A Failed Governor, Failing Illinois

We're Number 49! We're 49th!Ok, so Illinois isn't dead last in state funding, as a percentage of the state's share of education funding, but that isn't anything to be proud of. Under Rod Blagojevich, Illinois has continued the death spiral to the bottom, making education (apparently) the lowest priority in his lacklaster administration.So what does the governor do? Why, call a special session of course, so that he can leverage the state's dismal education record in his obsessive and increasingly bitter feud with the speaker.Phil Kadner laid out the crisis:State support for public schools in Illinois dropped to an all-time low at 29.6 percent of the overall education budget in 2006, placing a greater burden on property owners to finance the schools.That's the first time the state has dropped below 30 percent in decades of... [read full story]