While we were in the throes of endorsement season, we took note of a telling Sept. 23 statement from Illinois State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders.
“When state resources are limited, as we know they will be for fiscal year 2028, the public’s input is a necessity to help ensure our proposed budget for public education reflects the values and priorities of Illinois educators, families and students,” he said.
The warning about limited resources is striking. Sanders is managing expectations while also soliciting public feedback on what comes next.
The debate over education funding, and how we’re doing as a state, kept cropping up as we spoke with candidates over the past few weeks, intensified by the Chicago Teachers Union’s continuing demands for more state funding.
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On Monday, Mayor Brandon Johnson again promoted a so-called millionaire’s tax on X as a way to increase education funding and reduce property taxes.
“A millionaire’s tax in Illinois would relieve working Chicagoans’ property taxes and help fully fund our public schools,” he wrote.
As with most things political, there are two camps on this issue. One side says the system needs and deserves more money, and that money should come from the so-called “rich.” The other side says we’re already spending gobs of cash and need to pump the brakes and consider the data.
State funding for K-12 education has grown during Gov. JB Pritzker’s tenure, from almost $9 billion in the fiscal year 2020 budget to approximately $11 billion in the budget state lawmakers passed this spring.
The opposing trend lines relate to enrollment and educational outcomes.
While state education appropriations have increased by billions of dollars, public school enrollment in Illinois is down 6.9% from 2019 to 2025, per Illinois State Board of Education data. This misalignment raises a legitimate question: What is the return on investment? Especially from the perspective of the students in these schools?
The Nation’s Report Card, which tracks national standardized testing, offers a sobering picture. Illinois’ average fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2024 were below its pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Just 30% of fourth graders and 33% of eighth graders reached NAEP’s proficiency benchmark in reading.
Meanwhile, Illinois in 2025 changed the scores required to be considered proficient on its own state assessments, making comparisons with previous years more difficult. The state’s newly reported reading proficiency rates of more than 50% should not be confused with a sudden leap in student achievement.
What these numbers tell us is Illinois has a complicated education dilemma. Schools have made some academic progress, particularly in reading. But more money has not proved to be a cure-all.
Further complicating matters is how Illinois state funding for K-12 education stacks up against other states. According to a 2025 Civic Federation analysis, Illinois ranks last among 12 peer states in K-12 education spending as a share of total state operating expenditures. Meanwhile, pension spending consumes nearly as large a share of the state’s budget.
That’s different from saying we don’t spend much on education. Illinois spent roughly $5,000 more per public school pupil than the national average in total expenditures, including local, state and federal funding, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics analysis of the 2022–23 school year.
Illinois’ relatively low ranking for education as a share of state spending reflects the difficult choices the state faces after failing to address its underfunded public pensions. Tax dollars committed to yesterday’s obligations aren’t available to meet tomorrow’s needs.
So Sanders is right to warn that resources will be limited. This is something Illinois families know all too well. Their household budgets are limited, too, and their property tax bills keep climbing. A good first step is to evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and to direct resources accordingly.
The answer cannot always be to ask taxpayers for more money. At some point, Illinois must insist on better results from the money it already spends.
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