Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:
Fred All Week Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
Keeping retirement weird.
This is the story I tell. I went to college originally in the 60s in California. There were a lot of diversions back then and I was diverted by all of them. After two years at Los Angeles City College, I dropped out. I was active in the Student Movement. I was head of my chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. When Martin Luther King was killed in 1968, we white students in SDS and the Blac
YESTERDAY
Jay Travis. We have only begun this fight.
NEWS RELEASE Jay Travis, Democratic Candidate for IL State Representative CHICAGO, IL – Award-winning community organizer Jhatayn “Jay” Travis today conceded in her competitive race against incumbent State Representative Christian Mitchell in the Democratic primary for the Illinois 26th District. Jay came within a close margin of victory and had not yet conceded in order to follow up on the hundr
Latest update on Illinois Charter Bills.
- Mary Shesgreen Dear Friends, I just spoke with Kurt Hildgendorf at Chicago Teachers Union. He gave me this update. HB 6005, the Charter School Accountability Act, passed out of the House Education Committee and will be come up in the full house next week or the week afterwards. We don’ t know the date yet. It stands a good chance in the House. It’s companion bill in the Senate, SB 3030 passed ou
Sun-Times report of teachers being “within hours” of a pension deal is false.
Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman reported this morning that two unions were close to a pension deal with the City. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is closing in on a pension deal with unions representing building trades and white-collar employees that could strengthen his hand with police and fire, City Hall sources said Thursday. Neither the city nor the unions whose members draw their retire
Springfield goes home until April Fool’s Day.
Our Miss Brooks. John Stewart famously called state government the meth lab of democracy. Yesterday the Illinois General Assembly acted more like my old high school pal who spent our senior year and most of his freshman year at UC Berkeley stoned and on the couch watching day-time reruns of Our Miss Brooks. This was less about class warfare than it was about cutting class. It’s early in the morn
MAR 27
I’m #19 on the IEA Retired ballot.
My ballot for retired delegate to the NEA RA has arrived. I’ll mark it tomorrow and drop it in the mail box. I’m number #19. There are 27 IEA Retired members running and they are all good folks. They have to be to offer up themselves to spend 10 days in Denver the week of July 4th. There are three days for the Retired Conference and six more for the NEA RA. Plus toss in a day for travel. Trust me.
Phil Kadner. If Rauner could create thousands of jobs, cut waste and produce billions in new tax revenue within weeks of the next election, he ought to audition for a part as Moses in the remake of “The Ten Commandments.”
- Phil Kadner writes for the Daily Southtown Star. “For too long, Illinois has underfunded its schools and overburdened its property taxpayers,” Gov. Pat Quinn said Wednesday. Well, it’s hard to argue with a man who repeats a message that I’ve been sending to readers of this column for 20 years. The property tax is the most unfair tax of all and not based on ability to pay, the governor said. Abs
John J. Garvey. Is this how we thank our teachers?
John J. Garvey, a retired Chicago school teacher. His letter appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times. Imagine you are in your mid-70s and retired from the Chicago Public Schools for over a decade. You have a comfortable pension because you dedicated 39 years of your life to serve as a teacher and administrator in the school district. When you finished college, you entered the profession you had dreamed
Revenue, revenue, revenue. And tax fairness.
Bruce Rauner’s budget address. Illinois’ financial problem is rooted in a lack of sufficient revenue and tax fairness. Quinn’s budget address yesterday starts to acknowledge what we have said. He was right to call for keeping the 5% income tax place. Illinois is one of the lowest taxing, lowest spending states in the country. Bruce Rauner’s call for even lower corporate and lower taxes on the we
MAR 26
John Laesch. The three votes stoping abolishing the charter commission.
Northern Illinois Jobs With Justice Action Alert and newsletter. Dear Friends, Fred Klonsky recently wrote at his blog, Fredklonsky.com, “If both bills pass both houses – which there is a strong possibility – this may turn out to be the biggest set-back for charter schools in the country.” Yesterday, March 25th, SB2627 (Dissolves the ALEC-initiated, Illinois Charter Commission – HB3754 in the hous
Hey, my Elgin friends. You know who I’m talking about. Get on the horn to Senator Noland about the charter school bills.
Elgin State Senator Mike Noland. Mary Shesgreen sends this: The last I heard is that the charter school bills are being “held up” in the Senate Committee by Mike Noland and two other Senators. That’s SB 3030, the Senate version of the Charter School Accountability Act, and SB 2627, the bill which would dissolve the Illinois State Charter Commission. Please email him tonight or call him very ear
Senator Iris Martinez is my State Senator and I expect her to do the right thing on the Charter Commission bill.
State Senator Iris Martinez. This from my friend Deborah McCoy: There are a few state senators on the education committee who are undecided about the charter accountability/commission bills. The only one in Chicago is Iris Martinez. If you live in her district, consider calling her and asking your friends to call to support SB2627 and SB3030. 217-782-8191 or 773-463-0720. Well, as it turns out,
A tangled web of Rauner, Madigan, Stand for Children’s Edelman and the IEA leaders. I’m sorry I wasn’t louder.
. One of the more curious charges leveled against me by Haisman/Swanson is that I didn’t make any criticisms of Bruce Rayner until the final morning of the primary campaign. Even casual readers know that’s not true. But it brings to mind the story of Ken Swanson, Jonah Edelman, Bruce Rauner and Michael Madigan. And this blog. Meeting with reporters the other day, Mad Man Madigan offered a brief h
MAR 25
Urgent. Charter bill witness slips needed. Now.
The House version of the charter school accountability act passed successfully out of committee. The Senate version of that same bill, SB 3030 will be heard in committee this afternoon. We have been told that it will face a much tougher hurdle in getting out of committee than its House counterpart. Fill out witness slip here.
A message from the Ken Swanson, the IEA President who gave us Senate Bill 7.
A NOTE TO ALL ILLINOIS TEACHERS FROM KEN SWANSON – former IEA President….. Hi Everyone, I wish to add my voice to those coming to the defense of IEA and its current leadership. I have nothing but great praise for the efforts to nominate Sen. Dillard. It would have been easy to buy into the defeatist attitude of those who argued there was no way and it couldn’t be done. Well, it was nearly accompl
Squeezy defends collective bargaining. In theory.
A former IEA leader who was running for another top office came to our Region asking for support. Given his support for Senate Bill 7 – which took away our seniority and tenure rights, linked teacher performance and evaluations to student test scores and raised the bar for strike authorization – I asked him if there was anything that he absolutely wouldn’t bargain. He thought for a moment. Or tw
Illinois set to put major limits on charter schools. Act now.
Illinois charter school operators are about to face major legislative restrictions on their expansion of operations. This is big. But you must make your phone calls and file witness slips. HB 3754, a bill sponsored in the House by State Representative LInda Chapa LaVia, a Democrat from Aurora would defang the Charter School Commission of its authority to overturn a decision by an elected local sc
MAR 24
John Laesch. Act to abolish the Charter Commission.
Your grassroots action and leadership from State Representative Chapa LaVia has helped propell some important legislation through the House Secondary and Elementary Education Committee and onto the house floor. On March 20th, HB 3754 that would dissolve the ALEC-created Illinois State Charter School Commission passed the House by a vote of (78-33) – click to see how your lawmaker voted. Tomorrow,
What should we think about the unions’ Dillard Strategy?
Some readers have suggested that we move on from the discussion of the IFT and IEA’s Dillard Strategy. The election is over, they tell me. We need to focus on what’s next. But I say not so fast. The unions collectively spent over $3 million of member political donations on the Dillard Strategy. I think that kind of money deserves evaluation and accountability. The were (at least) two criticisms of
CPS continues its ethnic cleansing of its teaching faculty.
Photo: George Schmidt, Substance. The announcement late Friday that CPS was closing three more schools – calling them turn-arounds – was an attempt to bury the story of the system’s continuing efforts at the ethnic cleansing of the teaching staff. That’s the purpose of a bad news story that is released to the press late on Friday. Bury it. The three schools - McNair, Dvorak and Gresham elementa
MAR 23
Why does Tim Meegan want to be a Chicago Alderman?
It was such a cold Chicago morning that even with two layers of gloves my fingers started to tingle with frost bite. I was knocking on doors for Will Guzzardi with Tim Meegan, who I had just met for the first time that morning. “I’m gonna run for Alderman,” he told me. I must have had a funny look. I asked, “Why would you want to do THAT?” Here’s why. I’m Tim Meegan, an independent progressive
Sunday reads.
NYC Educator runs for union office. More like him should. They pissed away $3 million supporting the candidate from ALEC, an idea the membership wouldn’t buy. The bill is the best charter bill of the season and deserves your immediate support. David Sirota. Annual pension shortfall = $46B. Annual corporate subsidies = $120B Unions kick ALEC out of Oregon. But they endorsed ALEC Chairman as Gove
MAR 22
Unanimity is the enemy of democracy.
Retired members of the Illinois Education Association should be receiving their ballots in the mail. We get to vote for nine delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly. The RA takes place the first week of July in Denver. I am running as a delegate. #19 on the ballot. Not every one of the 10,000 members of IEA Retired knows all the names on the ballot. It is not unusual for those who have recom
Keeping retirement weird. The viagra trial.
It must be a sign of old age. I see a news item about the Vegara Trial in California? I read it as the Viagra Trial. The Vegara Trial, The California law suit that challenges teacher seniority and tenure rights, is being funded by the usual corporate union haters. Yesterday Linda Darling Hammond, the Stanford professor and noted scholar of teacher effectiveness, took the stand to testify in favo
The doctrine of in loco parentis in no way justifies CPS student interrogation techniques.
- Statement of Bruce Boyer, Child Advocate and former CPS parent, and Stacey Platt, Child Advocate and CPS parent, Clinical Professors of Law, Civitas ChildLaw Clinic, Loyola University Chicago School of Law (for identification purposes) The doctrine of in loco parentis in no way justifies the Chicago Board of Education’s alleged actions in removing children from their classrooms to question the