The in box: The other side speaks.
Fred, As most true professionals know, you can not really be a professional if you are in a union…sorry. Please do everyone a favor at your school and go away and retire. You are a bully, a bad teacher and nuisance to effective leadership. Let’s face face it Fred, it is teachers like you and [...]
Bad days.
For some reason yesterday saw a flood of bad boss and crap at work stories. There was the Met Life Survey of the American Teacher. Damn. We are an unhappy bunch. And who can blame us? Well. In fact, it seems everybody blames us. More than half of teachers expressed at least some reservation about [...]
Spell check.
Snopes says it is photoshopped. But it doesn’t make it less true. Or funny.
The in box: We should be uncomfortable.
You didn’t answer to the fact that the Mayor doesn’t live in Lincoln Park…he lives in Ravenswood. Neither LaSalle, nor Lincoln are his local schools…so the hook of your story is false…even though the underlying story about student displacement might be correct. You’ve been gone so long, I thought you moved to the suburbs. You [...]
Let’s roll.
I drove over to the Skokie office of the IEA last night. There was a Region meeting followed by a meeting for delegates to next week’s state convention, the Representative Assembly. The delegate meeting was encouraging to an old guy like me. There were quite a few first-time delegates going to the RA from our [...]
Better late.
Several weeks and 18,000 signatures later the IEA has placed the grass roots petition on the splash page of their website (or one click away). Why the delay? I’m done trying to figure these people out. I guess we take what we can get. The petition is scheduled to be delivered by grass roots teacher [...]
Bank Street’s Occasional Papers 27. The accountability movement.
I am honored to be asked to contribute to Bank Street College of Education’s on-line publication Occasional Papers #27. The theme of this issue is Challenging the Politics of the Teacher Accountability Movement: Toward a More Hopeful Educational Future. Occasional Paper#27 is divided into three sections. Two weeks ago, articles analyzed the language and values that [...]
International Women’s Day: Boycott Hyatt. Hyatt hurts women.
Hyatt Hurt Women: The Clothesline Project. Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day. While the Limbaugh Party’s War on Women is well known, less well known is the war on working women, hotel workers at the Hyatt Hotel, who are waging a battle for respect and a decent contract. The Hyatt chain is owned by [...]
Do I seem undecided to you?
Toni Berrios, my State Representative, must be worried about the challenge she is getting from the young progressive candidate, Will Guzzardi. Regular readers of this blog will know that I have supported Will since he first announced. Berrios is the daughter of Democratic Machine boss Joe Berrios. She wouldn’t even be state rep if her [...]
The in box: IEA Government Relations Director corrects me.
Fred, Just ffor the record… In May, we ended the legislative session with 15,000 postcards delivered to legislators, 45,000 emails sent to legislators, 90,000 phone calls made to legislators, (an effort through the We Are One Illinois labor coalition), expressing our concerns about pensions. Jim Reed, Director of IEA Government Relations Jim, I stand by [...]
Bang for the buck?
A year ago I was standing in front of the IEA state offices on Edwards Street in Springfield talking to IEA President Cinda Klickna. “It’s not like it was in the old days,” Klickna said. “Back then we could walk across the street to the legislative offices and tell them what we wanted. And for [...]
Teachers living in the 39th IL State Rep district: Vote Will Guzzardi.
The 39th State Representative district stretches from Logan Square up through the north west side of Chicago. It is the home of many Chicago and suburban teachers. Over the past two weeks my little green mailbox has been filled with expensive four color negative ads for Machine Boss Joe Berrios’ daughter, Toni Berrios. “Guzzardi in [...]
Grass roots effort goes viral. UPDATED.
The state’s public employee union leadership won’t mention it. The IEA leadership let almost two weeks go by before they noticed the issue. The media has ignored it. But the petition to Governor Quinn to restore state funding to retiree education employee health insurance is now heading for the 20,000 signature mark. For a comparison, [...]
The in box: Lobby Day in Springfield cancelled for construction. What construction?
Fred, I just got back from my school’s 7th grade field trip to The Capital. To my massive surprise, there is no real construction to speak of. They took a mural down, but that is it. The rotunda is untouched as were the halls by the chambers. WTF is our leadership taking about construction? There [...]
The in box. TRS trustee Bob Lyons on recent developments.
I heard Mike Nolan and Elaine Nekritz, the two Democrat members of the Governor’s Pension Assembly, speak at an IFT legislative breakfast on Saturday and that along with reporting out of Springfield indicates the four members of the group are starting in four different places. One piece of good news, both Nekritz and Senate President [...]
The open door.
The Open Door When she first arrived she told us her door was always open. They always tell us that. Soon the door was open but the lights were off. Then the door was closed. Yesterday the little window in the door had paper covering it so that nobody could see in. I keep imagining [...]
Virtual Lobby Day Tuesday.
You have two lobby jobs today. The first is to contact your state senator and state representative and remind them of the promise that the state made to meet their obligations to state employee pensions. No three-tier schemes. No shifting of the obligation to local school boards. Remind them that early voting is going on [...]