Title: In Pursuit of Equity and Adequacy: Reforming School Finance in Illinois.
Abstract: Illinois General Assembly in 1985 enacted a broad set of education improvement initiatives known as the Education Reform Package of 1985. This reform effort included a formal state definition of the primary purposes of schooling in Illinois, special programs for children at risk of academic failure, programs to improve the quality of the state's educational personnel, new public reporting requirements for schools, and a variety of accountability provisions to assess school success.1 The Education Reform Package of 1985 also repealed Section 18-8 of The School Code of Illinois, effective August 1, 1987. Section 18-8 contains the general state aid formula for distribution of state grants-in-aid to local school districts. For fiscal year 1987, the state of Illinois appropriated $1.842 billion in general state aid, which represents almost three-fourths of state general fund spending for public schools and about onefourth of all public elementary and secondary school revenue in Illinois. The repeal of Section 18-8 was the culmination of a number of years of turmoil in Illinois school finance, the origins of which go back to the early 1970s and the first wave of comprehensive school finance reforms in the state. A variety of factors have contributed to the need for a review of Illinois school finance policy. The recurring financial problems of the Chicago public schools and the fiscal crisis there in 1979 have called into question the adequacy of the state school finance system to provide the necessary level of educational services for the largest school district in the state and the third largest in the nation. National economic recession in the early 1980s weakened the fiscal condition of the state of Illinois; real state spending per pupil declined between 1980-81 to 1982-83, causing some cutbacks in educational ser-
Publication Year: 1987
Publication Date: 1987-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 3
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