Illinois continues to face significant structural challenges in K-12 education and has experimented with ways of avoiding those obstacles. Yet the current reforms in elementary and secondary education utilize approaches that tend to de-emphasize inputs such as resources in favor of standards, accountability, choice, and structural reforms of school governance.

In The Illinois Report 2014, Professor Christopher Lubienski of the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership reveals how Illinois has traditionally been ranked as one of the least equitable states when it comes to the distribution of funding for K-12 schools.