Teacher Union President Starts New Round of Big Lie on Educational Funding

Dan Montgomery, President of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, has brought out the hoary bromide that Illinois school districts are among “the worst funded in the nation.”

That is factually incorrect.

This myth is built upon the fact that Illinois has one of the lowest State Aid to Education percentages in the country.

There is a big difference between relative low state assistance and being among the “worst funded in the nation.”

Forgotten by the IFT union official are property taxes.

The latest statistics are from 2010.

The latest statistics are from 2010.  Click to enlarge.

According to the Rutgers University Education Law Center’s 2014 National Report Card, Illinois ranked 20th among the states.

Not exactly among “the worst funded in the nation.”

 

 

 


Comments

Teacher Union President Starts New Round of Big Lie on Educational Funding — 9 Comments

  1. Hmmmmmm

    We send are children to public school and one of the most important lessons is personal responsibility.

    We need to find out what planet this guy lives on….lol……..

    Earth to Dan Montgomery……

  2. The worst is lots of teachers believe their union leaders such as Dan Montgomery.

    The guy is very manipulative.

    He wordsmiths to promote his agenda.

    If you want to figure out how much is spent on education in Illinois, you have to count all areas.

    No one does that.

    It would take quite a bit of time to figure out since there are a lot of buckets.

    Money comes and goes from a wide variety of sources and destinations.

    1. State pension contribution to TRS pension fund.

    2. Local property taxes.

    3. General State Aid to local districts derived from state revenue such as state income taxes.

    4. Federal Aid to local districts.

    5. Bonds (construction, working cash, fire life safety, etc.) at the local level.

    6. Bonds (pension obligation bonds) at the state level.

    7. State Capital Development board matching funding to school districts.

    8. There are many entities other than traditional school districts which includes education spending.

    Illinois State Board of Education. Regional Offices of Education. Special Education Districts.

    Education for Employment (EFE) / Vocational Education Districts / Area Career Centers (ACC). All that should be allocated into per pupil spending.

    9. Not to mention all the money spent on early intervention and pre-school that comes from State and Federal sources, such as Head Start.

  3. The Rutgers study probably under estimates per pupil spending in Illinois for the above reasons.

    For instance, often the state contribution to the TRS pension fund is omitted from per pupil spending in Illinois.

  4. Mark, lets change some of the words in your comment, and create one that is just as true…

    “The worst is lots of *people* believe their *political* leaders such as *name any politician*.

    The guy is very manipulative.

    He wordsmiths to promote his agenda.”

    I am amazed at the number of posters on this website that accuse Democrats of not seeing reality and blindly following their representatives, while they are just as blindly following and believing their Republican candidates.

  5. What’s the bid deal.

    It’s only IEA Lie #745,073!

    If Montgomery EVER told the truth, it’d be by mistake!

  6. http://nces.ed.gov/edfin/search/search_intro.asp

    Is a government website which gives financial statistics for comparison of your school district to 100 of its peers chosen by these 5 variables:

    district type, locale, total enrollment, student/teacher ratio, and the percentage of children in poverty.

    Woodstock CUSD 200 compared to its peers is significantly higher than peers in almost all expenditure categories.

    Example: Per student cost for Administration: $1805 (per student)versus peer average $1001. That is, we spend 80% more per student on administration than all peers around the country.

    We spend 25% more per student total than peers.

    So how can we be characterized as underfunded?

    Run a search with your own school District, see where your spending stands related to peers.

    http://nces.ed.gov/edfin/search/search_intro.asp

  7. It is a dot-gov site.

    Bills itself as National Center for Education Statistics.

    Do you doubt these statistics?

    Based on my other research on dot-com data compilation sites, these are conservative figures.

    I believe Dist.200 spends more than 125% of national average per student.

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