(MCT) — The Illinois State Board of Education is spending about $10 million in federal money to pay a Washington-based nonprofit group (“proven international education reform leader”) to fix what’s wrong with Illinois schools.

Here’s the background. The state board of education announced last week that it awarded a one-year contract to American Institutes for Research, which has offices in Chicago and Naperville, to provide at least one, and probably more, actual “centers” throughout the state to help address “stagnant achievement gaps.”