-- 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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Try finding the hard, numerical results of ACT or SAT performance of your local public high school. Good luck. They only tout their proficiency in each grade, which now will be even more watered down if this idea is implemented. If parents continue to allow this nonsense by paying higher and higher property taxes for “the kids” (when all they are doing is funding the pensions) and electing the numbskulls to office that support it, there will be no end to this. Look at Hinsdale a number of years ago, that held the extracurricular activities hostage because they had “nowhere”… Read more »
You knew this would be their “solution” to low test scores. It’s already happened a few times now. Let’s give the teachers an unannounced ACT test as part of their contract. I bet50% of them score below 18.
Here’s a link to take and score a sample ACT test. You can see if you meet Illinois proficiency standards. Take it and report back with your score!!
https://www.act.org/content/act/en/students-and-parents/high-school-success/testing-advice-for-the-act/free-act-practice-test.html
Let’s not hold teachers and school districts accountable for a failing public school system and for teachers more concerned about their paychecks than students. Lowering the standards to make teachers and school districts never works out well for student education. Fire teachers who are chronically absent. Tie teacher pay to student. outcomes Cut taxpayer funds to schools with poor test scores. IL needs to accept responsibility for failing test scores and develop a plan (other than lowering requirements) to improve test scores. Schools and teachers need to stop blaming everyone else for their failures. They blame parents, who were probably… Read more »
Welcome to Illinois…. where are the school system creates ignorant and uneducated and illiterate woke radicals pushes them through the school system handsome a worthless piece of paper. Meanwhile, they can’t read or write or do basic arithmetic in math and to boot on top of all that we get to pay the highest land, taxes, and taxes at the state and local level in the United States we should all be raised at this information in these numbers and this behavior of these people that are supposedly running our school system a complete failure I give them all an… Read more »
Of course they want to lower scores. It’s called “ dumbing down “ so as not to have overpaid, underperforming teachers with fat salaries and pensions being embarrassed by continually passing along students than can neither read or do math at their grade level.
When I took tests in school and got caught looking at another students paper it was called cheating and got an F. Now districts to pump up their efficiency ratings ca cheat. I was born in the wrong era.
Here Tony Sanders goes again, past Elgin U46 Superintendent, yet wasn’t legally qualified as he couldn’t even sign it’s checks! His last name has done him well as he’s promoted to the top State job because of it.
So instead of actually teaching and educating students, ya know, just lower the requirements to take the heat off of the School Districts, Administration and Teachers? Is that it? “Our system unfairly mislabels students as ‘not proficient’ when other data — such as success in advanced coursework and enrollment in college — tell a very different story,” state schools chief Tony Sanders wrote in a message to school leaders this week. This smells like a highly compensated bureaucrat educator cooking up a way to boil the numbers and statistics enough to make the stats “look” better, so the measurable performance problem goes… Read more »
Of what practical value is to state something as a “standard” when so few students and school systems as a whole accomplish it? Isn’t that term more commonly used when minimally the majority meet those conditions? I understand your point of view while thinking the term is a ridiculous one for the reality of the situation. To me “standard “ and “grade level” are used somewhat equally as I’ve suggested here. “Your mileage may vary.”
In any occupation, standards are not meant to simply represent the median of all applicants. Standards enforce the competency required to safely and effectively perform the job.
Literacy is a basic requirement to function responsibly in an advanced economy. Grading on a curve so that the majority “pass” doesn’t cut it.
If hardly anyone can perform at a lofty expectation maybe set by an expert in that given work, then why is that given a mediocre, mundane designation as the “standard” when real performances results should designate that higher performance using a term such as “superior” or”excellent”? We’re taking semantics here, of course, but as is sometimes said words matter. “Standard” to me implies ordinary performance rather than superior or excellent. Standard to me might be what’s expected of a B- or C+ student’s performance. You put a higher performance expectation on the word “standard” than I do apparrently. In the… Read more »
Maybe it’s just semantics to you, but it matters to young people who will not be functional in the information economy.
https://eedition.myjournalcourier.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=ee058c01-6790-4680-9b0c-92b14f992f86&share=true