Following a recent Chicago City Wire report on the rapid growth of Illinois education spending over the past 20 years, Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) called for K-12 funding to be more focused.
“We need money for schools but simply throwing money at our school districts isn’t the answer,” Halbrook said in a statement. “Most people understand that funding schools is a civic duty we all have. Even people who do not have kids enrolled in school understand that funding schools has to be a community-wide effort. But the money spent on education should be spent wisely.”
Chicago City Wire reported that spending has outpaced enrollment by 12 fold since 1997. While Halbrook did not call for less spending, he argued that the money needs to go to helping students rather than adminstrator pensions and failing or redundant programs.
.jpg)
Rep. Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville)
| http://www.ilga.gov/
“We need to look at rolling back some of the burdensome state mandates on schools to reduce education costs,” Halbrook said. “We also need pension reform to ease the burden on taxpayers. The issue isn’t do we have enough money – it is what are we doing with the resources we have?”
Alerts Sign-up