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"The proposals involve far more than just throwing more money at a problem and hoping it goes away. They have real substance in terms of boosting teachers’ skills in teaching reading and improving the techniques they employ...But it’s fair to ask just what is happening in Illinois schools now. Taxpayers are spending a fortune on K-12 education that is supposed to put an emphasis on the teaching of reading."
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Audio and summary Illinois bill would override local law to allow homeless living in all public parks – Wirepoints
April 14, 2026
29 Comments
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago Fiscal Crisis Worse Than Pre-Bankruptcy Detroit, HIV Surge and Public Health Threat From Open Borders Goes Unreported
April 10, 2026
2 Comments
Summary and audio linked here.
Mark Glennon on AM560’s Morning Answer: Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades
April 3, 2026
9 Comments
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
WBEZ and Chicago Sun-Times falsely blame Texas Gov. Abbott for 2020 to 2024 surge in Chicago Latino HIV, AIDS infections – Wirepoints Quickpoint
March 31, 2026
11 Comments
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
In the current political climate, would any right-leaning person want to enter the teaching profession?
Seems as though we’ve reached the point of the law of diminishing returns with education funding. The most substantive gains were already achieved long ago. Now we have to spend a lot just for the chance of a nominal gain.
We keep talking about redistributing funds from policing to address societal issues impacting crime. Maybe we need to have the same convo for education.
Spot on and return the savings to property taxpayers
I’ve said a few times many months ago that I’m theoretically in favor of the European model of giving “standardized tests” at various level of a student’s education and only granting governmental funding appropriate to the scores shown on such tests. In the United States we have this feeble hope/belief that almost anyone can be the next Albert Einstein. So, many colleges set “entrance requirements” beyond simple high school graduatoin which essentially MAKE students take given courses prior to their acceptance into college. This is exacerbated when the states also do the same thing to require certain courses be taken… Read more »
I’ve had a similar discussion with one of my local school board members. He said that the model of tracking based on test scores is racist and inequitable. He believes it sends a message to low scoring students they aren’t college material and therefore, they are not valued. The district believes – both board members and senior administrators – that the very idea of an aptitude test itself is inequitable and biased. They believe test scores don’t reflect aptitude or intelligence, but instead, household income. Rich kids score high, poor kids score low. End of story. They believe a better… Read more »
Just for kicks sometime you might want to drop-in to an end-of-the-year all-school assembly when seniors in particular are noted for their “accomplishments.” Keep in mind that some–maybe many–such school have three levels of an “Honor Roll.” I’ll let you phrase the practical, back-to-reality names for each of them as I have done. Then, sit back and witness how many seniors are listed in the assembly as “Honor Roll” students. An outsider would be shocked to see the majority of such hands will rise as having been on the honor roll that year. If they ask the same question for… Read more »
So the answer to too many students on honor roll is to destroy it completely? That’s what my district decided was the answer.
You people are evil.
CRT expressly opposes the entire concept of merit in education.
Speaking of merit in education, the very idea of test scores as evidence of merit is an issue with the CRT crowd too. Below is a fascinating interview with Ibrahim X. Kendi from 2019, pre-Floyd, providing insight into his mindset. He was promoting his How to Be An Antiracist Book. Long story short, he argues that intelligence tests were designed by white avowed eugenicists to prove that whites were more intelligent than blacks. So two white eugenicists designed the SAT and IQ tests to prove that black and hispanic minorities were less intelligent than whites, that poor people were less… Read more »
We now live a world which has continually evolving standards. What was “true” in one era is “fake news” in another. Americans find it hard to come to general agreement as to what’s “right” in terms of behavior and acceptable standards. One person’s strongly held beliefs are essentially all wrong as another one see it. We are headed toward some form of another civil war, I have to presume. We can barely agree on anything of societal importance these days.
James, saying it is about evolving standards is giving leftists too much credit. This is all about power through destruction. Czar Nicholas II, the last czar of Imperial Russia, he too lived in changing times. He gave the Bolsheviks everything they want. King Louix XVI lived in evolving times too. He too gave the Jacobins every reform they wanted. Both abdicated nearly all of their power. Yet, in the end, the submission to ‘evolving’ standards ultimately destroyed everything, and cost these rulers, along with millions of innocents others their lives. And for decades thereafter, things were objectively worse than they… Read more »
Maybe so. A person can choose to be an optimist or a pestilence. I’m firmer on the former.
I’m assuming pestilence wasn’t a typo as it still seems accurate in this context. lol
I’ve done typos numerous times here using a small keyboard and suffering embarrassment for it. But, in this case I was not that typo guy.
Let’s just say the pressure is on to make both the students and the particular school appear successful. To do anything more than moderately challenging for the general intellectual level there is to invite grief. Some will be bored by that less challenging environment, but most will think they are gifted if their grades imply it.
The way this can be remedied is a national curriculum set up by the Department of Education with standardized tests every school year for promotion. Students that fail to meet or exceed standards are held back.
I gave you an upvote James! Just in case you think I’m always a contrarian…
Au contraire, mon frer. Merci.
What a ridiculous opinion. Why not just teach children to read? Why do we spend so much time on pronouns, LGBTQXISDFLSJD+(, asian history, jewish history, gay history, SEL nonsense, anti-bullying, and so on. A couple of lessons on reading and the rest of the time on ‘how do you feel today, like a boy or a girl?’ and we wonder why the kids can’t read! Not difficult to understand! Even if it means repeating lessons, not teaching jewish or asian or gay history (god forbid!), teach reading until every kid in the class learns to read.
Yup, that’s where the debate should be on this. If this approach to teaching reading really works, why do we need a separate program? Why isn’t it just part of how kids get schooled? And be very careful about anything with Stand for Children. They are woke to the max and will try to infuse their political indoctrination into everything.
Here’s a link to a list of mandated education topics. It is 10 pages long of small type: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/IL-Mandated-Units-of-Study.pdf Here is a brief sampling of some of the topics kids are forced to learn. Every second spent on these topics is one second less of reading and math: -Prevention and control of disease, including instruction in grades 6 through 12 on the prevention, transmission, and spread of AIDS (opt out allowed) -Age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness prevention education in grades PreK through 12 (opt out allowed K-8) -Sexual abuse education – “safety education” as used in this section of… Read more »
Thanks for that. One that particularly concerns me is media literacy. We can only imagine what CPS teachers are telling kids they should read for news. One tool promoted by the state is Newsguard, which I intend to write about. It’s awful — part of the biased, MSM machine.
My son is shown CNN 10 several times a week in class as “education”. https://www.cnn.com/cnn10 He says that most kids understand it’s fake news and make fun of it.
The top FOX News commentators have been shown literally as not believing some (or maybe much) of what they say and promote on air. Have similarly popular CNN reporters been “unmasked” as well in an equally provable manner? Not to my knowledge. So, your strong rejection of their public commentary might well be based on your political prejudices without such proof. That’s something offered for your consideration as well as for those you seek to influencing. Believing something is true does not make it true.
Top FOX news personalities disagreed with Trump’s position that the election was stolen (and Yes, the 2020 was stolen) and its interplay with the Dominion voting machine lawsuits.
They have not been shown to disbelieve some or most of what they say and promote on air.
Fine. I don’t expect to convert you, but at least you did reiterate that top FOX news were making politically charged comments to their supportive audience at variance with their own personal beliefs. So, you’re still a firm Trumpie at least in terms of being a supporter of his stolen-election mantra. So, while you’re not a Comunist you’ve joined the sobeit union anyway.
But the election was stolen. You’re the stolen election denier.
Cable networks play to their viewer’s confirmation bias. All are equally guilty. Your comment makes me laugh. The drivel CNN and MSNBC out regarding Jussie Smollett when it was clear that he had fabricated events is one such example of networks foolishly pushing a false narrative. Again, both sides are culpable. I am always surprised at your penchant for missing the key point – maybe your position in education prevents you from grasping the long pole in the tent. The issue with CNN in the classroom is not necessarily their political slant, but rather re-actively watching TV is a classroom… Read more »
I’m only going to react to your first two sentences even though the rest of your remarks are interesting as well. What you’ve said in that introduction is that (you think) all cable networks are equally guilty. While I may even agree with you without proof its only conjecture on your part or mine. Where’s the proof? The public has seen such written proof for rejecting FOX News’ politican commentary as knowingly false even to the ones making such statements. As far as I know no such written proof exists for suggesting the other political networks’ reporters are “lying through… Read more »
Any sample materials they use in those media literacy classes would be welcomed for when we write about it. Admin@wirepoints.org.
I’ll see what I can do. The media literacy classes are primary high school, my son isn’t quite there yet. The CNN 10 is shown as part of social studies classes.
Hmm, how is this possible with the country’s highest paid teachers that all rate above average?
Surely most of us have encountered even young children who “have a mind if their own” and almost daily do things that most responsible adults consider as stupid, self-centered and sometimes abusive behaviors along the vile speech matching that. One on one most adults can deal with correcting much of it. But, the great majority of teachers deal with children in groups of 2-3 dozen at a time. When such children are not reprimanded one way or another almost immediately many of the others in such groups start to admire that sort of behavior and do likewise since it allows… Read more »
Bien sur James. Once upon a time though Sister Mary Knuckles could keep order in a classroom of 50 kids.
Sure, but don’t forget some important factors acting her favor. She had parents who cared enough to pay something extra for their children’s education, essentially implying they were more interested in the outcome and maybe even periodically monitoring progress along the way. A great many public school students’ parents treat the public schools more as a baby-sitting service than otherwise if one uses students grades and parent-initiated contacts as a gauge. All you need to do regarding any student not doing well when interviewing him or her is ask at least five very basic questions and wait for the answers:… Read more »
Don’t forget one other thing that Sister Mary Knuckles had in her favor: children were taught to read in first grade, and were not automatically passed to the next grade each year. Sister Mary Knuckles was not dealing with a class in which 80% of kids had not been taught the previous year.
Teachers are a bit like Army generals. The latter are forced to engage in war with what they have on hand rather than all the things they’d like to have. At every level that’s true for educators, too. In the cases where the course construction builds on itself nearly every new concept requires some reviewing of the terms and concepts covered earlier before presuming the newer ways of considering it will take root. Many times that includes reminders of things presumably taught in prior years by other teachers—essentially to put a new spin on the same or similar basic concepts.
The whole system is broken. Teachers only want money; they do not care about education. Students do not want to learn, except criminal skills. The CTU and CPS are extorting large sums of money from the taxpayers and delivering nothing. There should be a law against what is happening. Students are losing a lifetime of job skills.