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
Movement in Hinsdale D86
- From HHSTA District 86 Negotiations Moving Forward. Teachers association and board of education work toward an agreement HINSDALE, IL. — August 15, 2014 — The teachers of the Hinsdale High School Teachers Association (HHSTA) and the District 86 Board of Education have made progress in working toward a compromise. Using both federal mediation and small group negotiations suggested by Dr. Skoda,
AUG 14
I’m retired. Not dead.
When you subtitle your blog, “daily posts from a retired art teacher…,” and you miss a day’s post, people assume the worst. There will be days when you may find nothing new up here at all. And days when I’ll show up to work. That’s because Anne and I are headed to the eastern seaboard. Why is it the west coast but it is the eastern seaboard? Why are roads closed and bridges out? Another mystery o
Following seven year fight the Washington state Supreme Court okays pension cuts.
- From the Washington Education Association After a seven-year legal fight led by WEA, the Supreme Court has upheld cuts in retirement benefits for more than more than 100,000 K-12 educators. WEA President Kim Mead denounced the decision to reduce educators’ pensions . “It’s not right for the Legislature to unilaterally cut retirement benefits it promised – and to take away what educators already
Gaza, MO. Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery’s account of his arrest.
-Wesley Lowery is an reporter for the Washington Post. An officer with a large weapon came up to me and said, “Stop recording.” I said, “Officer, do I not have the right to record you?” He backed off but told me to hurry up. So I gathered my notebook and pens with one hand while recording him with the other hand. As I exited, I saw Ryan to my left, having a similar argument with two officers. I r
Gaza, MO.
Michael Brown’s mother, Mrs. Lesley McSpadden. Last night, the people of Ferguson, Missouri were getting tweets from Gaza residents with information on how to deal with tear gas. Watching the images coming from the St. Louis suburb it was hard to tell the difference between the two occupations. How does a small suburban town get all this military equipment? Why do they have tanks and machine guns
AUG 13
Breaking. The dirt in Karen Lewis’ closet.
Anne said to me, “One advantage that Karen Lewis has over Rahm is that there are no skeletons in her closet. No back room deals in Springfield or La Salle Street. I mean she was a chemistry teacher at Lane Tech and a local union president. Clean as a whistle.” “Ha,” I laughed. “They’re all crooked. You watch. Something will come out.“ And this morning, the intrepid investigative team at the Chicag
James Keating and Betty Deitz. Debts and regrets.
- This article by retired teacher James Keating and Betty Deitz also appears in the West Lake Shore Illinois Retired Teachers Association August newsletter. The state is in debt and our state leaders have declared a financial emergency. To solve this debt problem they want the state’s financial debt burden to fall upon us and are asking the courts to give them the constitutional right to do so. T
Why you should care about Hinsdale. Part two.
If you regularly read this blog you know about what is going on in Hinsdale, District 86. HInsdale is a comfortable Chicago suburban town with a high school district that has always had a good reputation as a place to teach and send your children. Then in the last election, a small turnout of voters led to the election of some radical anti-union board members which gave them a majority of seats
AUG 12
Exclusive. How to beat Bruce Rauner in November.
My friend John Dillon blogs over at Pension Vocabulary. Today he posts the words of the head of AFSCME, Henry Bayer, about the upcoming election for Governor of Illinois. How did someone who was a political unknown until recently gain such influence? It’s easy if you’ve got millions of your own money to spend promoting yourself. Rauner has been “introducing” himself to voters in phony, folksy TV
Carpe diem.
. My Facebook and Twitter pages are full of comments about the suicide of Robin Williams. It’s not surprising. He was a big star, a celebrity, who has spanned several generations of TV watchers and movie goers. In 1989 I was still a new teacher. It was four years after A Nation at Risk report. A Nation at Risk announced that the country’s education system was a bigger threat to the security of th
AUG 11
“We are Michael Brown.”
. Ferguson, Missouri is in suburban St. Louis. Last June Desiree Harris, who lives in Ferguson, watched her grandson Michael Brown, an African-American young man, graduate from high school. On Saturday night she saw Michael as he was heading for her house as she passed him in her car. Minutes later, she found his body on the street. He had been shot dead by a Ferguson police officer. By all eye
AUG 10
Thoughts about tenure. Why Scalia and not teachers?
I posted a tweet earlier today. Why should Antonin Scalia get tenure and not teachers? I meant it as being ironic. But somebody tweeted me back scornfully. Probably a teacher. Tenure isn’t a job for life! Yep. I kind of know that having taught for 30 years and knowing my contract pretty well (better than any principal I had to deal with). And fighting Illinois’ Senate Bill 1, which went far in de
Sunday reads.
Chicago Teachers Union at Chicago’s Bud Billiken parade, the oldest and largest African-American parade in the United States. NY City looses students’ Regents exams. CPS board of ed president David Vitale’s bank benefits from charter operation. Obama is the fourth US president in a row to use the US military in Iraq. No luck so far. Southside Chicago’s Jackie Robinson Little League team heads for
AUG 09
The attack on tenure isn’t getting rid of bad teachers. It’s getting rid of experienced, veteran and minority teachers.
Theme for English B BY LANGSTON HUGHES The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you— Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here to this college on the hill above Harlem. I am the only colored student in my class. The steps from the hill lead
Chuck and TRS’s Rich Frankenfeld have an exchange about TRAIL.
I recently received the following from retired teacher Chuck Swangren. I am writing because I feel that retired teachers currently enrolled in the TRAIL UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage PPO might benefit from some shared comments regarding their 2014 experiences. In three months, those enrolled need to make decisions about continuing in or dropping their TRAIL coverage, and I do not hear any “n
Keeping retirement weird. Michael Mulgrew and Eric Zorn.
A month after the AFT convention, Michael Mulgrew is getting a lot of attention these past few days. His threats to punch anyone in the face – and he was talking directly to Chicago Teacher Union members who opposed the leadership’s resolution in defense of Common Core – have given the union-bashers a poster boy for union thuggishness. Thanks Mike. Were Mulgrew just a tad more tough when dealing