Editing Illinois (section)

===School financing===
Schools in Illinois are funded primarily by property taxes, based on state assessment of property values, rather than direct state contributions. Scholar Tracy Steffes has described Illinois public education as historically "inequitable", a system where one of "the wealthiest of states" is "the stingiest in its support for education". There have been several attempts to reform school funding in Illinois. The most notable attempt came in 1973 with the adoption of the Illinois Resource Equalizer Formula, a measure through which it was hoped funding could be collected and distributed to Illinois schools more equitably. However, opposition from affluent Illinois communities who objected to having to pay for the less well-off school districts (many of them Black majority communities, produced by redlining, white flight, and other "soft" segregation methods) resulted in the formula's abolition in the late 1980s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Steffes |first1=Tracy L. |title=Assessment Matters: The Rise and Fall of the Illinois Resource Equalizer Formula |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=February 2020 |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=24–57 |doi=10.1017/heq.2020.7 |s2cid=216496825}}</ref>