The Chicago Current’s Katy Yeiser reports that the Illinois State Board of Education will apply for a $400 million slice of the Education Department’s $4.3 billion, stimulus-funded “Race to the Top” grant program. Illinois could really use the money: the state is borrowing $3.5 billion this year to balance a $26 billion annual state budget. But even with the record-setting borrowing, Illinois is still cutting $180 million in education money, with early childhood education taking the hardest hit.
As I’ve written about before, the genius, as it were, of Race to the Top is that it doesn’t just shore up education funds for states clobbered by the recession. Instead, the Education Dept. forces states to show they are adhering to the education reforms, championed by Education Sec. (and former head of Chicago Public Schools) Arne Duncan. So if Illinois is going to get federal cash, they need to show progress implementing controversial policies like teacher performance pay.