The state's chronic money problems are aggravated by regional divisions, and reforms are at the mercy of budgets.
Some observers see modest improvement in the public schools but nothing dramatic.
In comparison with other big industrial states, Illinois holds its own. Held up alongside all the other states, it looks average. Over the past decade, Chicago has become home to one of the nation's most ambitious experiments in transforming urban schools. It would be hard to find a school district as embroiled in change as the Chicago district has been over the past eight years. And in 1988, the Chicago public school system earned the dubious distinction of being recognized repeatedly as the nation's worst.