Speaking of the poor quality education of Granite District schoolsArchived Message
Posted by Riverbender on January 23, 2020, 8:17 am
All they do is teach the students the letter D,,,the important stuff for election day. Heaven forbid the children know anything else.
Illinois spends 30 to 50 percent more than its neighbors on education, but its students do worse
Spending more on education is always a political winner. It’s why former Gov. Bruce Rauner boosted state spending on education year after year despite the two-year budget impasse and his dire warnings of the state’s collapsing finances.
Now, it’s the Pritzker administration’s turn to spend more. The Illinois State Board of Education has released its recommended 2021 budget and it wants to increase state appropriations to education by another $760 million, an 8.6 percent increase. That’s on top of the current year’s 6 percent increase and 2019’s 5 percent jump.*
What Illinoisans may not know, however, is that before Rauner even spent a dime, Illinois was already spending more federal, state and local dollars on a per student basis than any other state in the Midwest – and far more than its neighbors.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest nationwide numbers, Illinois spent a total of $15,573 per student on education in 2017. That’s $5,000 more per student – or 53 percent more – than Indiana spends in total and $3,300 more than Wisconsin, its closest-spending neighbor. It was also 26 percent more than the national average.
What about outcomes?
Unfortunately, that additional funding hasn’t translated into better outcomes for Illinois students.
Illinois’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading have remained essentially flat over the decade, even as total per student spending has grown by over 40 percent.
What about outcomes?
Unfortunately, that additional funding hasn’t translated into better outcomes for Illinois students.
Illinois’ National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for math and reading have remained essentially flat over the decade, even as total per student spending has grown by over 40 percent.
And it’s not as if Illinois scores have plateaued – that all that spending is simply maintaining high test scores that its neighbors haven’t matched.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Illinois’ (NAEP) scores are mostly lower when compared to its neighbors. Indiana spends far less than Illinois does, but Indiana’s results are far better across the board. Ditto for Wisconsin. Missouri, Iowa and Kentucky have also largely outperformed Illinois.