Equitable funding is a cornerstone issue for rural and small schools. Without a state education funding mechanism that accounts for their unique needs and challenges, and the generations of underinvestment and divestment from their communities, rural schools are left with little recourse for finding the basic funding they need to operate adequately.
Rural school funding shortages are particularly serious. Because of their smaller size, rural schools suffer a much greater impact from the loss or lack of even a single teacher, staff person, administrator, program, or student than in a larger district. Moreover, without adequate funding, it is difficult for rural schools to retain those educators, programs, and students they have remaining. As a result, rural and small schools frequently languish under a three-fold onslaught of challenges: insufficient funding, the inability to sustain capacity, and the loss of potential capacity.
One area where this is readily apparent is Career and Technical Education (CTE). CTE courses can be deeply transformative for students, the school, and the local community alike. In a rural area, the linkages that CTE offers between classroom and workforce, student and professional, present and future are incredibly direct. Yet because of rampant underinvestment in rural schools, CTE programs are not nearly as robust as that could be. This is a tragedy because CTE has the promise and potential to not simply empower future generations of local employees and tax payers, but to also revitalize and strengthen rural economies and communities across the state. To put it bluntly, robust CTE efforts may be one of the best holistic rural development schemes out there, but our schools are in no capacity to support it fully.
In an effort to understand rural school funding inequities, the Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools and the Rural IL CTE Project collaborated with the National Rural Education Association to charge Dr. Kellen Adams, a Professor of Practice at Kansas State University with expertise in rural school financing, to lead an investigative study into public school funding in Illinois. The goal of this partnership was to truthfully review and reflect on our Evidence-Based Funding model (EBF) from the lens of rural equity. EBF is nationally distinctive because it theoretically has the right tools to equitably fund all public school districts in the state. However, there remains contention about whether the model is functioning equitably as promised, or if it continues to perpetuate funding disparities.AIRSS is proud to report that the findings from this investigation have been compiled and published through a white paper titled Equity in Focus: Understanding Illinois’ Evidence-Based Funding Model for Public Education. This detailed report explains the basic premise and mechanism of EBF. Importantly, Dr. Adams highlights where inequities exist in the system toward rural districts, and offers targeted recommendations for reforming our public education funding practices to achieve true equity and school adequacy.