Funding in Public Schools: How to Get the Most Out of Your Education

Funding has been a very integral part of public schools, especially in the Chicago Public System (CPS), because major decisions, including financing budgets, were made at the district level. The phenomenon is made the policy to solicit many challenges, especially on the part of the equity in terms of funding allocation. However, the abandonment of such a policy and adoption of a more localized approach to funding CPS was a large step towards closing the equity gap as decisions made are now made at local levels. The approach took into consideration that schools in the Chicago area run different programs, and by that fact, they require different funding needs, unlike how it used to be in the past where schools happened to receive a standard amount despite the size and the programs that the schools had. A deeper analysis into the CPS funding allocation for the year 2020 raises some cost benefits for the criteria used as compared to other school systems in the state. It is important to understand that each district in the state is tasked with allocating resources in its jurisdiction and collections of fees and taxes generated by the business in the area. The funds collected are the ones allocated for the school budget system like the CPS. 

An in-depth overview of the 2020 CPS budget highlights an increase in allocation when compared to the 2019 budget. The local authorities in the Chicago district proposed a total allocation of $7.7 billion, which was a $116.3 million increase from the previous year's allocation, which amounted to $7.6 billion. The increase was attributed to several beneficial attributes realized in the district. For instance, the CPS recruited more talented teachers while others were promoted. Both these teams require salaries and benefits. The attribute contributed to an increase in operating costs by a 3.2% margin accounting for a $191.3 million increase from $6.2 billion. A detailed view suggests that salaries increased by $135.8 million in salaries and $66.5 million in benefits. The increases in the budget are credited to the increase in revenue collection through tax and other remittances in Chicago. The collection enabled the increase in personnel in schools and increased benefits to motivate teachers into achieving better results. It is a proven behavioral science fact that motivation in personnel results in better performance outcomes. Therefore, the cost incurred in the budget goes towards achieving better outcomes rallied among better pupil and student performance in preparing them for the future as the ultimate aim. The CPS 2020 financial year budget aimed at reducing the funding gap that has been largely in the year past, climaxing at about $1 billion. However, currently, the gap figures have come down to about $100 million, which means that all schools are getting more than half of their asked budgets. The same can be bridged through short-term access to lean; however, the district is trying to digress from short-term credit, which is expensive when attracting the costs for paying the credit in short periods. The CPS has allocated more funds to long-term credit to move from short-term facilities. Focusing on other school systems in the state suggests that some, like Springfield Public Schools, follow the district system of formulating budgets rather than on local levels. The predicament puts a lot of pressure on schools that may not get what they expected. For instance, the Springfield system only got $3.5 billion for the year 2021 after an expected $20 million because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This also affected the CPS system but did not alter the actual budget received so far from its original ask. 

Getting the cost benefit analysis for CPS requires for the benefits to be valuated in terms of how much the students from the schoo;l system would generate from the employment they receive as a result of skills obtaine in the CPS. Assume that the percentage of students absorbed to employment are 20% accounting for 20% of chicagoes revene in 2020. The revenue was 770.7 in 2020, therefore, benefit from CPS is about 154 million. 

The chart above shows that the cost benefit ratio is below one meaning that the increase in recruiting more teachers to improve the performance of students and get them better employment is not benefificial given the cost benefit ration of 0.76.