-- 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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Even Bill Maher is speaking out against Chicago’s education system. I can’t help but wonder if many of the teachers themselves are embarrassed by the radical direction their union has taken. If not, they are equally responsible. The entire Chicago Public Schools system needs strong leadership to end this chaos and prioritize the needs of students. Unfortunately, the current political leaders seem more interested in campaign contributions than in doing what’s right for our children. If parents and voters don’t step up, organize, and demand change that puts students first, they too share in the blame as well as the… Read more »
Who could blame many Chicgo teachers for being burn-outs with unmotivated and disruptive students, indifferent parents, economically disadvantaged student families and “learners” with little command of grammatical English. For teachers with 20+ years of service, many are probably counting the days until retirement. If these comments are viewed as unfair stereotyping, please supply alternate reasons for poor test scores and teacher absence rates. I confess to having a dim view of public employees generally — having been one who was chastised by co-workers for working past 4:45 PM (one needs wash-up time before slow elevators down to the 5 PM… Read more »
Jerry, spot on, and thanks for thoughtful commenting.
Trying to teach the truly unmotivated is akin to thinking you can roll a boulder uphill, a losing effort bound to lead to continual frustration at the very least if not total defeat. Generally it leads to the you-can’t-make-me behavioral outcomes. Some wise man said education is much like a sewer system: you get out of it what you put into it. In both cases the user has responsibility what outcome is to be expected.
This is all true. But the kids can’t read because the teachers aren’t teaching kids to read. It’s that simple. As I’ve shown before, the school curriculum these days are filled with hours upon hours of SEL (Social Emotional Learning) nonsense. The Chief Education Officer of CPS said, in her own words, that SEL ‘learning’ is as important as traditional academics, if not more so, because SEL makes kids excited to learn. Yeah right. Combine this with the scores of other mandated curriculum requirements, from train crossing, to exploitation, to the globohomo nonsense, to the holocaust, and suddenly, very little… Read more »
“But on the flip side, the student graduation rate has increased significantly, from the 50% rate in the 90’s and 2000’s to the 90% today for CPS.” Then, some of these kids don’t go to college or graduate from low-tier colleges. They then enter the adult work force and may wonder why they can’t land the good jobs or feel they’re being discriminated against after not being able to do so. The moral of the story is that CPS is doing a disservice to those kids allowed to graduate who are grade levels below reading and math standards. I’m not… Read more »
Your implication is that under performers should go into trades.
Can’t imagine a skilled trade that doesn’t require good math, reading, and reasoning skills.
Working with your hands is not a step down; more likely it’s a step up.
Correct… for training in the trades you need to have – at a minimum – at least 10th grade reading and math skills. I used to work for an agency that did welding, CNC, and press brake trainings, and the math skills (shop math…) requirements were very rigorous; same for plumbing, electricians, pipefitters, and others. These are great jobs, but to be successful you must be fairly book smart, not to mention extremely disciplined to make it…
OK, Pat S and GM, you raise good points. However, does anyone have a plan to prevent hordes of CPS and other graduates entering the adult work force with poor reading and math skills, resulting in most of them being restricted to low-level, dead-end jobs?
How about- teach them basic reading and math skills instead of spending time teaching them how oppressed they are, as debtsor noted above? The public schools have been turned into woke madrasas, and then we wring our hands as if there’s nothing to be done about it. Hogwash. Stop the bs, start teaching basics again.
Okay, sure there’s that argument to be made as well. But, my point is part of the overall story here, too. All in all, these things we’ve both mentioned lead to lower academic performance, and if judged by that stark standard its not a desirable way to spend the public’s money. I’m as frustrated with that part of it as you are. Money is needed, but its far from being perfectly related to academic outcomes. There simply are too many other influences at play to suggest that’s a really clear relationship.