Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
17 Comments
A set of state lawmakers want to extend CPS’ current school closing moratorium to February 1, 2027 – the same year CPS is set to transition to a fully-elected school board. That means schools like Manley High School, with capacity for more than 1,000 students but enrollment of just 78, can’t be closed for anther three years. The school spends $45,000 per student, but just 2.4% of students read at grade level.
Hopefully, all media will get the message, in Illinois, too.
Ted joined Tom Miller of WJPF to talk about Illinois’ highest-in-the-nation property taxes, why lawmakers don’t want to touch the tax’s cost drivers, just how much Illinoisans’ tax burden has grown over the decades, why Gov. Pritzker failed to meet his promise to reform property taxes, and more.
And when the “feared” (hoped for?) spike does not occur…?
Will the public schools be pressured to open for in person classes…?
Healthcare & first responders along with store personnel have been working throughout without any huge spikes in infection, & they are at much more risk than teachers & students…
So how can the archdiocese open up with in person learning but the public schools cannot. Again abolish the public school system and privatize all of it. Public school teachers and administrators you have now proven you are all Non essential workers. St Andrews in Romeoville is opening up and has showed how the students and teachers will be protected, I bet private school enrollment is on the up swing.
Sure, all this whole idea needs is massive number of credentialled teachers to be willing to work for much-lower-than-usual wages and do so for years on end presumably. You’ll find some people to do that, but you definitely won’t find the massive numbers of employees the private schools systems would need. Most people want to see a good financial future for themselves as a high priority. A few couldn’t care less about that, but only a FEW!
Time to start is now. This will weed the garbage out.
I’lll tell you one situation where offering “lower than usual” wages is built into public school district budgets successfully—anywhere farming is generally the preferred local lifestyle. It’s been true for many decades that farm wives with college educations are place-bound by their married lifestyle and will gladly take any local teaching job simply to add to family income without the necessity of having to move elsewhere. Hence, they are a captive supply of teacher applicants at lower wages than otherwise possible. There are numerous downstate school systems in IL where a retiring teacher’s highest salary is roughly 50-60% of what… Read more »
“Married lifestyle” ?
As opposed to unmarried lifestyle?
Some teachers have partners, instead of spouses. ?
In Walnut Grove, Caroline Ingalls, Alice Garvey and Harriet Olsen were substitute teachers. ?
Regular Walnut Grove teachers included Eva Beadle, Eliza Jane Wilder, Etta Plum and Laura Ingalls. ?
Sounds like only the pay of the teacher matters. Myself, I started in the CPS in 1978, and was promptly pulled out and transferred to a Catholic school by 3rd grade. My parents cared and sacrificed their meager pay to pay for the private tuition, while also paying the required property tax. Each year there were strikes, or threats of strikes, and by the end of 2nd grade I could not read at grade level. The private school experience turned me into a the person I am now. By 8th grade, my reading scores were at the 11th grade level.… Read more »
Your story is interesting, but it’s not obvious to me why you posted it as a reply here and to me specifically. People of all persuasions, abilities and political persuasions have motivations for what they find important and unimportant. Casting one’s personal taste on those matters to others often is ultimately only a fool’s errand resulting in unpleasant exchanges to no positive outcome. One person’s solution to a societal problem often is folly to another as are most political arguments. The world and it’s political leadership keeps evolving just as always.
I am pro talent and anti union. Pay should be based on measurable outcomes, not collective bargaining or market capture. Pay the teachers more upfront, but put them wholly on the hook for their retirement and dissolve the pensions. The pensions are a mathematical absurdity after a certain point, and a yoke on the neck of the overall economy. Reward the teachers that excel, discard those who fail to make the grade (quite literally). This guarantee of a retirement exists for no one in the private sector, unsure why a teacher should be any different, or why the general public… Read more »
Over the years I’ve seen numerous ordinary citizens and even academics write what constitutes “good teachers” from their point of view. Believe me, if you take all of it as seriously as that suggests you come up with something like 40 attitudes, personality traits, organizational skills, work habits, etc., before you even get down to the specifics as what should be taught and to what degree of sucess for each student and the class as a whole. Now, you tell me what person on this planet is going to be excellent at literally all—or even a third—of those teaching “goals”… Read more »
We are in a data driven world, cost constrained world. These opinions of what constitutes a good teacher are modern day naval gazing and outright obfuscation. A ‘teacher’ is assigned a ‘subject’ to teach for a ‘time period.’ Said teacher has a baseline where they begin from, a prescribed course load and rubrics that should be attainable and measurable. Within ‘time period’, a measure of ‘progress’ can be made, within 1 or 2 standard deviations, in either direction, up or down. If the prescribed ‘metrics’ are not met for the ‘group’ being taught, in the prescribed ‘time frame’, then this… Read more »