 65% to 61%.
In all, 714 out of 936 districts and organizational units moved further away from their funding targets, officials said. That backslide is largely due to rising costs, such as teacher salaries and benefits, and the state changing how it counts low-income students.
Illinois’ Evidence-Based Funding formula, or EBF, sets funding targets based on demographics, enrollment and student needs, then directs new money to districts with the greatest gaps between those targets and what local resources can cover.
More Top Picks Pursteam 10 In 1
Since 2018, lawmakers have added $300 million to the formula each year, according to ISBE, totaling $2.5 billion. But under the latest calculations, the cost to bring all districts to 90% funding adequacy has increased by $1.05 billion, leaving the formula more than $4 billion short of full funding.
At the current pace, the state will not reach full funding until after 2040, a three-year jump from earlier projections. There are currently 270 districts in the lowest-funded category, with an adequacy ratio below 72%.
After the state updated its data, the number of low-income students rose from 39.5% to 57.2%, an increase of 300,000 students. The formula now includes all students eligible for public-benefit programs such as Medicaid. Previously, officials didn’t factor in students whose families had applied but had not yet been processed after the state’s cutoff date.
“EBF is designed to be dynamic so that progress towards adequacy is not linear,” ISBE Superintendent Tony Sanders said last week. “The formula is working.”
Elgin has 56 schools, enrolling 34,000 students. Rockford has 42 schools and 28,000 students. At both districts, roughly half of the student body is considered low-income. That’s compared to CPS’ 630 schools and 316,000 students, 71% of whom are low-income.
The new calculation comes as CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union pressure lawmakers to allocate an additional $150 million to the district. Despite warnings from CPS officials, CTU-aligned school board members passed a budget last month that counts on the extra dollars to reverse layoffs. But there’s no guarantee that funding will materialize, which could leave CPS vulnerable to midyear cuts.
The district is slated to receive $1.94 billion from EBF for the 2026-27 school year. In part because CPS is the largest school district in Illinois, it receives roughly a fifth of the new money allocated to the formula — a bump of about $66 million this year.
Illinois Federation of Teachers and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates called the new numbers “a wake-up call,” outlining school cuts across the state in a statement last week.
“A child entering kindergarten today will graduate from a high school that is still underfunded,” Davis Gates said. “Our students are about to report to crumbling buildings, without the food, special education support, and transportation that they need to meet the minimum of a functional school day, let alone the quality school day our students deserve.”
More Top Picks Best Swivel Bar Stools