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
Reports from AFT in LA.
Representing Chicago’s teachers and communities in LA: CTU President Karen Lewis, Asean Johnson and Jitu Brown. Two reliable sources for following what is going on in LA at the AFT convention are from my friends Norm Scott and Jonathan Halabi. Although they are not always in political agreement, who is? I posted Norm’s report from the committee on Common Core yesterday. Here is Jonathan’s notes f
Paving roads with our pension funds. Government sponsored pension theft.
For decades the state of Illinois has underfunded the public employee pension funds to protect politicians from having to raise taxes. And they were certainly not going to raise taxes on their sponsors in the Civic Committee. “You’ve stolen from our pension funds for years,” a teacher yelled at State Representative Elaine Nekritz at a pension forum I spoke at with her in Aurora. “We didn’t steal
AFT. Common Core will get debated on Sunday.
CTU President Karen Lewis pushed for the debate. - Mercedes Schneider blogs at deutch29 A very good thing will happen on Sunday, July 13, 2014, at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Los Angeles: The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) will be debated on the floor. No behind-closed-doors killing of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) resolution opposing CCSS. As Politico states: W
Keeping retirement weird. Come back Maggie. We need you.
Where is Maggie Kuhn when we need her? For those of you who don’t remember the founder of the Gray Panthers, let me remind you. Maggie was a life-long activist who had worked 25 years for the United Presbyterian Church in New York, commuting daily from her home in Philadelphia. In 1970 Maggie reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 and was forced to leave her job. “They gave me a sewing machin
YESTERDAY
Norm Scott from AFT in LA. “Midwesterners are too nice.”
Photo: Norm Scott. Voters supporting CTU CC reso stand in support – est 25-30%. - Norm Scott is a blogger and retired NY school teacher. Since we were not allowed in, we were watching the Education Issues Committee debate from outside the glass doors. With long lines at the mic, it was clear that Chicago TU people did not have the muscle to win the room over to its anti- common core resolution to
Old and invisible in the NEA.
Lillian Rubin died last month at the age of 90. The psychologist Lillian Rubin died last month at the age of 90. Rubin wrote about women, the relationships between mothers and daughters and, more recently, about ageism. I don’t know about you, but the chirpy tales that dominate the public discussion about aging — you know, the ones that tell us that age is just a state of mind, that “60 is the ne
I left Denver very pleased with the results.
The American Federation of Teachers is meeting in LA this weekend. As I write this they are debating a resolution on the Common Core that was drafted by my friends in the Chicago Teachers Union and adopted by their House of Delegates. Randi Weingarten has already said that if the delegates choose to follow the lead of the National Education Association – which met in Denver last week- and vote fo
JUL 10
Home from the NEA RA. Listening to the mountains, the veterans and the voices in my head.
Our friend Jean shared the secret of hiking up the two-mile path to Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. And the two miles back down. We needed to get there early before the crowds. We needed to hike without hearing people’s voices. We needed to listen to the Park. That way we would also hear the voices in our own heads My head almost exploded with thoughts and ideas. I had no trouble he
Brant Rosen. Tragedy in Gaza: Reckoning with Root Causes
- Rabbi Brant Rosen is a congregational rabbi in Evanston and the co-founder/co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council. It’s happening again. As of this writing, Israel has dropped 800 tons of explosives on Gaza, a strip of land roughly the size of Detroit. The official death toll currently stands at 81, the majority of whom are civilians and half of whom are women and children. Y
JUL 09
Greg Hinz. Rauner and Quinn and Stroger and Madigan.
- Greg Hinz If you put together a list of Illinois politicians whom Bruce Rauner would be least likely to funnel campaign cash to, Chicago’s Stroger clan and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan would be right at the top. The late John Stroger and son Todd Stroger pretty much left Cook County government a financial wasteland after their respective terms as president of the county board. Mr. Mad
JUL 08
NY Magazine. Teachers unions turn against Democrats.
Newly elected NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia “talking a more Ravitch-esque public line.” New York Magazine: The results of the NEA convention reflected Ravitch’s militance. Not only did the union officially call for Duncan’s resignation — a measure that was introduced, but failed to pass, in each of the last four years — its new president Lily Eskelsen García, is taking a more Ravitch-esque p
Bob Scharba’s cartoons.
The Evil Leprechaun. Re-fixed. Fred: I’ve featured your suggested “stars” of Illinois pension theft in the cartoon I mentioned to you the other day to you. I wasn’t even aware of what some of these people looked like till I researched this……what a gruesome bunch. Biss is sort of like a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and Lurch. I am loathe to say it to an art teacher, but I’m a much better
John Dillon. Justice Burke’s pension dissent.
- John Dillon is a retired teacher, a pension activist and pension blogger. In the recent Kanerva v. Weems decision, at issue was the appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court by members of three State Employees Retirement Systems that health benefits were protected by the Contracts Clause of the Illinois Constitution as well as safeguarded by the Pension Protection Clause. Other arguments by the Reti
JUL 07
Diane Ravitch’s blog. A Mass teacher’s hopes for Lily.
Newly elected NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia and this blogger. - Diane Ravitch. This just in from a member of NEA from Massachusetts who is at the Denver convention. She hopes that Lily Eskelsen, the new president, will be a champion and fighter for kids, teachers, and public schools. Is she THE ONE? Will she stand up to the phony “reformers”? Will she fight for democratic control of the scho