A tentative settlement agreement has been reached in a long-standing lawsuit that alleged inequities and discrimination in Illinois’ education funding system, forcing the state to stop "prorating" state aid dollars to schools when money is short.
The practice, pervasive during the state’s budget crisis, cut state aid to districts by a certain percentage and across the board, hurting disadvantaged districts more than affluent ones and creating disparities considered discriminatory, according to the terms of the settlement.
The agreement, scheduled for a vote next week at the Illinois State Board of Education meeting, would require ISBE to set up new methods to distribute state aid in the event that Illinois doesn’t allocate enough money to cover aid payments designed to pay for teachers, school maintenance, bus transportation and other school expenses.
Illinois has had long-standing issues with the way the state finances public schools, with affluent districts able to raise and spend far more dollars on schoolchildren than districts that have lower property values and many low-income children.
In 2008, the Chicago Urban League sued the state and the Illinois State Board of Education, describing Illinois’ education finance system as a "failed school funding scheme" that creates wide financial gaps between school districts and has a discriminatory impact on minority students — predominantly black and Latino children.
The 5-page tentative settlement agreement does not include solutions to the broader challenges that plague Illinois’ school funding program, instead focusing on the proration issue.
The Illinois State Board of Education on Friday did not elaborate on the broader issues.
"The Chicago Urban League and the Illinois State Board of Education have reached a tentative settlement agreement in the matter of Chicago Urban League v. Illinois State Board of Education. The board will consider and vote on the tentative settlement agreement during the Feb. 22 regular meeting," ISBE spokeswoman Jackie Matthews said Friday.
The agreement was included in materials Friday related to the ISBE meeting, but "the board will not comment on this matter until after the vote," Matthews said.
Word of a tentative settlement comes at a time of continued concern over school funding, with Chicago’s Board of Education earlier this week suing Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Illinois State Board of Education, among other defendants.
The financially ailing Chicago Public Schools accused the state of employing "separate and unequal systems of funding for public education in Illinois." The lawsuit focuses solely on CPS, where about 85 percent of student are black or Latino as well as low-income. Illinois treats those children as "second-class" and "relegated to the back of the state’s education funding school bus," according to the lawsuit.
Urban League officials this week said the two suits differed primarily because the CPS action was limited to Chicago, while the league’s suit applied to the entire state. A CPS spokeswoman said the district has yet to review the tentative agreement in the Urban League’s lawsuit.
That agreement states that Illinois failed to allocate the dollars needed to cover state aid payments between 2011 and 2015, so districts got prorated payments, meaning aid was cut by a certain percentage. Based on the way the school funding formula worked and how the proration played out, the less affluent districts with low-income minority kids suffered greater losses, according to the agreement.
If there’s not enough money allocated for state aid in the future, ISBE "shall not utilize proration in determining how to distribute" state aid, instead using methods such as basing aid payments on the needs of a particular district, according to the agreement. ISBE would also have to provide notice to the public when the state fails to allocate enough state aid dollars, among other conditions.
A school funding reform commission created by Gov. Rauner has recommended changes in the school funding program to focus on the unique needs of schools and increase dollars to districts with high student poverty, among other proposals. Those recommendations are being considered by lawmakers.
Chicago Tribune’s Juan Perez contributed.
drado@chicagotribune.com
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