You really have to hand it to Governor Rod Blagojevich. By simply proposing to transfer the powers of the Illinois State Board of Education to his own office, Blagojevich did several huge favors for the teachers unions, forestalled any budget-busting funding increases for education this year, and all but killed the income-for-property-tax-swap idea for the rest of his first term - while politically positioning himself as a feisty fiscal conservative, a gutsy hands-on reformer, and a concerned pro-education leader.