Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

10-30-13 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.:



Bev Johns. SB 578 agreement.
After difficult negotiation, we have reached an agreement with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and legislative staff to further amend Senate Bill 578. State Representative Linda Chapa LaVia, and State Senator Kirk Dillard are the Illinois House and Senate Chief Sponsors of SB 578. The amendment to the amendment adds the words “including special education teachers” and adds new catego


Bob Lyons on TRS developments.
Bob Lyon represents retirees on the Teacher Retirement System board of trustees.

Don’t TRIP on this TRAIL.
The move by Illinois to change the Teachers Retirement Insurance Plan (TRIP) to the Total Retiree Advantage Illinois Plan (TRAIL or is TRAILP?) is going badly by any measure. Over the past several weeks I have tried to keep readers up to date with all the information I could gather. What I haven’t done is posted hearsay horror stories that I couldn’t confirm. The stories that go, “My brother’s sis


CPS school closings. Many students left in behind.
Catalyst:   Level three is the lowest level school by the CPS board’s measure.   Catalyst’s analysis of the data on enrollment from the 1st, 10th and 20th day of school also showed that more than 2,000 students, including preschoolers and severely disabled students, were not enrolled anywhere on the first day of school. This figure represents about 18 percent of the 11,729 displaced students and
Travel day. Heading for Booo!klyn.


10-29-13 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.: Teachers getting rich of of their pensions? No. But Wall Street is.  Rhode Island’s Treasurer funnels state pension funds into the accounts of her hedge fund friends. David Sirota continues his great work exposing the nation’s pension thievery. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the state pension’s invest