ISBE’s New EBF Spending Plan Report: Here’s What to Know and Why It’s Important

Since the Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) plan was passed in 2017, Illinois has invested nearly $2 billion dollars in new state funds in K-12 public education through the formula, and now eight years later the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has released the Evidence-Based Funding Spending Plan Report: July 2024, an exciting new report that adds to the growing understanding of how these new funds were spent across the state. 

Research shows that money matters in education and that evidence-based, sustained investments in our students on things like reducing class sizes, adding interventionists, and providing student wellness supports have direct impacts on students’ outcomes. So it is no surprise that advocates and lawmakers have long been eager to see how these substantial new investments through EBF are being spent in schools. We saw early indications of how strategically districts were investing these new dollars through the EBF 5 Year Evaluation released in 2022, but that report looked at a small subset of districts.  

A key part of the EBF legislation requires district to complete, as part of their annual budget submission, an EBF Spending Plan that describes the strategic investments they intend to make with state funds and their process for determining these allocations. Since their implementation in 2018, while community members could explore each individual district’s plan separately, making sense of the spending plans at the state level was not possible. 

This year’s report is the first time that we are able to see the state’s findings on how districts across the state invested the new tier funding from FY2025. A few highlights of the report: 

• School districts were most likely to prioritize improving programs, curriculum, and learning tools or expand pupil support services like social workers. 

• Districts engaged with a variety of stakeholders to inform allocation of new EBF dollars – with principals, special education program directors, and school board members as the most frequently cited. 

• District leaders most frequently used educator shortage, retention, and recruitment data to assist in prioritizing new funds. 

• Core Teachers, Specialist Teachers, and Instructional Materials were the three most common investments. 

• On average, districts spent 71% of Tier funding on core investments (i.e., core teachers, instructional facilitators, nurses, etc.) 

• District leaders most often invested funds designated for English Learners (EL) in EL Intervention Teachers and EL Pupil Support Staff (i.e., nurse, social worker, family liaison personnel, etc.) 

The Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) Formula helps the state understand what a district needs to adequately and equitably support their students and bolster student outcomes. The evidence that undergirds the formula is clear: smart investments rooted in the research can have clear and meaningful impacts on students. The EBF Spending Plan Report and individual spending plans allow for community members to identify whether districts are investing their resources in the most strategic way and engage more fully in the budgeting process.  

“The EBF Spending Plan report and individual spending plans allow for community members to identify whether districts are investing their resources in the most strategic way and engage more fully in the budgeting process. ”

 As we move into budget season, it is more important than ever to dig into the wealth of information we have at our disposal – district spending plans, statewide reports, the ISBE Report Card – and urge both state leaders to continue increasing investments in EBF and district leaders to highlight the powerful work being done with these investments.  

In a new Funding Illinois’ Future blog, learn how Illinois educators are accessing ISBE’s spending plan tool to understand how new EBF dollars are being invested in their districts. 

Kelsey Bakken is a Senior Policy Advisor for Advance Illinois.