Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

9-17-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:




The in box. Jim Keating on our state legislators and life-long learning
Jim Keating is a retired teacher and member of the Du Page chapter of the Illinois Retired Teachers Association. He writes a column for their publication on political issues of concern to retirees. Here’s his latest:  By Jim Keating We have well educated state legislators who cannot solve the state’s revenue problem. They need to learn how to do this. Hey, that’s our job! We are educators, righ


IPI hucksters issue scare ‘em reports about pension debt and the media buys it.
    If the IPI is non-partisan, than I look like Brad Pitt.   Once again the hucksters at the Illinois Poliicy Institute issue a report full of bunkum and the media buys it. The IPI is a Republican front group dressed up as a think tank. There’s not much thinking going on there. Mostly Tea Party talking points. The latest (ahem) IPI report: Total pension, retirement-related and other debt across

Daley in. Daley out. Not a pension friendly candidate among the bunch of them.
I was watching Chicago Tonight on WTTW last night and Carol Marin was freaking out over Bill Daley dropping out of the governor’s race. She had the usual panelists of pundits pundisizing their punditry over the meaning of it all. Who it helps and who it hurts. Anne and I discussed it. And based on our pundisizing, we figure it helps Quinn in the primary since he is the only one now running. Among


Sun-Times editors call for pension COLA cuts. Tell them why that’s wrong.
The editorial board of the Chicago Sun-Times today calls on the Gang of Ten legislative pension committee to recommend cuts in state cost of living adjustments to retirees. That’s just wrong. Constitutionally. And morally. It’s time. A group of Illinois lawmakers has had all summer to drum up a new plan to cut public employee pension costs. They’re close, with the outlines of their plan already p

UNO’s teacher pension scandal erupts.
    Head of the Chicago Teacher Pension Fund board of trustees, Jay Rehak. Photo: Substance. A day after Martin Cabrera who was the Chairman of the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) resigned, there is a new scandal involving the largest Chicago charter school operator. Cabrera served only three months. He was installed to clean up the scandal-ridden organization headed by Rahm Emanuel’s camp

From Glen Brown on Constitution Day: The Constitution.
Glen Brown posts at teacher/poet/musician. “Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties” –Abraham Lincoln “No State shall…pass any…ex post facto law or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts…” (The Constitution of the United States, Article 1—Limitations on Powers of States, Section 10). “No ex post facto law, or law


9-16-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: The in box. The pension committee Gang of Ten is offering a plan with slim chance of passing.  Republican, pension bomber and ALEC member, Representative Darlene Senger.  Rich Miller in the Southtown: Several members of the Illinois General Assembly’s special pension reform committee told me last week