Jarita Berry, a 4th-grader in Oak Park Elementary School on Aurora`s East Side, would like to learn how to play a musical instrument. But at her school, music means 20 minutes a week of singing and rhythm taught by her classroom teacher.
Jarita`s lack of opportunity is not from lack of interest on the part of her school but because of where she lives.
If she lived in the Village of Niles, she would have her choice of learning any orchestral instrument, at no cost–with lessons and practice sessions provided by the district by trained music teachers from 3d grade on.
She would also be taught French from 3d to 6th grade and could switch to Spanish after that if she wished. If she had trouble reading or doing research for reports, a reading specialist and a media specialist in her school would help her.
The difference, of course, is money–the amount of a school district`s budget that depends on the taxable value of homes, businesses and industry within its borders.
Huge gaps exist in Illinois, even though the state has a school-funding formula intended to even out the amount of money school districts have to educate children. The formula takes into account the funds a district can raise locally and the number of children whose families live below the federal poverty guidelines.
For example, East Aurora Unit District 131, which comprises the East Side of Aurora, receives 62 percent of its budget from the state, most of it from the formula. About 31 percent of its budget comes from local taxes and 7 percent from the federal government.
East Aurora spends $2,518 per child in kindergarten through 12th grade, for a total cost of $32,734 for 13 years, the lowest in the suburbs and one of the lowest in the state. That amount includes salaries for all school employees, supplies, equipment, maintenance of buildings, transportation and expenses for free lunches.
Niles Elementary District 71 spends $6,820 on each pupil. After graduation, those students attend Niles High School District 219, which spends $8,357 per student, meaning the education for one child from kindergarten through high school graduation costs $94,808, one of the highest in the state. Such funding gaps are common enough in Illinois that thousands of children are not receiving the basic education–including the supplies and sufficient teachers they need–to which they are entitled, critics say.
While no one claims that the state should bring each school district up to the level of spending of the Niles districts, many school officials contend that not enough is being done to bring the East Auroras of the state up to an acceptable level. What level that might be, of course, is the subject of debate.
Although state legislators have promised for three years to revise the formula, it is unlikely any changes will be made this year.
Even if Gov. James Thompson`s tax increase is passed by the legislature, there is not enough additional money designated for education to make a revision of the school-aid formula program, which this year distributed $1.8 billion, politically viable.
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It is generally assumed that the only formula change that could get past the legislature would be one in which nearly every district got more money and there were ”no losers,” say lawmakers and educators.
”My guess is we will not have significant reform in the formula this year,” said James Riley, Thompson`s chief of staff. ”Even if we do get a tax increase, the money just isn`t there. We need $300 million above what the governor put in the budget for education (to give everyone more money) to make it politically feasible, and that just isn`t going to happen.”
State School Supt. Ted Sanders said that even if more money materialized, ”there are other things I want more than formula revision–like expanded early childhood education programs. And I do want formula revision.”
There are other inequities in the formula, critics say:
— Urban school districts, like Chicago, contend that the children they teach are harder to educate and that the process is more expensive, so they should get more money.
— Affluent districts, many in the suburbs, say they send large amounts of tax money to the state but receive little in return.
— Elementary school districts believe the formula is unfair because high school students count 25 percent more than elementary school students.
— And even when voters approve high local tax rates, they do not always get as much money for their schools as do those who live in areas with a solid tax base of business and industry.
Homeowners in the East Aurora district, for example, pay local property taxes at about the same rate as do those in the Niles elementary and high school districts but get only one-third of the education dollars for their students.
East Aurora property owners pay taxes at a rate of $3.32 per $100 of equalized assessed valuation to their school district, making up about one-third of the $2,518 spent per student.
Those in Niles pay a combined total of $3.01 per $100 of assessed valuation for public education. Of that, $1.10 per $100 goes to the District 71 elementary schools and produces 95 percent of the $6,820 spending per student and $1.91 goes to the District 219 high schools and produces 83 percent of the $8,357 per student.
The major reason for the difference is the amount of business and industry in the two areas. Aurora has been struggling to recover from hard economic times, and there is little industry or commercial development to support the schools. That means the East Aurora district has only $26,366 of equalized assessed valuation, or taxable property, per pupil.
But the area that includes the two Niles districts has an abundance of office buildings and light industry. The elementary district has $625,791 of equalized assessed valuation per student, and the high school district, which includes a larger area than the elementary district, has $425,219 per student. The state aid formula attempts but fails to rectify some of that disparity.
While East Aurora receives 62 percent of its budget from the state, most of it from the formula, Niles Elementary 71, because it has so much local wealth, is a ”flat grant” district, and receives only the minimum of $136 per pupil from the formula. When combined with specific state grants, state aid amounts to about 4 percent of the district budget. More than 95 percent comes from local taxes and 1 percent from the federal government.
Niles High School District 219 receives 7 percent from the state, 81 percent from local taxes and 3 percent from the federal government. The remaining 9 percent comes from fees and fines as well as tuition paid by other schools for special programs the high schools run, said finance director Bill Linning.
The school aid formula satisfies no one. Both rich and poor districts feel they should get more state money.
East Aurora wants the formula to give greater weight to low-income students, and the Niles districts say the formula penalizes them for having high equalized assessed valuations. ”All the North Shore districts send their money to Springfield and get very little back,” Linning said.
When all 997 school districts in Illinois lobby for a bigger share of state money, the conflicting needs become opposing votes in the legislature.
”No one really wants equality,” said one Democratic staff analyst in the legislature. ”They just want more money for themselves.”
One change discussed by legislators is counting children eligible for free lunches rather than using the census count of poverty-level students to determine the money schools should get to educate low-income children.
Proponents say the census data are now seven years old and that the lunch count would be more accurate; opponents say school officials would cheat on the lunch count.
Another change would be to count each child in kindergarten through 3d grade as 1.1 child to give elementary schools more money, concentrating resources in the early years where they would do the most good. High schools oppose the change if there is not enough new money to guarantee that they would not get less.
Chicago generally supports changes that put more money into the formula and less into state-supported programs, such as education for the gifted and extra reading specialists, because it must compete for such funds by submitting grant proposals. Chicago receives 47 percent of its budget from the state and wants a change in the formula increasing that to 51 percent, says Barbara Peck, chief financial officer.
Suburban districts want more money in the grant programs because their lack of low-income students and high assessed valuations make it difficult to get much money out of the formula.
As part of the reform package passed in 1985, lawmakers included a provision to repeal the state-aid formula by Aug. 1, 1987. ”Now we are just talking about repealing the repealer, because we aren`t going to get any changes this year,” said Judith Erwin, press secretary to Senate President Philip Rock (D., Oak Park). That will leave East Aurora and Niles several thousand dollars apart on the amount spent per student, with East Aurora well below the $3,500 state average and the Niles districts far above it.
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