-- 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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Maybe insist that teachers show up go work and concentrate on teaching reading and math first, before left “requirements, not increasing their salaries
So teachers can’t get sick? Cant have a surgery? Can’t take maternity leave? Can’t attend a mortgage closing? Life is busy and messy and teachers are no different than anyone else in that they will need time off on occasion. How much time? Why don’t we decide how much time and for what reasons ahead of time instead of blaming teachers for something that happened in their life. We could put that agreed upon time and valid reasons in their contract. Oh wait, we already do that.
Robo-Teachers will never get sick or go on strike. AI will soon replace many positions in every field. Hopefully Robo Politicians.
https://aitechtrend.com/revolutionizing-education-the-rise-of-ai-enabled-robot-teachers/
We already have all the information we need to learn right in our pockets. Having AI or Kahn Academy, as you like to endorse, doesn’t mean children will be more successful in their learning. If that was the case our children would be more advanced than ever. You need learners to be actively engaged to actually have success. AI is an additional tool not a replacement for human involvement. Your comment does make sense though. Many people here don’t think teachers should have a private life where they need to take days off. When you demonize a profession you dehumanize… Read more »
Thanks for your input. That would seem to be the problem. How to engage the kids to learn from multiple sources like Khan/at school or at home which does not seem to be the case. What upsets me we have the knowledge of the entire planet (both good and bad) at our fingertips by just a few keystrokes but it falls by the wayside. Never in history was this possible especially before the computer age. Kids today are asked to put their phones away and learn from outdated books/Common Core/no more cursive/etc. Might as well give the kids parchment paper… Read more »
Yes, we all like our cell phones. But, it’s much the same as watching TV. They can be a great learning tools, great entertainment distractions or simply a time-waster depending upon your level of interest at the moment as compared to your usual areas of interest. So, if you have a deep and continuing interest in something you likely will be a learner. On the other hand, if someone is prodding you to use such things that so far have no great interest to you it’s unlikely you’ll learn much and consider it a waste of time as compared your… Read more »
What you describe sounds like you were expecting to teach in Lake Woebegone, where all of the students were attentive and above average. That never existed, and it never will. Surely you noticed back in your own school days that most kids by nature were apathetic about school, at best. Yet most of us learned to read and do basic math. It was up to the school and teachers to accomplish that, despite the fact that most students were more interested in their social lives than in learning.
Teachers were allowed to be much stricter in that era than is the case today. Teachers often are brow-beaten into becoming “academic advisors.” Punishments of the type children readily understand and adhere to are LONG gone, my friend. If any teacher doesn’t adhere to that advisory role and seeks to cross the line into punishment its easily translated by the administration as the start of a career ending decision. You may find exceptions, of course, that’s the general recognition of a teacher’s role today, and its quite different than that of decades ago.
I’m sure that is true. There was much more discipline in the classroom back then. How did that change? Could it have anything to do with the idea that bad behavior is just the result of trauma? That kids are not responsible; on the contrary, they are actually victims? Now where did these ideas come from, and how did they come to dominate in the school environment? Not sure? Ask Stacy Davis-Gates.
I can’t be time specific, but many decades ago the courts started giving decisions against schools which allowed physical punishments that gradually started to include psychological trauma decisions as well where school employees treated students in verbally abusive ways. These decisions cost school districts legal fees and monetary settlements. Of course, that also caused the firing of such perpetrators. All in all it made school administrators, teachers and staff far more wary of how they interact with the students and parents when such complaint situations arise against school employees. Those are good outcomes on the surface, but underneath that school… Read more »
I would never endorse physical punishment or verbal abuse of students by teachers. That is not effective discipline. While schools do not tolerate those behaviors from teachers, as they should not, schools do tolerate that behavior from some children. Schools shirk their duty to protect kids from disruptive and dangerous behavior due to misguided notions of social justice. This happened in my grandson’s 2nd grade class in Downers Grove. One child caused constant problems. 2nd graders were actually told to hide under their desks while this kid was on a tear. Apparently the school was bending over backwards to avoid… Read more »
Yep, you get the idea. Discipline has quite the list of ways and degrees as to how it can be enacted. The problem is that anyone in a state of emotional extremes can exaggerate the action to be taken having sometimes only seconds to weigh the seesaw as to to what’s likely effective and not going into something extreme. It’s a lesser example of how a policeman has to make a split-second decision as to whether deadly force should be used. In both cases you should be effective while weighing the consequence for others and for yourself. Aren’t you happy… Read more »
Astounding!!!–Zero cuts, zero layoffs to all the $billions$ in added post COVID spending!!!, only adding more, more, more….how can the dopey Illinois taxpayers ever pay?