States race for education dollars

Cathy Thoele

States are in a race to get $400 million from the federal government for education, and an advocacy group is doing everything it can to see that Illinois is one of them.

The U.S. Department of Education is making the money available through “Race to the Top,” a competition asking states to make critical reforms that support student achievement and close achievement gaps.

While Illinois isn’t a front-runner in the race to be among the handful of states that will be awarded the discretionary grants, no one should count it out, either, according to Advance Illinois Executive Director Robin Steans.

Advance Illinois is urging state leaders to take action to reform the state’s school system in order to move the state further up the list of contenders. The nonprofit advocacy group released a report Thursday outlining how state officials can do that.

One of the improvements the group recommends in the report is strengthening assessments and standards for students. Steans believes one way is to better define chronically failing schools than what is given in No Child Left Behind.

“It’s a challenge in Illinois how we, in some meaningful way, can distinguish schools in a much more chronic crisis state,” she said.

At the same time, Steans said the state needs to show what makes a successful school district. She would like the state board of education to publish a more strategic report card, comparing not only the state’s educational health nationally, but also district to district and showing which ones are doing well, not just those that are failing.

“We need to be clearer and broader in what success looks like,” she said.

Another way the group recommends improving the state’s chances of receiving the grant is passing legislation revising how districts evaluate teachers and principals.

“It’s time for us to take a fresh look at how we evaluate teachers and principals,” said Steans.

The group advises using student performance as an evaluation element and linking evaluations to certification and tenure decisions and raising entry requirements for teacher and principal candidates.

Steans also said the distribution of teachers in the state is inequitable and the state needs to look at ways to give districts the resources to match pay scales from nearby districts that are doing well to attract and support more qualified teachers.

“Make it more equitable for districts, so they can catch up,” she said.

The report lists other ways to improve the school system. One is strengthening the state’s data capacity and putting it to use. Another recommends ways to turn around the lowest-achieving schools that include giving struggling schools more flexibility to use resources and freedom from key mandates, along with encouraging the Intervention Task Force to more quickly issue findings.

Steans said these are priorities the state is going to push regardless of whether it is selected to receive the money. The competition has simply forced the state to face these issues.

“It’s critical we come to grips with schools that have been struggling for a long time,” she said.

The first application deadline is Jan. 19, leaving only three days to get legislation passed. Steans said while there will be a real push for that to happen, it’s too early to tell if it will. If the state isn’t successful in moving up this round, it does have another chance when the next application is due in June.

If the state is selected, at least half of the $400 million is mandated to go to districts that are interested in participating, meaning they support the kind of reforms the state outlined in its applications. The remaining money would be used for statewide efforts that may include even more money for districts in the form of Title I funds.

Steans said the competition couldn’t come at a better time.

“When we have unbelievably gloomy economic news in Illinois, we have a bright spot to earn federal dollars,” she said.

Cathy Thoele can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 126 or cathy.thoele@effinghamdailynews.com.

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