Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

9-18-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:





LIfe in Rahm’s Chicago. We’re collecting toilet paper for our schools. Did you know the Koch brothers own Quilted Northern.
They’re holding toilet paper drives in the Galewood neighborhood. Budget cuts have meant no toilet paper. Let other cities fight over the Core Curriculum Standards. We’re fighting over Scott. Did you know the Koch Brothers own Quilted Northern? This must be a connection somehow. Ben Joravsky: Mayor Emanuel had just finished another press conference in which he lauded himself for building new scho


Chicago teacher pensions on the air with CTPF Executive Director Kevin Huber and the next governor, Ralph Martire.
CTPF Executive Director Kevin Huber and Ralph Martire. Chicago Teachers Pension Fund Executive Director Kevin Huber and Center for Tax and Budget Accountability Ralph Martire will be on WBEZ public radio this afternoon at 3:35 CDT. Chicago area listeners can find ‘BEZ at 91.5 FM. Listeners can also go to http://www.wbez.org for internet streaming. CTPF Executive Director Will


There are days like today when I miss it.
I can’t tell people what to do or how to spend their lives. I taught for 30 years and when I hit 64 I retired. I liked teaching a lot. I think I was good at it. I can’t say I made every student and parent happy. But with 400 students a year and with 800 or so parents, what are the odds somebody will be unhappy. A couple of years I traveled to different schools and was evaluated by more people tha


The race for governor and local primaries.
Back in the Spring we were once again engaged in a fight to protect our contractual and constitutionally guaranteed pension rights. In the Illinois House legislators, mostly Democrats, were voting for Senate Bill 1. It was a bill that would break our pension contract and would violate the pension clause of the Illinois Constitution. As an electoral response many of us were hoping for two things:

  
9-17-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: From Glen Brown on Constitution Day: The Constitution.Glen Brown posts at teacher/poet/musician. “Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties” –Abraham Lincoln “No State shall…pass any…ex post facto law or Law impairing the