CHICAGO—Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) political and research staff testified today before the Illinois House of Representatives’ Education Task Force on the financial state of Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The task force, chaired by Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, was created to explore the re-formulation of the school funding formula for the state of Illinois.

In testimony today, the CTU maintained its position that CPS has a revenue problem stemming from 20-year-old school reform law that continues to reverberate throughout the district in the form of pension underfunding, outsourcing and massive debt. CPS’s largest cost drivers—debt service, pensions, charter expansion—have created the current crisis, as debt must be repaid, pensions payments must be met due to constitutional obligations, and charter schools are opened and then closed to drive down costs.

Due to the number of low-income families served and the socio-economic makeup of Chicago’s neighborhoods and communities, CPS requires more funding to educate effectively. CPS students need lower class sizes, grief counseling, full curriculum, librarians, counselors and clinicians. Other Illinois school districts have access to these resources in abundance, even when the students have additional resources at home.

Without access to full local revenue through tax increment financing and the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, CPS—and by extension, CPS teachers and education support staff—cannot educate effectively. Funding for Chicago’s public schools continues to lag behind other districts such as those in New York City and Washington, D.C., which spend nearly $20,000 per student, with much better in-school supports and pre-kindergarten and early childhood education.

The CTU remains committed to tax proposals such as a millionaires tax, graduated income tax, financial transaction tax and the closing of corporate loopholes. Only 2 percent of the Illinois economy needs to be shifted to make plans for increased funding work across the state.‎

“Nearly all income gains that have been made since the recession ended have gone to the top 1 percent, which means there’s already been a shift in our economy away from benefitting working families and the middle class,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “Fully funded schools is one way to help shift it back.”