State Shut Out Of Education Money Again

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Aug 24, 2010 6:00PM

Another round of "Race to the Top" funding has been announced and once again the state of Illinois has come out of it empty-handed. Despite being one of 16 finalists with a supposed Chicago-style "in" - former CPS chief Arne Duncan is behind the whole thing - the state has now missed out on funding one each of the first two rounds of awards. The first round sent $600 million to Tennessee ($500m) and Delaware ($100m) back in the spring. And earlier today, the Dept. of Education announced 10 recipients that will split $3.4 billion in funds but Illinois was not among those winners, either. The lucky cash-money-millionaires from this round are: Maryland, Washington, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island. It's not all doom-and-gloom for the state, though, as they could try to horn in on more money in a potential third round of funding next year. In a statement, Duncan said, "We had many more competitive applications than money to fund them in this round. We're very hopeful there will be a Phase 3 of Race to the Top and have requested $1.35 billion dollars in next year's budget. In the meantime, we will partner with each and every state that applied to help them find ways to carry out the bold reforms they've proposed in their applications."