The state budget Gov. Pat Quinn signed June 30 is missing a key component for education advocates: money.
Lawmakers stripped more than $500,000 from Quinn’s proposed budget that would have helped implement Senate Bill 7, a sweeping education reform bill lauded as a national model, partly because it eases the process of dumping poorly rated teachers. The money would have paid for a contract with a private firm to handle training to revamp teacher and principal evaluations.
Now the bill’s supporters, which include Mayor Rahm Emanuel, are turning to Race to the Top, a federal grant program that rewards states for innovative education policies. In June, federal officials announced an additional $700 million in Race to the Top money, with $500 million earmarked for early childhood education. The remaining $200 million is available to nine states, including Illinois, which did not receive anything in the previous two rounds of grants. (South Carolina, which is one of the eligible states, is not competing for the federal money, according to state officials).
School reform proponents are confident they’ll win enough grant money to easily cover Senate Bill 7’s costs, according to Jessica Handy, spokeswoman for Stand for Children, an advocacy group that helped write the bill.
“A lot of it depends on Race to the Top,” she said. “I think we’ll be getting it this time.”
Overhauling the system for reviewing public school teachers is a key component of the bill as evaluations will be used to help determine faculty firing and hiring throughout the state. Illinois public school teacher evaluations will be tied to student performance, and those measurements are required to be uniform throughout the state. The stripped money, Handy and Illinois State Board of Education officials said, is essential to funding the training of principals, deans and department heads in the new evaluation system.
The House erased the $500,000 for training from the Illinois State Board of Education budget, along with other cuts, as part of a broad paring of all state agency budgets. Lawmakers also sliced money allotted in the bill for a mentoring program for new teachers and principals.
“It’s not that the House doesn’t care—they do care—but it was just a question of priorities and having to make cuts,” Handy said.
Race to the Top winners will be announced this fall with grant awards totaling $10 to $50 million, according to the U.S. Department of Education. A grant would be more than enough to fully roll out Senate Bill 7, Handy said.
And If Illinois is snubbed yet again, Handy said her group will ask lawmakers for a special appropriation.
Rebecca Vevea contributed reporting. Kristen McQueary covers state government as part of a partnership between CNC and Chicago Public Media