 Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law last month legislation that makes it
harder for teachers to strike, easier for districts to fire them and
paves the way for Chicago Public Schools to lengthen the school day,
among other things. The bill largely had support from unions and
advocacy groups and was hailed as a bipartisan collaborative effort.
But the state's new $32.9 billion budget, which is $2 billion less
than a previous one, has cut out many programs and made it difficult
to implement the reforms, said state Schools Superintendent
Christopher Koch.
"In many ways, we are making the most aggressive reforms in the
history of the state here for education, and we keep doing it for
less and less money, and there's a point, there's a breaking point
for all that, where things will fall through the cracks," Koch told
the Chicago Tribune for a story published Monday.
Education officials say the cuts will drastically slow down
implementation of the new law, which took effect last month.
Among the cuts are money for creating a statewide performance
evaluation model and for teacher mentoring programs.
"The No. 1 thing that we're concerned about is the development of
evaluation (models) and the training of all the principals, in
particular, to do high-quality evaluations," Koch said.
Some districts have been able to do evaluations on their own, but
Koch said not finishing a state model would "erode the whole point"
of the education reforms.
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Not all educators agree.
Republican state Rep. Roger Eddy, a school superintendent from
the eastern Illinois community of Hutsonville, said that federal
money might be available. But he said much of the work will be done
at the local level, according to the Tribune.
He said the reforms have potential but "come at a time when there
are very limited resources and the state's facing fiscal
challenges."
[Associated Press]
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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