Number of half-empty Chicago public schools doubles, yet lawmakers want to extend school closing moratorium – Wirepoints
April 19, 2024
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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.
The Illinois Policy Institute essay fails to point out that with the adoption of a 401k type plan, the already brittle Illinois pension plans will be further weakened as the contributions from active workers are no longer added to the pension plan and are instead deposited to the workers’ dedicated defined contribution account. This plan is half-baked until it is accompanied by actuarial analysis.
Firing all the Illinois state workers and rehiring them into a 401k type plan will not work because the plans’ accumulated deficits alone make them unaffordable and unsustainable. The 401k might well reduce the cost future state contributions and the risk of market volatility, but the current underfunding is too great to overcome. The unions also bear responsibility this mess. The state government made the pension promises but behind the shield of the 1970 Constitutional ammendment, the unions agreed to these promises that had only a remote chance of being fulfilled. Absent the benefit guarantees, would the unions and their… Read more »
you are right on all points.