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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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Federal funding is both fungible and temporary. Enjoy it while it lasts, because the party’s over soon.
“Helping schools.” Schools that have been failing for decades with teachers marking-time until their lucrative retirement benefits commence. Teachers who’ve avoided the classroom for a couple of years who loved being idle the year-round and collecting salaries, benefits and COLA. It’s a Robin Hood operation that gains legitimacy because they all do it at once via “solidarity.” Politicians and administrators are complicit because they have the same or better deals. We can’t put all speeders in jail and the same systemic deficiencies make it impossible to put all rioters and arsonists and shop-lifters in jail. CTU revenue thieves enjoy the… Read more »
CPS attracts a lot of F’d up staff and administrators and they run a F’d up school system because they themselves are totally F’d up.
Are you saying it’s hard to fix or impossible to fix? I guess there is a middle ground which incorporates the realization that the financial and other costs of fixing it would outweigh the benefits of having it fixed. A fixed district would have to be repopulated with parents and offspring who capable of benefiting from a better — but still mediocre — system. So, if you’re saying that fixing CPS would be futile, I agree with you. Then the question becomes: What do you do with the real estate and bureaucracy and out-of-work teachers? This is like “what do… Read more »
Pity the students – past, current, and future.
Unlike the standard mantra “…it’s for the children,” it never was, isn’t now, and never will be to benefit students.
The union’s focus, as all unions’ focus, is increasing power for the union and benefits for its members. So, it appears the CTU is doing a bang up job for its members while it destroys the Chicago Public School system and the lives of Chicago’s young people.
Perhaps we should dismiss the concept of ‘systemic racism’ in CPS and substitute ‘systemic failure.’
No race/ethnicity/religion/sexual orientation, etc. in the CPS system is immune.