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.
Hidden amongst the top TRS pensions at #7 is Reggie Weaver. You might think Reggie is a former school district superintendent, but you’d be wrong. Weaver is a former president of a teachers union – the Washington DC-based National Education Association, the parent union of the Illinois Ed Assoc.
For those of you wondering how a union employee – and an extremely well-compensated executive at that – can spend over half his career employed as a bureaucrat by various levels of teachers unions and still qualify for a state teachers pension, look here:
https://citizenvsmachine.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/pension-busters-playbook-union-executive-bootleg/