Friday, February 24, 2012

Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers. « Fred Klonsky

Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers. « Fred Klonsky:

Quinn cutting health benefits to 65,000 retired teachers.

Quad City Times:

Gov. Pat Quinn wants to slash state spending on a health insurance program for more than 65,000 retired teachers and community college retirees.

Under the governor’s plan, the state would no longer share in the cost of the system that helps pay for the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program and the College Insurance Program, which administers health insurance for community college retirees.

The move would save $92 million at a time when Quinn is threatening to close nearly 60 state facilities.

The governor’s office did not respond to specific questions about the proposal, which was tucked


The in box: Jose Vilson on Why the NY Times is asking me to validate myself.

Jose Vilson’s blog:

Not sure if you’ve heard, but, against their own wishes -ahem-, the NYC Department of Education is releasing their infamous Teacher Data Reports, a set of papers ostensibly compiling a teacher’s student scores on English and Math scores from 3rd to 8th grade to determine their effectiveness, normalizing scores for effects like poverty and growth. For anyone that finds this as absurd as I do, you’ll know that not only is there a huge margin of error on using such a report to determine teacher effectiveness, it’s so narrow and limited that parents probably won’t get much information about the teacher they seek. If anything, it might obfuscate the debates that happen in principal offices and households when kids vouch for their teacher, but adults with no understanding of