EDUCATION REFORM has taken a back seat to budgets in the General Assembly this year.

That's understandable, but legislators need to realize that education in Illinois is in a crisis that is every bit as real as the budget crisis.

How bad is the situation?

According to a new advocacy group, Advance Illinois, here are just some of the issues:

- Out of every four students who enter high school in the state, only one will graduate ready for college or a meaningful job.

- Only 55 percent of high school graduates in the state even start college (based on the Class of 2006.) In New York, 73 percent of its students attend college.

- Only 36 percent of Illinois residents have an associate degree or higher. In Massachusetts, for example, 45 percent of residents have at least finished community college.

In its initial report, Advance Illinois said, "This generation of young people is on track to be less-educated than their parents - for the first time in American history."

The General Assembly did approve two important changes in education during this session. They increased the number of charter schools from 60 to 120. Of course, one has to wonder why there is any limit on charter schools, which have proven effective in many cases. The legislature also endorsed an ambitious longitudinal data collection system to track student progress.

Advance Illinois, which is co-chaired by former Gov. Jim Edgar and former U.S. Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, started this spring with a series of hearings around the state, including one in Decatur. The group has developed a series of recommendations that are based on measuring and rewarding teacher and principal performance, aiding innovation and giving principals and teachers more flexibility in how they run their schools.

Some of those recommendations include:

- Give teachers tougher evaluations before granting tenure. Currently, tenure often is granted as a matter of course, but Advance Illinois believes teachers have to be properly evaluated first. A better course might be to not even consider tenure for elementary and secondary teachers.

- Improve teacher evaluations and make them meaningful. In Chicago schools, Advance Illinois found 93 percent of the teachers were evaluated as "excellent" or "superior." Only a tiny fraction was found to need improvement or rate as poor.

- Change the criteria for pay increases to reward teachers who affect academic improvement. Illinois districts now spend about $400 million a year increasing pay for teachers who complete master's degree or advanced course work. Advanced degrees don't necessarily result in better-educated students. Advance Illinois believes teachers should be rewarded for helping students achieve meaningful improvement.

- Give principals more flexibility in running their own schools. Principals have little or no discretion in determining scheduling or staffing. That flexibility is critical to school success, especially those schools that struggle to meet federal testing standards. This is one area where the experience of charter schools is valuable - many charter schools succeed because they have the flexibility to do what works best for students.

Advance Illinois can be a powerful ally in solving the educational crisis, and it's past time for the state to have a meaningful discussion on how to better educate our children.