My Blog

Category: Education

  • Chicago Teachers Union: It’s About Children Greed

    According to the Chicago Tribune key issues separating Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union:

    SALARIES AND BENEFITS. The district offered 16 percent increase over four years and “modified step increases that both reward experience and provide better incentives for mid-career teachers.” The union said it’s closer on pay but is still concerned about rising health care costs and other benefits. Teachers sought a substantial raise in the contract’s first year because of the longer day and want to keep raises for experience.

    This is insane.  There is no one in the private sector who’s planning on seeing a 16% increase in their income over the next four years.  Plus these people make tons of money already!

    A Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said average pay for teachers, without benefits, is $76,000.

    via CBS Chicago.

    The average family in the city only earns $47,000 a year.  Considering a regular school term of 40 weeks, at 6.25 hours per day…. The way I figure that’s $76,000.00 / (6.25 * 200)  = $60.80 / hour.  Plus they get benefits — excellent benefits.

    So what we have is a group of people who on average make over $60/hour — the highest paid teachers in the nation — and are complaining about it.

    Next issue:

    JOB SECURITY. The union has pushed for a system to recall teachers who have been laid off when new openings occur. This has become important because of rumors the district plans to close up to 100 schools in coming years. The district says teachers displaced by school closings will be eligible for a job at new schools if there is a vacancy — or may elect to take a three-month severance.

    I got some news for the CTU:  CPS is dying.   For the second year in a row, CPS is taking the maximum possible increase to property taxes permitted by law.  Further, Chicago is shrinking and here.

    There is no job security when you’re product is crappy & overpriced.  People do not want to live in a place where they’re taxed to death to fund under-performing public schools.  At CPS just 15 percent of fourth graders are proficient in reading and only 56 percent of students who enter their freshman year of high school wind up graduating.  If you want job security you need to excel at what you do… not completely suck at it.

    Next Issue:

    TEACHER EVALUATIONS. The union wants to lower how much student performance contributes to evaluations. CPS has said the new evaluation system, created in collaboration with teachers, was negotiated and settled in March under state law.

    I happen to know a few people who are tight with a couple of principals in the CPS system.  The first things they will tell you is that it is impossible to get rid of a bad teacher.  Everyone knows this.  So to improve schools CPS and CTU sat down and came up with a system to evaluate teachers back in March.  Now, CTU has decided that it doesn’t like the system it already agreed to.

    Not only is the Teachers’ Union is specifically fighting to keep bad teachers in the classroom but it breaking a promise it already made.

    – – –

    The only possible explanation for all this is that CTU cares very very little about education.  There is no talk about reducing class sizes, getting new blackboards, reimbursement for further education, or improving safety in the schools.  Nope.  It’s all about money & clout.  Money & clout.  Protecting their own at all costs.

    CTU is nothing but a bunch of bullies.  Rahm should treat them as such.

  • St. Charles School Group Hates Class Rankings

    Members of the St. Charles District 303 school community want to eliminate class rank at the high schools and expand foreign language and technology offerings at all levels, according to a report released Monday.

    The information was compiled from several community meetings this year.

    via chicagotribune.com.

    Well this is easy right?

    About 2% of the people love the class ranking system and 98% of the people hate it.

    That mean’s that in out of District 303 2% of the graduates will be ready for jobs in the private sector and 98% will be looking for either government jobs or handouts.

  • CPS To Raise Property Taxes The Maximum

    For the second year in a row, Chicago Public School officials under Mayor Rahm Emanuel will raise property taxes for schools to the maximum allowed by law, yielding the cash-strapped system $41 million.

    The 1.5 percent increase should cost the average homeowner $28 a year, school officials said Wednesday.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Well isn’t this interesting.  We’ll see if CPS teachers, a/k/a the CTU, want to strike this year.  I suppose homeowners won’t be getting their second installment of their tax bills until after the election (it always works that way.)  So they won’t see just how much money goes to CTU CPS from their outrageous property taxes unless the strike goes into November.  … Dare to dream.

  • Illinois lags in science, tech, engineering, math grads

    Bad News:

    Illinois is producing fewer graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math than the national average, according to the June release of the Illinois Innovation Index. …

    According to the Illinois Innovation Index, the number of STEM degrees granted to Illinois graduates hit a high-water mark of 20,248 in 2003 before dropping through 2007. The number rose by nearly 5 percent between 2009 and 2010, the most recent year for which data are available. But the 2010 number, 18,400, is well below the 2003 peak. Furthermore, STEM degrees represented 11 percent of all 2010 Illinois degrees, lower than the national average of 14 percent.

    via Chicago Tribune.com.

    This is a problem.

    Illinois generally and Chicago specifically cannot grow out of debt without high tech jobs. Our manufacturing businesses are dying and the city’s not helping. We live in a global economy and on the manufacturing front Chicago’s losing.

    Tech is the future. If you don’t have tech, you’re future’s not very bright. It’s really just that simple.

    CTU looks like it’s going to strike CPS because teachers making $80,000+ for 189 days of work say it’s not enough. I’d be happy to give the teachers more money… when Illinois’ in first place nationally for math and science scores.

     

  • Teens Employment Lowest Since WWII – Obama Not Helping

    This article was published yesterday about the same time that Obama was in the Rose Garden making the situation worse:

    Fewer than 3 in 10 American teenagers now hold jobs such as running cash registers, mowing lawns or busing restaurant tables from June to August. The decline has been particularly sharp since 2000, with employment for 16-to-19-year olds falling to the lowest level since World War II.  …

    The drop in teen employment, steeper than for other age groups, is partly a cultural shift. More youths are spending summer months in school, at music or learning camps or in other activities geared for college. But the decline is especially troubling for teens for whom college may be out of reach, leaving them increasingly idle and with few options to earn wages and job experience.Older workers, immigrants and debt-laden college graduates are taking away lower-skill work as they struggle to find their own jobs in the weak economy. Upper-income white teens are three times as likely to have summer jobs as poor black teens, sometimes capitalizing on their parents’ social networks for help.

    Overall, more than 44 percent of teens who want summer jobs don’t get them or work fewer hours than they prefer.

    via HeraldNet.com.

    Holy Cow!!  Three passages worth repeating:

    [T]he decline is especially troubling for teens for whom college may be out of reach,
    leaving them increasingly idle and with few options to earn wages and job experience.

    Just who are these kids who are now left with few options?  My guess is urban city kids.  In the country there’s always work on the farm.  But in the city & suburbs we have thousands and thousands of idle kids.  Hanging around with noth’n to do; just look’n for trouble.

    Older workers, immigrants and debt-laden college graduates are taking away
    lower-skill work as they struggle to find their own jobs in the weak economy.

    Isn’t this the truth.  Have you ever been to a Wal-Mart where the greeter was under 50?  And now everywhere you go, every single stinking fast food place, sit-down restaurant, Target, Wal-Mart, grocery store, and nearly everywhere else has adult immigrants working there.  In the ’70s and ’80s these jobs were good (great) jobs for kids to get.  Two people I know very well worked at Jewel when they were in high school.  One put herself through college; the other bought a Camaro.

    With the new (unconstitutional) Obama plan on immigration the job market will now have another few million young people who are eligible to work … but will struggle to find decent employment.  It serves no one when you just set people up to fail.

    Upper-income white teens are three times as likely to have summer jobs as poor black teens….

    This is what I wrote yesterday; inner city kids are going to be one of the biggest losers in the immigration debacle.  Contrary to what some people believe, one cannot just walk into a job that pays $100,000 per year.  Everyone has to start somewhere.  Usually that means that kids bus tables at a local restaurant, caddie, work retail, mow lawns, wash cars, whatever.  These jobs are important because they teach critical lessons necessary to move up in the world: show-up on time, look nice, smile, how to deal with conflict, how to deal with a boss, etc.  You can’t just wake-up one day and think you’re going to get a job as a banker without having decent people skills.

    Obama is dooming generations of inner city kids to lives of and on government sustenance.  These kids will never reach their full potential because they have so many factors stacked against them: poor educational systems, uneducated parents, no access to jobs, and a president who’s bargained their futures for political gain.

  • Parents Not Happy with Blue School

    Back in April I wrote about the Blue School.  By some measure it’s not doing so well.

    Parents are yanking their kids out of the “progressive,” $32,000 per-year private school founded by the Blue Man Group — which has no books and no tests — because their kids are barely learning to read, The Post has learned.

    One mother, who is yanking her son at the end of the school year, complained that the school is “unstructured.”

    “It’s true,” she said when asked if her kid was struggling to read.

    In all, she added, four of her son’s first-grade classmates are leaving the Financial District institution.

    Another parent who dropped her first-grade son off yesterday said he’s not coming back next year — because he’s got nothing to do.

    “When a 6-year-old says they’re bored, there’s a problem,” the mother said. “I think they bit off more than they can chew.”

    via NYPOST.com.

    So I guess school choice works then!

    Of course, people who can afford $32,000/year tuition do have a lot of choices.  This story shows that they are willing to take their money elsewhere when they do not feel (think?) that they are getting a good value for their dollar.

    But what about those who cannot afford private school tuition?  Why do we deny them the same choice?  Just because one is poor does not mean that they’re not interested in their children’s education.

    And aren’t so called “public schools” funded with tax dollars?  In sending their children to private schools the rich are in fact double-taxed on education.  This might not be perceived as a problem (they can afford it) by some but that argument missed the point.  When the “rich” pay to have their children in private school they care less about the performance of the public schools.  They’re basically walking away on the taxes they’re paying, accepting it as a loss.  And they invest not only their money but their time and energy in the private school.  This leaves our “public schools” weaker.

    I prefer to think about “public schools” as government run schools.  In reality, every member of society has a vested interest in the education of the youth.  In reality, ALL SCHOOLS ARE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.  The difference is that some schools are run by the government, and some are not.

    What we find in the end is that government schools are run about as well as the government runs anything.  Which is why everyone, just like those who used to send their children to the Blue School, should have the option of sending the children to the school of their choice.

  • CPS’s Safe Haven Funding Slashed

    With money tight,Chicago Public Schools’summer Safe Haven program will be scaled back and serve fewer students.Last year, the district used $975,000 in federal stimulus funds for Safe Haven, which encompassed 100 churches working with 5,000 students on issues including conflict resolution and anger management, as well as reading programs, tutoring and arts.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    That’s 100 churches getting nearly 10,000 each to do what exactly?

    Like nearly all government programs Safe Haven was doomed from the start.  It was a “spread some money around” plan that had no measure of success or failure.  Nearly a million bucks was doled out to politically connected reverends who held a few meetings, played a little basketball, and then sent the children back into the mean streets.  No one knows where the money really went.  But it’s safe to say that Safe Haven did little to curb violence.

  • Half of Florida H.S. Students Fail Reading Test

    Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state’s new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday.

    Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels.

    Students in the 10th grade must pass the exam in order to eventually graduate but can retake it if they fail.

    The results came days after the Florida State Board of Education voted to lower the standards needed to pass the writing part of the test, known as FCAT. The test is administered in public elementary, middle and high schools.

    via Yahoo! News Canada.

    #1.  This is just plan embarassing.

    #2.  Why is this being reported by Yahoo! News Canada and not here in the U.S.A.?

    #3.  When are we going to have a national discussion about how our educations system is fundamentally, philosophically, and systematically broken?

    #4.  Note the “proposed solution” is NOT to actually teach the students how to read.  The solution is to reduce the testing standards so that more dummies can pass.

    We are failing as a society.

  • CPS Director Accepted Gifts from Top Vendors

    Now, [CPS Chief of Food Services Louise Esaian] and two members of her staff are accused in a report by CPS inspector general James Sullivan of accepting perhaps thousands of dollars in gifts from Chartwells and another vendor, Preferred Meals Systems, that have combined food contracts at CPS in excess of $75 million.

    Esaian told the inspector general that the gifts didn’t influence her decisions at CPS, according to the report, which came out last week. But the appearance of conflict in such situations is inescapable, said Laurence Msall, president of the government watchdog Civic Federation.

    “Even if it only affects the appearance of the procurement, it has a corrosive impact on the public’s trust and the perception of how government decisions are made,” Msall said. “These ethics codes exist because too often governmental officials are confused about what is in the public’s interest and what is in their private interests.”

    The inspector general report does not make note of the expansion of Chartwells’ breakfast program. But at the same time the school board was considering, and ultimately approving, lucrative contract extensions for Chartwells and Preferred, the report says Esaian was being wined and dined at upscale Chicago restaurants, lavished with birthday gifts and NFL tickets for her friends and family.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    This is what happens when you hire politically connected people to run these programs.  They are not “called to service” or have any feelings whatsoever of acting in the best interests of the taxpayer.  They are all filled with a sense of entitlement that corrupts them into believing they some earned they things.

  • Teaching (Indoctrinating) Chicago Students to Protest

    Jones College Prep, a Chicago Public Schools “selective enrollment” school, held “Social Justice Week” in March, a collection of events geared towards turning students into activists. See the schedule of events here.

    According to a flyer on the school’s website:

    Social Justice Week was created to promote community advancement through dialogue and community service based activism. Moreover, we hope to unify the voice of various JCP and community organizations in which to facilitate collaboration for the betterment of the community at large and promote a unified human rights advancement initiative.

    The school is, according to U.S. News & World Report, a Top 100 high school in the country. It’s one of the best of the best–the cream of the crop.

    …On Wednesday of Social Justice Week, Black Star Project, a Chicago-based community organizing group, was brought into the school after school hours to teach students about “non-violent” protesting. Led by Phillip Jackson, former “Chief of Education” under former Mayor Richard Daley, the optional discussion was focused on students fighting back against gun crime.

    Black Star Project, according to its website, is funded by Open Society Foundations (i.e. George Soros), Best Buy, ING and Toyota Motor Sales, among others.

    Jackson’s co-presenter, Camille Williams of the Peace in the Hood movement, made several inflammatory statements about gun ownership and the National Rifle Association. She claimed the NRA is indifferent to gun violence. She also asserted she has received emails from the NRA and/or its members claiming she is “going to hell” for her advocacy and “these porch monkeys deserved to die,” referring to black children killed by guns.

    EAGnews.org contacted Jackson regarding these emails, wishing to make them public. We received no response.

    When one student stated that she believed everyone should be able to own guns, her opinion was dismissed.

    Williams: Right now in Springfield, they are moving to pass conceal and carry so that everybody can carry guns. Are you all in agreement with that?

    Student: Um…I am because I think if you take away guns from regular citizens, the criminals and the police are the only ones who have them, so…

    Williams: did you look at this?

    [At that point, she held up a list to young people who have been killed with guns.]

    Student: Yes, ma’am, I did.

    Williams: How many of these kids on here are able to carry a gun?

    Student: None of them.

    Williams: And they are the leading targets.

    At this particular session of Social Justice Week, no opposing views were offered.  It appeared only certain outcomes were being sought.  Jackson strongly encouraged the students to develop forms of non-violent protest. “I’m not telling you to do it, but if you were going to,” he said, leading the proverbial horse to the water.

    “I’m just saying,” he said on several occasions.

    via Breitbart.

    Incredible that taxpayers are forced to pay for this nonsense.