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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Richie Daley gets his pension. Maybe not you. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Richie Daley gets his pension. Maybe not you. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Richie Daley gets his pension. Maybe not you.

While teachers are threatened with a loss of promised pensions by the state legislature, the outgoing mayor of Chicago is wasting no time collecting 85% of his yearly salary of $216,000. Or $183,000 a year.

He joins 217 other retired politicians collecting over $100,000 in yearly pension payments. The average Illinois teacher gets well under $50,000 a year from their pension. No social security.

The list of $100,000 retired political pensioners includes former Governors James Thompson and Jim Edgar,

Is There a Higher Education Bubble?

Is There a Higher Education Bubble?

Is There a Higher Education Bubble?

by KEVIN CAREY on APRIL 30, 2011

in UNCATEGORIZED

Malcolm Harris at N+1 argues that higher education is headed for a popped-bubble reckoning on the order of the recent real estate apocalypse. It’s a tempting analogy–I’veindulged in it myself–but I don’t think Harris gets the bubble equation right.
To be sure, there are many parallels between the modern real estate and higher education industries. Both sell expensive products (homes, degrees) that are signals and sources of middle class prosperity. People who own both are seen as society’s winners, solid citizens with tangible assets. People who own neither are vulnerable and adrift.
In both industries, prices have shot upward on trajectories that far outstrip the growth of inflation and personal income. Both enjoy huge, politically bulletproof subsidies in the form of genrous tax preferences and goverment grants that are meant to stimulate consumption. In both cases, the epic upward march of prices

Charter school segregation Florida - OrlandoSentinel.com

Charter school segregation Florida - OrlandoSentinel.com

Florida charters less diverse than other public schools

Sentinel analysis shows growth in charters with concentrations of single race or ethnicity

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Schools

Kindergarten teacher Stefanie Miller works with Theodore Lewis, 5, at Nap Ford Charter School. (George Skene/Orlando Sentinel / April 30, 2011)

First of two parts

Segregation is making a comeback in Florida's public schools with the new wave of charter schools springing up across the state.

One out of eight charter schools has a student body with 90 percent or more of a single race or ethnicity, an Orlando Sentinel analysis of the state's 456 taxpayer-financed charters shows. That compares with one out of 12 traditional public schools.

Those top heavy charters are adding to the list of out-of-balance public schools that have perplexed educators since integration 40 years ago. Educators have worked for decades to reduce the imbalance through rezoning, school-transfer options, magnet schools and other devices to shift students and make schools more diverse.


Video: The "Beautiful Bulldog" Competition

But the charter trend is toward segregation, and more of the charters with skewed enrollments may be on the way.

Database: Racial and ethnic makeup of Florida's charter schools

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Search the database for racial or ethnic makeup of Florida's charter schools.




Democurmudgeon: Republicans Tearing Down Reality: Down the Rabbit Hole Logic, and “Muddying the Waters” on Big Oil Subsidies.

Democurmudgeon: Republicans Tearing Down Reality: Down the Rabbit Hole Logic, and “Muddying the Waters” on Big Oil Subsidies.

Did Two Billion People Watch the Royal Wedding? « Student Activism

Did Two Billion People Watch the Royal Wedding? « Student Activism

Did Two Billion People Watch the Royal Wedding?

Last post on the royal wedding, I promise. But I gotta get this off my chest.
By now, if you’ve read or seen any media coverage of the royal wedding at all, you know that two billion people watched it. Two billion people — thirty percent of the world’s population — stayed up late (California), got up early (Brazil), skipped lunch (Turkmenistan), or rushed home from work (Palau) to watch those two crazy kids get hitched. The spectacle united the world like few other events in history ever have.
Except there’s no reason to believe it’s true, and plenty of reason to doubt it.
The “stat” has been floating around the internet for weeks, ever since it appeared in a press release from Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s culture secretary. He didn’t say how he arrived at it, and as far as I’ve been able to tell nobody’s



Progressives and the Royal Wedding

“Can’t I just calm down and enjoy the day? On a day when friends and fellow travellers have been beaten and arrested, no, I can’t. Sorry.”
–Laurie Penny, British journalist, gives her 140-character take.
There’s been a bit of a tussle in certain corners of the American progressive blogosphere over yesterday’s royal wedding.
I totally get the argument that everyone’s entitled to a bit of mindless cheesy celeb-gawking fun every once in a while. I totally get pomp. The wedding itself isn’t to my taste, but given my own pop culture preferences, I don’t really have any esthetic grounds for looking down my nose at it.
But here’s the thing. The British royal family has a long and sordid tradition of ethnic nastiness, a tradition that

NYC Educator: Leonie at Lewis

NYC Educator: Leonie at Lewis

Leonie at Lewis

Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee. « Fred Klonsky's blog

Saturday coffee.

Haymarket Square, Chicago. 1886.

As we get ready to celebrate May Day tomorrow at the rededication of the monument to the Haymarket martyrs at Jewish Waldheim Cemetery, the pension of every public school teacher in Illinois outside of Chicago is at risk.

When we sat around the table with Park Ridge state Senator Dan Kotowski last week, my friend and colleague Mark said it best: This threat to our pension is not just (just!) an attack on the Constitution of the state of Illinois.

Old school.

Nina Simone.


Beware of Astroturf! :: Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

Beware of Astroturf! :: Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action
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Beware of Astroturf!

The following piece comes to us from Illinois teacher, writer, and musician Glen Brown. He writes in response to the recent increase in groups, funded largely by corporate interests, that are springing up to “organize” communities around their agenda. Like the Parent Trigger and Students First, these are groups and initiatives that capitalize on public outrage over schools– and a small group of parents’ legitimate grievances with underfunded and unsupported school systems– to mobilize under-informed communities to promote an agenda that often undermines the best interests of the whole community. Instead of offering tools to really empower parents and communities to create original solutions for their school communities, they incite people to support

Wisconsin Activist Ben Masel Has Died, RIP To A Great Activist | MyFDL

Wisconsin Activist Ben Masel Has Died, RIP To A Great Activist | MyFDL
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Wisconsin Activist Ben Masel Has Died, RIP To A Great Activist

By: Bill Egnor Saturday April 30, 2011 7:57 am
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Ben In Madison

Ben Masel has died. You may or may not have known him but he was an activists activist. When I think about what it means to be out there fighting the good fight I think about Ben.

He had run for office several times in Wisconsin and was going to be mounting another independent Senate campaign this cycle. Unfortunately lung cancer claimed his life yesterday.

He was a believer in direct action and never was one to be shut up for one second. I knew Ben through Daily Kos and got to meet him at the ’08 Democratic National Convention. He was steadfast in his beliefs and was active in the protests in Wisconsin, even though he was dying of cancer at the time.

If you did not know Ben, it was your loss. If you did it is now your loss too. He was too good for this world, too soon gone. But he does not have to be gone completely. If each of you who would class yourself an activist takes Ben’s lesson to heart, gets out there and performs some kind of direct political action, just once a year then he will never be truly lost.

I have many people in whose name I fight for economic, political and social justice. My Father, my cousin Ryan who died to young to be a force in politics, my Uncles Kenny and Otho along with my