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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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Davis-Gates said “CPS CEO Pedro Martinez is doubling down on austerity—pushing for school closures, consolidations, furloughs, layoffs, and privatization. ”
Wouldn’t these all make sense, since there are fewer students?
In 2022 Chicago Public Schools had a chronic absenteeism rate of about 44%. A 15% reduction would knock that down to about 35%. Chicago Public Schools calls a reduction like that a success?
“Chicago Public Schools focus on equity, redefining student success in new strategic plan,” or put another away, we don’t care if your kids can read, write, do basic math or God forbid, be able to use logic and reason in their decision making process. We just want to make everyone feel good about themselves.
It’s really not even about that. It’s about $$$. The more kids that stay in school, the more $$$ they get. Drop out rates have dropped from near 50% to less than 15% or even 10% in some places. These kids stay in school, and off the street, and the dollars flow to CPS, and by extension, the CTU.
When failure is the norm, don’t work harder to rise up. Redefine failure as another word for success and the problem is fixed. You know the low IQ denizens of your city, which includes just about everybody there, will buy it. Is having an IQ of 60 or lower a prerequisite of living in Chicago?
“We are hoping we are going to have friends in D.C. and continue to see investments at the federal level.” This sounds like the mantra of mismanaged blue states.
Equity and the promulgation of the victim mentality-good! Getting a useful education to become a productive citizen- bad ( and racist )! per the CTU.
The thing is, nearly every school district in the state is doubling down on this SEL/DEI/BLM nonsense. You should talk to education administrators, if you have the chance, they’re all 95 IQ midwits who repeat everything they’re told and believe in the “latest thing”. “Grades are an antiquated system of measuring learning”; “SAT scores are correlated with parent income, not learning or knowledge” “Social Emotion Learning is more important than academics”, “Common Core is the best way to learn”, “Honors, Advanced and AP classes are bad for student” etc. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is backing off DEI, even… Read more »
So “Inequity” is the main challenge. Not reading. Not math. Not science. Not geography. Raising proficiency over the next five years with zero specifics as to how that will be done. Five more years of nonsense and five more years of poor kids getting crummy educations because some bureaucrats learned some wacky sociology puff in college.
If the feds pony up to the CTU charade we’re in worst trouble than I thought.
Depends on who is head of the Fed after November.
CPS wants to change the metrics to measure student success since the schools are failing miserably. It looks bad when CTU demands more money.
There’s no more covid funds to misuse, CPS already blew all that money on bonuses and travel for teachers sunbathing.
Time for Gov. J.B. to dust of the progressive state income tax.