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.
Legislative pension benefit hikes to already underfunded pensions in conjuction with concurrent pay hikes resulted in this predicted outcome. It made no fiscal sense, only political sense. It was a show of political power. The hikes defied common sense. It was an unsustainable money grab, worsened by the pension sentence added to the Illinois State Constitution in 1970 which stated pension and retirement system benefits are contractual and cannot be diminished or impaired. Starting 1971 the practice of hiking pension and retiree healthcare benefits escalated. The funding level did not matter because there was a taxpayer guarantee that pension and… Read more »