IEA, Race to the Top and the Illinois budget crisis.
Both Arne Duncan and the IEA leadership have some responsibility for the current budget crisis in Illinois and its impact on school funding. The increase in the state income tax doesn’t really address this part of the problem.
When Illinois was preparing its application for Duncan’s Race to the Top grant, a committee that was chaired by IEA Executive Director Audrey Soglin, the grant included a number of programs that came with a cost. In addition, the proposal made statewide changes in the way teachers would be evaluated, linking our evaluation to test scores.
While the state did not receive the Race to the Top grant, the programs were adopted by the legislature and the bill has come due.
Any money that might have gone to other education programs must now compete with the ones Arne Duncan demanded and the Illinois committee led by the IEA proposed and got adopted.
Jim Broadway addresses this in his State School News.
Education “reforms” with high fiscal impact were enacted last spring to bolster
