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.
Paul Vallas’ analogy that the chicago schools must become lifeboats is right on the money. The Titanic, on which the kids had previously been riding, has gone under and is resting on the bottom of the North Atlantic. It struck the iceberg that is the CTU with its egregious greed and abysmal performance which has destroyed the CPS. We must rescue our kids before they go under, too. Any money now spent must truly be for the kids and not the red shirt crowd.
Okay, now tell us your version of how to do that.
First thing that has to happen is to decouple the death grip that the CTU has around the neck of the CPS. Only 26% of 11th grade kids can read and do math at grade level. We are one year away from sending these Juniors out to make a life for themselves and most of them are functionally illiterate and totally unprepared for any basic job requirement. Whatever the CTU has done to accomplish this great feat is obviously not working for the kids. Removing that grip won’t happen so there is zero chance of improving the lives of these… Read more »
Put on ye old thinking cap. Give us some proposals here. Maybe someone who can take it to heart and can start converting it into realistic action will do so. We eagerly await your version of salvation.
You’ve done nothing more than spew things already well agreed upon here. So, what’s the point other than to get it feel feel better having said it? What’s needed is a plan of action. What’s yours?