Saturday coffee.
Anne, Ulysses and I have left the City for a month.
We have rented a little cottage a few yards from Lake Michigan. We are planning little more than walking, reading and watching the colors change. The change has begun. That picture above was taken last Monday when we arrived and already the road is lined with gold, yellow and rust. Ten more days and we will be in peak colors.
Saturday coffee is here at the cottage. Or maybe a latte at the Whistle Stop, a ten minute walk down Red Arrow Highway. Or maybe at Rosie’s in New Buffalo. That would be weak coffee along with the Sunshine Special: A
Ten minute drawing. Running schools like a business.
Click on drawing to enlarge.
The IEA and the fight against Constitutional Amendment 49.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 22 hours ago
The General Assembly voted to put House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 49 (HJRCA49) on the November ballot. If approved by 60% of those voting it will be part of the Illinois Constitution. This is not advisory. It will be law. It is a sloppy piece of work pushed through by Michael Madigan. There are different [...]
Union teachers play ukuleles too.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 23 hours ago
Union teachers play the ukulele. The Carpenter Ukulele Society in concert. That movie is opening this weekend. If you follow progressive education bloggers or teachers on Facebook, you know which one I’m talking about. It was produced by the same union haters that paid for last year’s box office dud, Waiting for Superman. Listen. Never [...]
Park Ridge’s Anthony Borrelli and school finance.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 1 day ago
Park Ridge school board. Anthony Borrelli, upper left. Some of my old colleagues in Park Ridge sent me a copy of The Park Ridge Patch. Good. ‘Cause I don’t normally subscribe. Yesterday The Patch ran a story on the school board vote to approve the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the Park Ridge [...]
Rahm’s attempt to split teachers from our union fails. But not all union leaders are the same.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 1 day ago
Educator and EdWeek blogger Anthony Cody writes about Rahm’s billionaire buddy Bruce Rauner’s attempt to split teachers from their unions. Cody quotes Rauner, The critical issue is to separate the union from the teachers. They’re not the same thing. … The union basically is a bunch of politicians elected to do certain things–get more pay, [...]
Dear Anonymous.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 1 day ago
Dear Mr. Klonsky: Reading your post reveals the dishonesty of the teachers’ union mantra that “we’re doing it for the kids.” Instead you just want better compensation and working conditions. Why not admit it? Moreover, you don’t seem to realize that taxpayers are over-taxed. Your friends in the Illinois legislature increased our income taxes 66%. [...]
Taxpayers’ watchdogs give me a massive raise. Where’s my 80%? Updated.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 2 days ago
According to a self-described Park Ridge taxpayers’ watchdog organization, I’m living the life of Bill Gates. Okay. Not quite. But responding to what they call my roasting of Park Ridge board of education member Anthony Borelli, they did give me quite a raise in my teacher retirement pension. See, Borelli is their hero because he [...]
Ten minute drawing. Jonathan Kozol.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 2 days ago
Click on drawing to enlarge.
More on Democrats and education. And the importance of the CTU.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 2 days ago
I want to continue the conversation about why the Democratic Party seems to have distanced itself and in some cases abandoned its traditional alliance with unions and particularly teacher unions. Nowhere has this abandonment been played out more starkly than in Illinois, a dark blue state, where the Democrats control both chambers of the General [...]
Why do the Democrats suck on education?
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 2 days ago
Romney on education. For the right of teachers to strike. Against Common Core. Brother Mike represents the feelings many of us have when it comes to the Obama administration’s education policies. Today he comments on his Small Talk blog about the awful Obama interview with Savannah Guthrie on Education Nation. After some double-talk and a [...]
IEA is unrepentant in their IPACE recommendation policies. That’s why members are pulling their dollars.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 3 days ago
Yesterday I posted that I had stopped giving money to IPACE. I encouraged others to do the same. I reported that former IEA President Ken Swanson promised a review of IPACE recommendation procedures. It never happened. But in a response on his website, IEA Communications Director Charlie McBarron gives a full-throated defense of the present [...]
Park Ridge board of education member Anthony Borrelli.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 3 days ago
Park Ridge board of education member Anthony Borrelli, far right. There is something healthy and democratic about citizen school boards. That’s why many in Chicago would like one. Chicago is the only school district in the state without an elected school board. The district I retired from in June has one, of course. Over the [...]
The most important post you will read today. Constitutional Amendment 49 must be defeated.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 4 days ago
My friend Glen Brown wrote this post last June 11th. He was the Paul Revere of Constitutional Amendment 49 which will appear on the November ballot. This bill represents the most serious threat to the state’s public employees, both active and retired. A no vote by you is not enough. You must contact everyone you [...]
There goes that ad again. Every time I see it I find new things.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 4 days ago
They’re still running that Rahm ad on Chicago TV a week after the teacher’s strike was settled. I wouldn’t even bring it up again. I thought that I have tweeted and posted enough on how stupid it is, how I can’t imagine any Chicagoan who owns a remote not simply muting it or scrolling past [...]
IEA members should stop giving their money to IPACE.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 4 days ago
IPACE is the Illinois Political Action Committee for Education. It is one of the largest political action committees in the state. Illinois Education Association members pay through automatic payroll deduction and many do it without following closely where that money goes. I have complained for years about the system of IPACE political recommendations and the [...]
Ten minute drawing. Bruce Rauner.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 4 days ago
Click on drawing to enlarge.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 5 days ago
Musicians on strike. An empty Symphony Hall. A couple of years into my teaching I was approached by one of the two music teachers in my building about a field trip she wanted to take the sixth graders on. That was back before they had moved the sixth grade to the middle school. A move [...]
First the teachers. Now the Chicago Symphony. Wealthy patrons of the CSO are furious. They forget. This is a union town.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 5 days ago
Chicago Sun-Times: More than 100 Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians went on strike Saturday, infuriating patrons who came to Orchestra Hall expecting a show and upsetting world-renowned conductor Riccardo Muti. The CSO canceled the 8 p.m. concert less than two hours before the scheduled start. It was the first Saturday night show of the 2012-2013 season. [...]
The Sunday Mail.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 5 days ago
Photo: Chicago Teachers Solidarity Campaign. John Dillon’s Pension Vacabulary Part 2 of Structural Revenue Problem. The State of Illinois is only one of seven states left in the entire nation operating under a flat tax. Diane Ravitch asks, “Do Democrats support vouchers?” How a political poem was bullied out of me. Molly Meachem. Happy birthday Miles, [...]
Ten minute drawing. Ravenel and Celerie pay for Rahm’s million dollar ad buy.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 6 days ago
Photo credit of Celerie Kemble Curry: Harper’s Bazaar, Amanda de Cadenet Click on drawing to enlarge.
Memories. Nine years ago we went on strike.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 6 days ago
This past week’s Chicago teacher strike brought back memories of November, 2003 when my own local, the Park Ridge Education Association, went on strike for the first time in 25 years. The issues were fair compensation and the cost burden of health insurance for teachers with families. We were on strike for a week. It [...]
Ken Davis’ Show on strike winners and losers. Don’t miss.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 6 days ago
My favorite TV show. If you want to know who were the winners and losers in the Chicago teacher strike, go no further than this half hour video.
The in box. Second cup of coffee. Glen Brown on Constitutional Amendment 49.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 6 days ago
Fred, House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 49 Will Diminish Public Pensions …Public employees know they are victims of a tyranny by the few who lack accountability for destroying a representative democracy and a just economy in Illinois; public employees know they are victims of the corporate “We Mean Business” PAC and vast resources of money [...]
Saturday coffee.
Fred Klonsky at Fred Klonsky - 6 days ago
Democrat Illinois House Representative Robyn Gabel. Is she crazy? We woke to as close to the definition of a Fall day as anyone could claim. A chill in the air. A little rain. Then sun wandering behind scattered gray clouds. Chicago already knew. The leaves on the Dogwood in the backyard had given us a [...]