After fretting for months about whether they would receive college tuition scholarships, several hundred aspiring teachers learned that their state scholarship program will get funded.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich had proposed cutting $3.8 million for the Golden Apple Scholars program from the 2005 budget.
But on Monday, Becky Carroll, a Blagojevich spokeswoman, said that funding for the Golden Apple program was restored “in the spirit of reaching a compromise.”
Blagojevich’s final budget included $2.9 million for the program, which provides students with four-year scholarships in exchange for teaching in needy schools when they graduate.
The state’s 346 Golden Apple Scholars receive $5,000 a year and $2,000 summer stipends for extra training. Besides helping pay for college, the program pairs students with some of the state’s best teachers for classes during the summer. About 55 percent of the scholars are minority and low-income students.
“I’m very relieved and happy that we got most of the funding back,” said Dema Sabbara, an Evanston High School graduate who will attend Quincy University. She had hoped to attend the more expensive DePaul University, but chose Quincy when scholarship funding was in doubt.
Sabbara took classes at DePaul University and worked at a Chicago high school this summer through the Golden Apple program.
In March, a week after high school seniors learned they were scholarship winners, Blagojevich said the program was cut from his preliminary budget. It has received state funding since 1993 and also relies on corpor9ate and private donations.
When students graduate, they work for five years at schools with many low-income students or where fewer than 57 percent met academic goals in at least two subjects.
Golden Apple officials said they will continue to fight for an additional $900,000. They also will meet this week to determine if they need to lower the scholarship amount in light of the reduced funding.
On Monday, Blagojevich signed several measures into law, among them a new law designed to restrict youth from getting tobacco products.
In its original incarnation, the bill would have required retailers to keep all cigarette and tobacco products behind the counter.
As a result of a compromise worked out between the sponsor, Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Maywood), and industry representatives, shopkeepers only have to keep individual cigarette packs behind the counter. Store owners must keep all other tobacco products within the line of sight of an attendant.
“The buy-two-get-one-free, those can sit out on the counter,” said Bud Kelley, lobbyist for the Illinois Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors. “Snuff or pipe tobacco, that just has to be within the line of sight of the cashier.”
The problem with the original proposal, said Kelley, is that “there isn’t a counter big enough” for all the items lawmakers would like to restrict.
Another measure signed by the governor requires dormitories at all public and private colleges in Illinois to install fire sprinklers by 2013.
