Illinois Falls Short in Race to the Top

By Kevin Lee     Illinois Statehouse News

SPRINGFIELD  –  The U.S. Department of Education announced this week the second-round winners of education grants in its Race to the Top competition, but Illinois did not make the cut.

The 10 winners — nine states and the District of Columbia –  will split more than $3 billion in grant money to go towards creating new assessment standards for students and teachers, and other educational reforms. Delaware and Tennessee were first-round winners.

Illinois State Superintendent Chris Koch said the state still benefited form its pursuit of Race to the Top dollars.

“Of course it’s disappointing for us, but I do have confidence that we’re on the right track here with this agenda. The laws that we passed were the right laws. It’s going to take us down a road that we need to do and to go,” he said.

The Race to the Top competition gave states an incentive to enact new laws and foster collaborations between teachers’ unions and school districts.

Robin Steans, executive director of the education advocacy group Advance Illinois, said Race to the Top provided an incentive to state lawmakers to make some changes.

“The adoption of ‘Common Core Standards’ is a big step forward, the fact that we’ve got a blueprint for stronger principal preparation plans, the fact that we’ve got a plan for more substantive teacher and principal evaluations, the fact that we’ve lifted the cap on the number of charter schools that can operate in the state,” she said.

Common Core Standards are meant to provide guidelines for nationwide student benchmarks. So far, Illinois is one of 35 states that have adopted the guidelines.

Lawmakers passed and Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law a plan to tighten standards for evaluating  principal applicants.

State Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville, had concerns on how the state was going to fund some of the changes lawmakers passed, including the modifications to evaluating incoming principals.

“A good example is that there is going to be a longer internship for principals. That’s going to cost money, and without looking at ways to fund it with federal dollars, it’s going to be more difficult to implement,” he said.

Illinois could have earned up to $400 million to go towards implementing reforms if its application had been successful, but Koch said they’ll have to scale back some reforms and push back the timeline on others.

Reviews and comments from the U.S. Department of Education on states’ applications will be available on Tuesday, with videos of applicants’ presentations available next month.

Originally reported by Illinois Statehouse News. Read the original article here.