Illinois Coalitions Act to Improve School Funding and Accountability

 For years, we've been urging that Minnesota advocates for public education form a robust coalition to reform Minnesota's dysfunctional school finance system.  But given the threat of truly catastrophic federal funding cuts, adequate state funding is imperative.  A significant portion of federal funding is targeted to students most in need.  That means reductions in federal education funding will disproportionately impact districts serving those students.  The Minnesota legislature failed to provide significant relief for English language learners.  Compensatory funding is inadequate.   If the federal government slashes federal education funding, Minnesota has a constitutional obligation to maintain adequate funding for those students.  Adequate education is a state responsibility, and cutting federal funding will not absolve Minnesota of that responsibility. 

To that end, we've begun a series of posts on coalitions and advocacy in other states. Today, we look at Illinois.

The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization committed to advancing social and economic justice for all. Our evidence-based research has helped generate fundamental changes in education, healthcare, housing, economic development, and tax policy in Illinois and nationwide.  The Center has worked for years to promote and support legislation including the Evidence Based Funding for Student Success Act, or EBF—which is designed to work towards its promise of closing the drastic funding gaps between school in property-rich and property-poor districts,  as well as between schools in predominantly white communities and schools that serve predominantly Black and Latinx students

Funding Illinois’ Future (FIF) is a coalition of more than 100 school districts, leaders, parents, educators, community, civic and faith-based organizations that helped fix Illinois’ worst-in-the-nation school funding formula in 2017 with our advocacy for the historic implementation of the K-12 Evidence-based Funding Formula (EBF). We are now focused on the goal of equitable and adequate funding for all K-12 schools, and providing every Illinois student with the excellent education they deserve.

As a result of aggressive statewide advocacy, the Illinois legislature implemented a new comprehensive education reform system that combines better funding focused on under-resourced districts with a state level accountability system.  The Illinois legislature created an Evidence-Based Funding Professional Review Panel composed of a group of practitioners, experts, legislative leaders, and advocates tasked with reviewing the first year of the state’s historic funding reform implementation, as mandated by Public Act 100-0465. The panel will recommend continual re-calibration and other modifications to Evidence-Based Funding to meet the needs of all students in Illinois.

To assess progress on implementing recommended best practices, Illinois School Code80 created the Balanced Accountability Measure Committee within the State Board of Education. The purpose of the Committee is to develop recognition standards for student performance and school improvement for all school districts and their individual schools. The standards developed will be an outcomes-based, balanced accountability measure. 

Although Illinois Evidence Based Funding has created a robust structure to encourage best practices and direct more funding to the districts most in needs, unfortunately, the legislature has grossly underfunded the formula.  Illinois has no constitutional requirement for adequate funding, and so implementation depends entirely on political advocacy.  

Advance Illinois 

Motivated by the urgency that Illinois was not preparing its students to compete in a global marketplace, and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, and the Boston Consulting Group, leaders from more than a dozen civic, philanthropic, business, and education organizations from across the state came together and founded Advance Illinois in 2008. The bipartisan, non-profit policy and advocacy organization was modeled on successful efforts elsewhere and founded on the shared belief that equitable, high-quality education is a shared value that unites all Illinoisans.

The Partnership for Equity and Education Rights Illinois is a statewide advocacy network dedicated to driving increased investment in our children.

 

 

Minnesota Needs a Coalition Dedicated to Assuring the Constitutional Right to an Adequate Education

  Although the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued two decisions decreeing that our state constitution demands that the legislature provided districts with enough funding to afford each student with "an adequate education that meets all standards," Minnesota opinion leaders have not stepped up to the plate to insist that the constitutional right be faithfully fulfilled.  

Now, more than ever, it is critical that those who care about a genuinely robust and adequate education unite to make an adequate education a reality for all students in all districts. But we can't get their by merely advocating for more money: true reform will require greater district accountability, implementation of proven best practices, and of course more funding. In this post, JvonKorff on Education begins an examination of how coalitions have formed in other states to demand education reform and educational adequacy.  While these other states may offer guidance, we in Minnesota must recognize that our constitution provides a far more powerful tool than most other states: we already have a Supreme Court precedent that establishes adequate funding as a fundamental right enforceable in the Courts. 

Today's post takes a look at how Michiganders have organized to reform their educational system.   Michigan Partnership for Equity and Opportunity is a coalition of civil rights, social justice, civic and business leaders working to promote educational equity for all Michigan students, especially the most underserved.  Their partners include long established civil rights organizations including NAACP, the Urban League, and numerous non-governmental organizations and the nationally recognized Education Trust.  It advocates at the legislature and builds support for needed reforms.  For example, the Partnership has actively urged that the Michigan legislature take action to provide additional funding to compensate for the Trump administration's cuts to education. 

The Michigan Education Justice Coalition  is a statewide network committed to advocating for equitable public education policies and funding to create safe and healthy learning environments. The organization focuses on the idea that young people must play a central role in demanding educational improvement.  However, its organizational partners include about 34 advocacy organizations that include teacher and parent organizations. 

Education Trust Midwest.  The Education Trust is a leading advocate for educational reform focused on effective practices and adequate funding.   EdTrust-Midwest successfully drove important policy changes to improve educational outcomes for Michigan’s students. It shaped the statewide narrative and engaged in strong advocacy to close opportunity gaps, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds and Black and Latino students. It launched a new campaign to drive more investment for students with the greatest needs in our public schools, driven by years of data, policy, research, and best practices. Through a multi-pronged advocacy effort with partners, it scored significant fair funding wins for students from low-income backgrounds, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. The trust scored a major policy victory to improve early reading outcomes for Michigan’s students through bipartisan legislation that took more than six years of collaboration with advocates and policymakers. 

Now, Michigan faces great challenges. We in Minnesota begin with a head start, because our funding system is fairer in many respects.  But that merely means that we don't need to go so far to reform our system and make it adequate.

Importance of Advocacy on Behalf of Underserved Students:  Michigan suggests the importance of developing strong coalitions of advocates for students and especially the students that Minnesota is not serving well. Education Minnesota, MSBA, AMSD, SEIU, and similar organizations perform a valuable function in fighting for public education, but they are compelled to focus on protecting the interests of their members.  Minnesota also needs a strong coalition of advocacy organizations whose number one reason for existence is to fix the system and make it work for the students who need education the most. 

Our next post will look at coalition building in another state.

 

Minnesotas Two Decades of Inadequate Progress in Public Education

Two Decades of Reports on Minnesota’s Achievement Gap

In the last 20 years, multiple reports have been issued warning that Minnesota has failed to make adequate progress in addressing the educational opportunity or achievement gap. This post itemizes  nine important  task force reports decrying Minnesota’s failure to make progress in closing its achievement gap.  Each report title is linked to an online report. 

Together, these reports establish that the Minnesota legislature and executive branch have jointly failed to make the necessary improvements in funding, accountability and best practices to provide a large proportion of Minnesota students with an adequate education that meets all state standards as required by Minnesota's constitution. 

Ø Investing in Our Future: Seeking a fair, understandable and accountable, twenty-first century education finance system for Minnesota (Acknowledging that “Minnesota has one of the largest achievement gaps in the nation )(Governor’s Task Force July 2004 P11)

Ø Funding Education for the Future, (MDE May 2011) (“There are wide gaps in reading and math proficiency by race and by economic status. Little progress was made in closing these achievement gaps between 2006 and 2010.” ) Education Finance Working Group Recommendations and Report p 5 (Nov 2012)

Ø 80-20-10 Bringing Equity to Minnesota’s School Finance System (School Finance Working Group, November 2020) (Over the past 20 years, educational outcomes measured by state accountability tests have stagnated with a large, persistent achievement gap while the percentage of children of color has more than doubled from 16% to 34% )

Ø Office of Legislative Auditor A Minnesota Department of Education’s Role in Addressing the Achievement Gap (2022) p 3 (“Minnesota has had long-standing academic achievement gaps, despite efforts by MDE, school districts, and charter schools to implement policies designed to close them.)

Ø Wilder Foundation “Tackling the achievement gap head-on” (2006) (A wide gulf divides public school classrooms throughout the Twin Cities region. It closely follows the lines of family income and of race and ethnicity. This achievement gap persists throughout the school years, from grade-school test scores through high school graduation rates.)

Ø  Minnesota’s Educational Achievement Gaps: A Statewide Crisis. (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 2019 (Minnesota’s education achievement gaps have persisted for decades despite implementing policies designed to close them.)  

Ø Educational Outcomes and Minnesota’s Economy, Minnesota Federal Reserve Bank of Mnneapolis, 2022 (“Data show that Minnesota’s public schools consistently underserve students from low-income families, Indigenous students, and students of color”.) 

Ø Providing all students with a world-class education Recommendations from the MDE Task Force on Financial Supports 2025 Minnesota is grossly under-funding school districts, especially those serving large enrollments of those student.   The report finds that those funding shortfalls are a major contributing cause to Minnesota's persistent achievement gap.  

Ø English Learner (EL) Task Force: Challenges and Recommendations Report to the Legislature, (2025)  As base funding has gone up for all students, the categorical funding stream for ELs has remained static. Even with the recent increase in EL state funding, there is still a large deficit, and the funding is inadequate for EL students to meet all state standards. Since the funding is based on the number of students, this gap is most problematic for Local Education Agencies (LEAs) with a higher density of English learners (20– 30% or more of English Learner population in their district). Caps on EL concentration revenue and compensatory revenue further compound this issue. This lack of funding tells EL students and families they don't matter."