SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — A decade later, is Illinois headed for another epic showdown over the way it funds its schools?

Illinois organizers today unveiled an independent education-reform panel heavy with big political names — former Gov. Jim Edgar, former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, former U.S. Commerce Secretary (and Barack Obama insider) William Daley — to address what they describe as a crisis in Illinois education.

The bipartisan group, funded by various foundations, intends to make recommendations by mid-2009 on how to address high dropout rates, low performance rates and other problems that have put Illinois schools behind those of many smaller, poorer states.

One natural immediate question is whether Edgar will use the panel to revisit his failed quest to take Illinois schools’ funding formula off of local property taxes and put them primarily on a statewide source, such as an increased state income tax.

He championed that idea (calling it a “tax swap”) as governor in the 1990s, arguing it would level out the regional inequities in schools. His admirers still view it as his most noble fight; it was definitely his most visible defeat.

In a political battle that spotlighted the deep ideological splits in the Illinois GOP, Edgar’s fellow Republicans stepped on his reform campaign because it looked too much like a tax increase. As a result, Illinois government still chronically violates its state constitution, which says the state (rather than local sources) must be the main provider of education funding.

Edgar, when asked today whether the old funding battle will be revisited on the new panel, downplayed it, saying the panel will deal with all kinds of education-related issues and not just funding. But he added he still believes “we rely too much on the property tax” to fund schools.