Latest News and Comment from Education

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

11-19-13 Fred Klonsky | Running for our pensions. | VOTE 4 Fred Klonsky

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




Arne’s racism. Which suburban white mom?
The apology by Education Secretary rings hollow. Maybe he’s sorry he said it. It doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it. It’s not the first racist comments he’s made. I wondered. Which white suburban moms did he mean? Or in his eyes is being white enough? I taught for thirty years in a district with mostly white kids and white moms. Did he mean the mom who, along with her husband, dedicated her life to h

Breaking: December 2 is Pension Emergency Day.
From the IEA: The We Are One Illinois coalition is declaring Monday, Dec. 2 a pension emergency day. Politicians are expected to return to Springfield on Dec. 3, to vote on an extreme pension scheme devised by legislative leaders. For years, we have been battling changes to the pension system and it appears this could be the date for an actual vote. As we’ve told you before, this plan will blend u
Breaking: TRS gets $100 million from Chase settlement.
Illinois’ Teacher Retirement System is reported to be getting $100 million from the Justice Department’s settlement with Chase. Good start. What about the rest they and the rest of Wall Street owes us. In an agreement settling many U.S. claims over its sale of troubled mortgages, JPMorgan Chase will pay a record $13 billion, in a deal announced by the Justice Department Tuesday. The plan includes

This is no time for pension fight fatigue.
Thousands of Illinois public employee retirees have been attending meetings around the state gathering information as best we can about the new Medicare Advantage plan. It is a resulting of the state and Feds unloading their direct responsibility for administering public employee health care plans. Because of the extremely short roll-out time, it has rightly occupied a lot of our time and concern.


Joni Lindgren. “Voting against retirees will make you part of the bigger picture of what is wrong.”
Senator It is immoral for legislators to vote against any unconstitutional bill when you sit comfortably and smuggly in Springfield or at your Thanksgiving table knowing your pensions and great health care plans are intact. What kind of individual are you who can strip retirees of their Constitutional guarantees for the job they performed at lower salaries than in the private sector to just han
Jim Keating: “Leave our pensions alone! Have a happy new (election) year!”
 By Jim Keating. JIm is a member of the DuPage Illinois Retired Teachers Association (IRTA).The post comes from the November issue of the DuPage IRTA newsletter which is published 6 times a year. Jim always contributes a legislative column. This is a tongue-in-cheek look at retiree’s current perilous pension situation. “Dark times are these.”-  Yoda Since last June the days have been getting shor
11-18-13 Fred Klonsky | Running for our pensions. | VOTE 4 Fred Klonsky
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: The in box. Jose Vilson. “I’ve been mad. Perhaps you should have been angry with us, back when the levees broke …”First They Came For Urban Black and Latino Moms (For Arne Duncan) 11/17/2013     A few months ago, I walked past a “successful” charter school here in Harlem, NY, speed-walking to get my s