-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Summary and audio linked here.
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.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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How , pray tell Mary Beth Canty, does lowering standards benefit anyone, other than CPS statistics?
How does CTU feel justified cheating students of a fair assessment with stunts like this?
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Pity the students.
This is exactly what I was coming in to say. How does lowering standards benefit anyone? What a terrible take.
The standards are meaningless either way. Raise them, lower them, or keep them the same. Those standards aren’t used to determine if a child should be promoted to the next grade. Come up with any BS standards you want at the state level but until schools, districts and the state have standards that are used to pass a grade or graduate, none of it matters.
In the meantime, these standards will just be used for political arguments and will have zero impact on educational outcomes.
A gift to the pestilential venereal urine stain scum of IFT and CTU. The last thing that these parasitic terrorist pedophiles want is measurable standards. In fact, their goal is to simply stay in bed every day and collect a paycheck, These ticks and leeches must be tossed into the septic hole from where they have arisen. School vouchers for all Illinois kids will kill off these fecal wipes like sunshine to a vampire.
This is more incremental dumbing down of the nation. It’ll further make it harder for our country to compete with other developed nations in the areas of science, engineering, law, etc. It’ll make it easier for some intelligent students to glide through school instead of being challenged.
Like the ‘Call me Raja’ slimy dullard representative who went to a very average public high school, showed up and did the work and then finishes with honors. Honors from an average to mediocre school, is pretty much fraud.
“Will benefit ….” How????
How does lowering anyone’s standards benefit them tangibly in a real world that expects performance when you get out into it?
Young people of school age from families who are lower class haven’t a clue about real life as middle and upper class families know it. Therefore, they can’t relate to the aspirational standards common to those higher level families. So, teachers who promote the teaching of skills that have little to no significance to their home life are fighting a losing battle in many cases everywhere and most cases where you’d suppose from my earlier remarks. So, to them school in its usual academic meaning is a waste of time! If you’ve never been face to face with trying to… Read more »
Well said, James. I agree.
Though I agree throwing all teachers under the bus is unfair, I don’t see your response to lowered standards in your comment.
For or against lowered standards, James?
I have mixed feelings about that topic. Setting reasonably high standards likely is positive IF the ones subjected to (1) believe it’s done primarily in their self interest and (2) have a compliant personality to adjust accordingly.. High standards done without those two components will be seen as some combination of racial or socioeconomic preferences and punishment. That usually results in creating even more problems. Setting high standards where way too many recipients hate their environment already probably will ratchet up that attitude.
My previous response minutes ago failed to answer your question here and gave my opinion about raising standards, an irrelevant matter here, so I’ll take another stab at it. Lowering standards is something again that seems stupidly to most middle and upper-class Americans. But, generally that’s not nearly so commonly true for lower socio-economic families who often see the world very differently. Let me guess as to what that means for that group, generally speaking. When your life is full of real and some imagined woes as well you are looking for empathy, sympathy and some hope for relief anywhere… Read more »
People need hope, but what hope is being instilled? The hope that the real world will coddle their feelings like schools propose to do? That’s not giving them hope. It’s building up false expectations, which will only lead to more anger when their “hope” is proven to be nothing but an illusion.
Probably so, but maybe not literally in all cases. My message basically is that a school system should strive to give every one of its constituents hope for a better future. Notice I said hope rather promise or certainty. Those two things are way beyond prediction except in generalized terms.
I had high hopes for a better future for my children when they started school. But I didn’t just “hope” and wait for someone to do something. I read to them every night before they could read. I made sure homework was done. I used flashcards for learning math. They attended class every day. Parents have a responsibility to raise their children, schools are there just give them an education, not join them on the downward spiral and say it’s okay.
In general I applaud your performance as a parent. But, your last thought doesn’t apply as a statement applying to the same set of circumstances. For example, you and your children presumably have a continuing close personal relationship since day one. They both love you personally and depend upon you for nearly every good circumstance in their life starting even with the basics such as food, housing, clothing and entertainment. Every positive encounter with them depends upon your ready good will, acceptance, time and energy. Teachers don’t deal with children in such one-on-one conditions for any significant length of time,… Read more »
James – you set out a reality I don’t like to hear. But that doesn’t make what you describe anything other than a reality. So I don’t like it but certainly respect it. Your explication of cultural division makes sense. But it also argues for high standards with a population that benefits from a challenge. A few years back I wrote the department head at the college I attended – really highly ranked – as to why they were preaching safe spaces to their students in a honors program. This at a school where even those with substantial admissions preferences… Read more »
What a shame for the parents and children of Illinois. The kids will continue to get the same crummy education, but they will be tricked into thinking they are really doing better. What a cruel hoax these Dems are pulling on everyday folks.
I guess you think it’s far better to be really demoralized early in life than later. People seem more psychologically fragile in their youth, so having a perception of inadequacy there almost assures you of its continuance. “ Education” requires a person to want to learn new ideas and new things. To do that you need enough optimism to have an adventurous, curious, can-do nature, things easily decayed when feelings of inadequacy persist. Such people are more likely to avoid taking chances where judgment takes place as to their worthiness. Do you want children to be inundated with those soul-crushing… Read more »
We want them to read and do math.
Yes, it’s likely you want that more than many of those kids do. Your priorities and even those of any given teacher likely mean diddly squat to some of those little darlings, I guarantee you.
So if reading means diddly squat to the little darlings, how are you raising their self-esteem and giving them hope by pretending they can read? Why not tell them they are actually virtuoso pianists, or talented opera singers? That might give them hope too. But it wouldn’t make the schools look better.
I pretend nothing of the sort. You’ve got the wrong target. I’ve stated my case, and your viewpoint is different. So, what? Take your venom elsewhere! The “market place”—whether public or private—will tell the tale more definitively eventually.
Venom? Because I questioned your premises? Is that not allowed?
As Thomas Sowell has said: “The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling”. The issue is bigger than teachers validating emotions as a replacement for thinking. Its about just what the purpose of education is. In Chicago the goal is to create a populace of state dependents. Academic learning is antithetical to this goal. the CTU is the praetorian guard for this progressive utopia. James is an advocate of SEL- Social Emotional Learning-where emotions, “lived experience”, replace the… Read more »