Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

9-24-13 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. Voters support teacher pensions. By a mile.
IEA Website: A survey of Illinois voters shows that, by a margin of 2-1, the people who will be casting ballots in the November 2014 election believe that teachers and college faculty should receive the pensions they were promised despite state deficits. That’s one of the findings in a new public opinion survey conducted on behalf of the Illinois Education Association (IEA), the state’s largest u


Ten minute drawing. Karl Marx explains his plays.
  Klick image to enlarge.



Pension bombing bill. Illinois Democrats will own it.
Democrat State Senator Kwame Raoul chairs the joint pension committee. It appears that if there is going to be a bill coming from the Gang of Ten joint committee on pensions, it will be wholly owned by the legislature’s Democrats. I received this communication from the Illinois Retired Teachers Association this morning. Many rumors have been bantered about in the recent weeks concerning pension r

The impact of lifting special education caps on Illinois classrooms.
Last Thursday the ISBE was to consider doing away with the current cap on the number of special eduction students that could be enrolled in a regular education classroom. This was not a vote on inclusion, which I zealously support. In spite of testimony from administrators that lifting the cap would provide flexibility, many of us suspected that cost-saving was the driver. In any case, over 5,000

The impact on classrooms if special education class size limits are removed.
Last Thursday the ISBE was to consider doing away with caps on the number of special eduction students that could be enrolled in a regular education classroom. This was not a vote on inclusion, which I zealously support. In spite of testimony from administrators that lifting the cap would provide flexibility, many of us suspected that cost-saving was the driver. In any case, over 5,000 teachers a

9-23-13 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.: Thinking about learning styles.  Third grade mask-making. I once had a fifth grade student who was, let us say, not fully engaged in the activities I had provided in the art room. He goofed around a lot. One day, following a request to settle down, he turned to me and said, “Mr. K. Your teaching is no