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
Support the people who serve the NEA staff.
- From UniteHere Local 23. Seasons Culinary, the food service company that operates the cafeteria in the National Education Association headquarters building in Washington DC, is refusing to accept a contract that would give its workers the same benefits and protections as at other DC UNITE HERE Local 23 cafeterias.* We recognize NEA Executive Director John Stocks for his national leadership on i
Keeping retirement weird. Pensions are a promise. Everywhere in the world.
Last night we went to a Pete Seeger sing-along at the Old Town School of Folk Music. That’s what they called a hootenanny back in my day. I left my uke at home, but plenty of folks brought instruments. The OTS projected the words and chords up on the screen and different staff members came up to lead us in songs Pete had written or sung or both. Including Frank Hamilton, one of the original found
John Dillon. Reporting pension corruption. Where to begin?
John Dillon is a retired blogger, pension activist and blogger at Pension Vocabulary. The Illinois Review, always a purveyor of items Tea Party, announced a short time ago that GOP candidate Bruce Rauner has “launched a statewide whistleblower tip line for citizens” who want to report corruption, misuse of state funds, etc. Where to begin? You’ll remember that in his televised political commercia
YESTERDAY
Robert Rohdenburg. Where and in what conditions should we live?
Fred, I and 140 others used to live at the Chateau Hotel in Lakeview and we were displaced by June 2013 by a BJB Property building gutting/rehab plan. I will be speaking on the SRO/Affordable housing issues at the Sunday 5/4 ONE Northside Convention. About 1000 activists for various issues, including SRO’s/Affordable housing, will be confronting state and local officials, including many alderman.
Breaking: Motion for injunction is filed
This afternoon, the State Universities Annuitants Association (SUAA) filed a motion with the court for a preliminary injunction prohibiting the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) from implementing Public Act 98-0599 (SB1). The motion can be found in its entirety on irtaonline.org.
Report Rahm, Rauner and Quinn to the Illinois theft and corruption hot-line. 1 800 728 8477
I’m no fan of Bruce Rauner. But he has come up with a good idea. If you see the corruption and theft of the public, report what you see to a hot-line number. 1 800 728 8477. Of course, Rauner is using it to try and embarrass the Governor. But why be so limited? What has been the biggest example of corruption and the theft of public money in Illinois history? Of course. Public employee pension the
Not a lot of places left for our low-income and no-income neighbors to get a cheap bite and lay their head.
State Representative-elect Will Guzzardi posts: H/T to Fred Klonsky: Johnny’s Grill on the Square just closed. Hard not to read this in the context of the Milshire closing, and the proposed high-priced “micro-apartments” coming in. Not a lot of places left for our low-income and no-income neighbors to get a cheap bite and lay their head. The Milshire Will is referring to is a single-room occupanc
Johnny’s Grill.
State Representative-elect Will Guzzardi at Johnny’s Grill, now closed. When you’re close to a thing you can’t always see it change until there is that moment. Your kids grow up and suddenly you notice that they are teenagers and then they are gone. When did that happen? I go to the gym and work out now because one morning I looked in the mirror and . . . Logan Square, the neighborhood in Chicago
MAY 01
Solidarity.
Members of the Early Childhood, Elementary and Literacy Department at Montclair State University stand in solidarity with teachers opting out!
On this May Day morning my eyes are on Brooklyn and my heart is in Brooklyn.
As a Chicagoan, nothing symbolizes the spirit of rebellion against what is wrong than May Day. The working class holiday began in this city with the fight for the 8 hour day and the events at Haymarket Square. This morning teachers and staff at the International High School at Prospect Heights are rebelling against the wrong that standardized testing has become. Each staff member – teachers, psych
APR 30
Rosie is riveting
. Rosie Frascella is an English teacher at the International High School at Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. Nearly the entire staff signed on to boycott the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam. 60% of the parents have opted out.
Teachers at Brooklyn’s International High School at Prospect Heights boycott the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam.
This just in: On Thursday, May 1, 2014, we, the teachers and school staff, at the International High School at Prospect Heights are refusing to give the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam. We are standing in solidarity with the more than 50% of our parents who have opted their students out of taking the test. Please support the teachers and staff members who have joined togethe
Teachers at Brooklyn’s International High School at Brooklyn Heights refuse to administer the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam.
This just in: On Thursday, May 1, 2014, we, the teachers and school staff, at the International High School at Prospect Heights are refusing to give the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam. We are standing in solidarity with the more than 50% of our parents who have opted their students out of taking the test. Please support the teachers and staff members who have joined togethe
Les Perelman. PARCC, Pearson and robo-graders.
My old friend Les Perelman recently retired as director of undergraduate writing at MIT. He has contributed to this blog and is a major critic of the misuse of standardized testing and robo-graders. The following appears in the Boston Globe. “According to professor of theory of knowledge Leon Trotsky, privacy is the most fundamental report of humankind. Radiation on advocates to an orator transmi
Illinois State Representative Keith Farnham is a child pornographer and molester.
“Keith Farnham? Didn’t he vote for pension theft?” I was asked yesterday. “Apparently that may be the best thing he did,” I responded. From the Chicago Tribune. When he resigned his seat on March 19, Farnham told the Tribune he was stepping down due to serious health concerns. A Navy veteran who ran a painting business in Elgin before running for office in 2009, Farnham said he is receiving treat
There are two ways the Illinois legislature can screw you: When they do something and when they don’t.
The Illinois General Assembly won’t be voting on a Fair Tax this session. 1,000 people filled the Capitol Rotunda yesterday demanding a progressive income tax. They were ignored. There weren’t enough votes for it in Michael Madigan’s House. Senate Democrats didn’t want to go on record voting for it if it was going to die in the House anyway. Key sponsor Don Harmon decided not to bring it to a vot
APR 29
Good luck students. Your professors are heading for the exits.
Under provisions of the State University Retirement System’s money purchase option, 10,000 state university employees are eligible to retire by July 1. As a result of the Senate Bill 1 pension theft passed last December 3rd and signed immediately by Squeezy, thousands are heading for the exits to avoid loosing thousands of dollars in post retirement compensation. Senator Dan Biss was a member of
You can’t fix stupid and at CPS the term “professional staff” doesn’t mean teachers. No bare chests.
It turns out that the memo posted here yesterday from CPS Barbara Byrd Bennett that some principals distributed to building teachers and staff wasn’t for them. The memo was a directive that demanded adherence to a dress code. For men it demanded suits, slacks, shirts (!) and, when appropriate, ties. For women it included suits, tailored separates, skirts and dresses. “As we attempt to change ou
APR 28
I’ll be going to the NEA Representative Assembly as a Retired Delegate from Illinois.
Well, I certainly didn’t get elected in a state-wide election for NEA RA retired delegate because of my good looks. I ran as a critic of current union policies and practices. And I ran as a die-hard supporter of teacher unions and the labor movement. I ran as a proponent of greater union democracy. I ran as an advocate and activist for our pensions. I ran a an opponent of corporate school reform.
NEA staff joins cafeteria workers’ picket line at DC NEA headquarters.
- report/photo by Chris Garlock “If I had a little bit more money I could pay the bills and save some for my boys,” said Jessica Reyes. “I want them to go to college and not have to work a job like mine.” Reyes works in the cafeteria at the National Education Association’s headquarters on 16th Street, which is operated by Culinary Seasons. Culinary was the target of a noontime picket yesterday by
We’re closing your school, but dress appropriately.
Today I received this from a CPS teacher: “With everything going on in CPS, THIS is the first interoffice memo I’ve been forwarded directly from the CEO in all my years teaching. There are so many reasons why teachers might not dress in her definition of “professional attire,” from crawling on the floor with pre-schoolers to trying to be more approachable and less intimidating during parent confer
Online testing and the babel generator.
Photo: M. Scott Brauer for The Chronicle. Les Perelman (left), with the help of students at MIT and Harvard, created the Babel Generator, a software program that generates meaningless essays to test the mettle of machine graders. Les Perelman is an old high school chum and presently retired as director of graduate writing at MIT. He is a long-time critic of the use and misuse of standardized test
Journalism.
I admit that I am flexible about this journalism thing. I’m not a journalist. I’m a retired K-5 art teacher who writes a blog. And I am an activist around a bunch of issues. That doesn’t mean I don’t try to be honest and accurate. But unlike most of who make questionable claims to being journalists – I don’t make such a claim Last year, the first in two decades that I wasn’t elected as a delegate
APR 27
Sunday reads.
The Clipper’s Donald Sterling joins with Supreme Court majority. He’s caught on TMZ audio tape saying, “Don’t let Black students into state universities. No more of that f—– affirmative action.” Gordon Lafer on Miwaukee’s Rocketship Charter scam. Koch brothers and others influence judges to approve wage theft from teachers. Obama rightly condemns the racism in basketball, but silent about it on
APR 26
Silence on affirmative action makes naming Chicago’s new elite high school after Obama appropriate.
I have been thinking about the new $60 million public Barack Obama College Prep that will be built a few blocks away from another Chicago public elite selective admission high school, Walter Payton College Prep. The latest project for Chicago’s tale of two cities school system will be built on the metaphorical grave of Cabrini Green, a public housing project. It won’t be far from the City’s large
Keeping retirement weird.
Yesterday was a beautiful midwestern Spring day. I’m writing this – drinking my coffee and eating my bowl of Bob’s Ten Grain – while looking at the serviceberry in the corner of our backward which is on the cusp of full bloom. So naturally I spent yesterday inside at conference room at the Double Tree in Oakbrook, twenty miles west of the Loop. There are a lot of pretty towns that surround Chicag