Updated PEER Funding Tool shows Illinois schools need almost 40 thousand teaching and staff positions to meet state adequacy targets as the statewide funding gap grows by $1 billion.
(CHICAGO, IL - November 5, 2026) – Today, the House Appropriations - Elementary & Secondary Education Committee will hold a hearing regarding future funding considerations for the Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) formula, the primary method through which state dollars flow to school districts. The program has been underfunded since it was signed into law in 2017.
As state officials discuss funding the formula, the Partnership for Equity and Education Rights (PEER) Illinois has updated its interactive funding tool, which reveals Illinois' growing school funding gap and translates the impacts of those gaps on unmet staffing needs across the state. The tool measures school district underfunding by utilizing publicly available EBF and Illinois Report Card data and the adequacy targets calculations established by the EBF formula.
This year's EBF formula update reveals that Illinois school districts are $6.96 billion below adequate funding, an increase of more than $1 billion from last year.
“A number of targets are named in the education policy and advocacy space, but $6.96 billion is the funding gap calculated by the State Board of Education to bring all districts to 100% of Adequacy as defined by state law and state leaders need to know that,” said Beatriz Diaz-Pollack, Director at PEER Illinois. “This funding is essential to address historic education funding inadequacy and inequality in Illinois, and we call on all stakeholders to have an honest and urgent dialogue about how Illinois can take bold action to fulfill the promise of EBF.”
The PEER Funding Tool combines EBF data with newly released Illinois Report Card data to show what adequate funding would mean for school staffing. The updated data reveals that Illinois school districts need 29,311 additional teachers (over 7 thousand more than last year), 4,673 more English Learner teachers, and 2,140 more counselors to meet state adequacy targets.
“The main driver of the increase was an administrative decision to more accurately reflect need,” said the tool’s developer Chris Poulos, Public Finance Expert and Visiting Research Specialist at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy. “The PEER Funding Tool helps make sense of that increase in terms of the material resources students need.”
Explore the web app here: http://peerillinoisfundingtool.org/