K-12 education continues to soak up public dollars with little improvement to show for it.
Regular folks don’t need much proof that time flies. After all, it seems like yesterday — actually, 11 months — that 2025 was in its infancy.
Now 2025 is staggering its way to the exits.
But for those skeptics who want proof, consider this.
Not even halfway through the fiscal year, state education officers are putting together their spending wish list for the 2026-27 fiscal year, which begins July 1.
Not only is time flying, but the spending hopes of the education bureaucracy are growing at an astonishing rate.
According to a Capitol News Illinois report, state board of education officials are planning to ask Gov. J.B. Pritzker and legislators for an increase of $750 million.
While smaller than last year’s requested increase of $2.2 billion, it’s reasonable to ask just how reasonable the impending education budget plan is.
After all, state revenues have been growing at a modest pace, and there’s no real reason to think that they’ll suddenly explode.
At the same time, a wary Pritzker has asked his department heads to identify potential 4 percent budget cuts in the event of an economic setback.
A big part of the proposed increase — nearly half — is automatic, representing a statutory increase of $350 million generated by the relatively new evidence-based funding formula.
That’s a fancy name for providing additional funds to both underfunded and high-tax districts.
The proposal has been around since 2017, adopted as part of a plan to help equalize spending among districts.
While it has produced more money for education, it’s fair to note that there’s not much evidence that the formula has improved student test scores.
On a statewide basis, student performance in reading and math is not just an embarrassment, but one that foreshadows social chaos and division in future years.
The bigger question, of course, one unrelated to actual education itself, is how the state will come up with the lion’s share of new revenue the education lobby seeks. Or if it will even try to do so.
After all, there is only so much to go around.
Supporting education, of course, is a core state function along with backing roads and highways, law enforcement and public health.
But what else is there, and what can be cut back or done away with altogether?
It’s clear the public is not interested in a major tax increase, even as state and local officials nickel-and-dime everyone at every opportunity.
Too much demand for appropriations and too little supply of revenue to appropriate are setting the stage for another budget scrum, where it’s every lobbyist for himself.
That’s just one more reason for state officials to do more to embrace business friendly policies that encourage the kind of growth needed to jump-start a lethargic Illinois economy.
