Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon guest on AM560 with Chris Krok discussing CTU lawsuit agains Illinois Policy and more
August 19, 2026
6 Comments
Summary and audio linked here.
-- Connecting the dots between our economy, government and business --
Much of the routine trade and investment between China and America is entirely appropriate and in America’s interest. But inserting the Chinese Communist Party into America’s pay-to-play system and its economic development strategy isn’t just crossing a line. It’s a leap into an abyss of stupidity.
Illinois paid the price for embracing Fauci’s “science.” Here’s the retrospective.
Is this FAIR for the taxpayer? Teacher Retires at age 57 1. The Payout Formula & Maximum Cap Formula Check: 35 years \(\times \) 2.2% = 77% of your FAS. The Benefit Cap: The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) caps all maximum retirement benefits at 75% of your FAS. Initial Annual Pension: Your starting pension is locked in at $75,000 per year ($6,250 per month). 2. Timeline of the Compounding 3% COLA For Tier 1 teachers retiring at age 57, the 3% compounding Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) kicks in on January 1st following your 61st birthday. Your annual payout scales dramatically… Read more »
The $1.87 million at 4% takeout comparison ignores the teacher’s annual 3% increase, therefore need a amount greater than $1.87 million.
Bigger and bigger is what will happen for generations. They are being paid more in retirement than they did while being “teachers”. They produced generations with almost no job skills or education. They did nothing but pass so many of the students through the system just to get good pay, great benefits and a large pension with 3% annual increases for longer than the number of years they so called worked.
Just think; you could have been one of them and had such a better life, too. What a doofus you must be!
No, I could not be a teacher or any other government mooch. I could not live with myself if I was stealing from unborn children.
It’s all of us, collectively, who are doing that stealing. That’s too strong a word for those of us who oppose it, but the fact is that everybody (today) benefits from it. I’m damn grateful for teachers and other government employees who do their jobs well.
I’m grateful for teachers and competent bureaucrats. But that doesn’t mean they deserve million dollar pensions. I’m also grateful for the garbage men, the street sweepers and the ditch diggers. Don’t they deserve million dollar pensions too?
I think the key word is “do their job well”, the students are just being passed through the system and are NOT being given an education. I do believe that people should be rewarded for the fruits of their labor, not less than the private sector, but not way more either.
But, yet if you are in any business, the prices they have to charge include your labor costs as well. So, to me your employer is stealing from their customer families. Same ending, yet you don’t feel equally guilty about it at all apparently. Strange. Oh, what a wicked web we weave when we practice to deceive (even ourselves).
Yes, a business must cover their cost of labor if it wants to stay in business. A business relies on providing a product that customers are willing to purchase, because the product meets the customer’s needs better than alternatives.
No “majority of customers” can compel everyone to pay for a product in order to make sure the labor force producing the substandard product gets paid.
Your analogy falls flat.
Regardless, every service provided by someone other than the guy who refuses or can’t do it himself has a cost to be borne partly or wholly by the user of that service. The fact that you don ‘t like the wages of some governmental employees doing that service is immaterial if you want it anyway. Yes, businesses need to make a profit and governmental services are provided mostly without major interest in it. We all know where that leads, not a happy topic in itself. I no runna da world on that topic! Do we really need a continuing duel… Read more »
We can agree that people must be compensated for their work. You are right that there’s no point in discussing it if you believe that simple statement justifies the entire structure of public employee compensation.
I agree – As frustrating as the truth of what you say is, it is a choice these people made to become a teacher and the damn choices that the majority of the voters in Illinois made to put and keep the crooks in place in the state government. Madigan and his cronies made sure their pay-day union pals were overly paid both in work and retirement. It is stupid that there is so little check and balance to measure results and no interest in correcting performance. It absolutely sucks and is unfair to the tax payer, but I can’t… Read more »
Ultimately the only things a teacher can do is give both knowledge and advice both of which can be followed or ignored. That’s the benefit and curse of having such a job in this country. As a teacher you can put your mind and soul into it with a great benefit to some and only animosity from others. I doubt many of you teacher haters have had a job anything like it. You deal with adults who need to support themselves and their families. By contrast children live in something of a family “welfare state” where their parents are required… Read more »
That was a lengthy non sequitur screed. What does any of that have to do with the unaffordable pension problem that is a product of teachers supporting the politicians that wrote the unaffordable pension laws with campaign contributions/bribes and votes to the politicians from the teachers?
It doesn’t. It’s more like the teenager telling his parents “But you just don’t understand!”
You missed the point of my message. It was my way of explaining why literally nobody here understands why teachers can’t magically create excellence in their students’ academic performance records. The reason none of you get it is that you work with adults where at least you are motivated by your family’s economic interests to please your boss and reap the rewards or risk your economic security for failing to do so. Teachers live in a world of children who mostly are free of economic worries and other adult concerns of consequence. Children don’t tend to think beyond tomorrow, and… Read more »
Oh no, I understood your point. That is exactly why it is a non sequitur screed and I asked what that has to do with the pension problem. You missed the point of the article. Did you even bother to read it? It is about the gross underfunding of TRS, the teacher’s pension system and how much money the state has to put into it due to the scumbag politicians not funding it per the actuarial required calculations and doubling down on their stupidity by increasing benefits. The article even mentions how much the state will spend on K-12 education… Read more »
Okay, apparently I didn’t read the article to which you were responding. Reading your comment I thought it was directed toward the matter I had responded to already a few times—clearly off-topic to your concern of that moment. My bad! Satisfied?
Hi James – I was in a classroom just before school ended again on the southside helping a client with a weapons detection system design and bid documents. Their bootcamps and summer programs are underway. Frankly, saw first hand (yet again) how tough it can be in classrooms that have no control and youth that have no interest or idea how to behave or even learn. They have no clue. I feel for the teachers who really want to make a difference, but in some schools and districts…it is a losing battle. Not always the teachers fault at all…many times… Read more »
Personally I think public education as we have it today needs serious overhaul since it is extremely wasteful of tax dollars in its current form. I’ll stop there for the moment, but why are we persisting with a mandatory public education system that’s both too expensive and showing what appears to many as a low return for the dollars spent? I have my thoughts there, but none of that will happen during my lifetime at least.
Yes. The pension problem will continue to be a massive problem unless drastic measures are taken (I’m not holding my breath). However, of the $10.8 billion budgeted for K-12, a goodly amount is spent on bulldung that has little to no effect on student outcomes – mindnumbing educational platforms to “gameify” learning, instructional “coaches” who walk around with clipboards telling teachers what they are doing wrong (when they themselves couldn’t teach an eskimo how build an igloo), administrators with one miniscule responsibility. Money spent rewarding the connected and the incompetent.
Speaking of buildings check out the new school buildings for the Venice and Cahokia schools then check out the school report cards for each district. Compare with next years results and see if the new schools improved anything to test your hypothesis. Note, my money is on your observations.