Gov. to Schools: Spend Now! Say Thank You.

by Collin Hitt It looks like Gov. Quinn is taking full campaign advantage of the federal education bailout funds that I discussed yesterday.  I’d expressed some concern that the governor’s office issued some questionable advice to school districts, asking them to spend their federal allocations between now and November – advice that was offered without the...

by Collin Hitt

It looks like Gov. Quinn is taking full campaign advantage of the federal education bailout funds that I discussed yesterday.  I’d expressed some concern that the governor’s office issued some questionable advice to school districts, asking them to spend their federal allocations between now and November – advice that was offered without the input of the State Board of Education. It seems like those concerns were well-founded.

From the Daily Herald’s coverage of the debate yesterday between Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican nominee Bill Brady:

Quinn touted the recently signed $26 billion federal jobs package, which brought $415 million in education funding to Illinois, to put toward teaching jobs. Suburban school districts from Aurora to Waukegan will be receiving between $9,800 and $6.5 million apiece, according to the state board of education.

The money will be used, in many cases, to patch holes left by still-missing state aid payments from the 2009-10 academic year.
As of the start of a new school year in August, Illinois was still behind $774 million in payments to schools, according to the state board.

Brady said looking to the federal government for education funding help just puts off addressing the state’s own problems.

Read the whole story here.