My Blog

Tag: CPS

  • 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.

  • Tale of Two Missions

    Absolutely amazing piece of work about Chicago’s failing schools.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmnFQkD0Eg0]

    I have considerable new found respect for Mr. Williams after seeing this.  I always thought we was railroaded out of NPR unfairly.  But I also thought he was a little light intellectually.  Whatever his faults (and we all have faults) it’s clear he cares about the children and wants to make things better.  Kudos.

  • Chicago Teachers’ Union Closer to Strike

    Both sides have agreed to the appointment of a fact-finding panel that has 75 days to issue a report recommending terms for settlement of the labor contract.

    Once that report is issued in the middle of July, the parties have 15 days to accept or reject the panel’s recommendation. If its rejected, the fact-finding panel can publish its recommendation. Thirty days after that, the union is free to strike.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    Things are heating up, the battle lines have been drawn.  Everyone loves the teachers (who basically babysit their children all day,) but the cost is simply out of control.  The union drives wage inflation which it turn drives tax inflation.  So even though there are far fewer students than a few decades ago, the cost of educating these fewer student is considerably higher.

    Chicago continues to slide into Gotham.  A teachers strike could seal the deal.

  • ‘Why Didn’t White Folks Keep Them for Themselves?’

    The Chicago Teachers Union, and school employee unions in general, are pulling out all the stops to slow down a school choice and education reform movement that is bowling them over in numerous states and cities.

    Bold reform efforts are being pushed by the likes of Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Democrats like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It’s a bipartisan effort that has Big Labor on its heels.

    In Chicago in particular, the teachers union is flailing to stop any meaningful reform it possibly can. In response to the move for a slightly longer school day, the union has demanded an astonishing  30% raise. For weeks, union leaders have been beating the war drums for a teachers’ strike, which could cripple the city.  …

    But perhaps the most remarkable accusation came when she said, “If charter schools were so good, why didn’t the white folks keep them for themselves?”

    via Breitbart.

    Just plain amazing.  This is what CPS has teaching our children.

    This is how brainwashed some people have become by CTU and it’s tactics.  A sorry state of society where race politics superceeds student and parent choice.  Troubling days ahead.

  • Chicago Teachers Union Wants to Strike

    The Chicago Teachers Union says internal polling shows there is support for a strike if contract talks with Chicago Public Schools break down.

    A new state law requires the union to get approval from 75 percent of its members before a strike, leading many to question if the union could muster support for a walkout.

    CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said members at several schools were polled.

    “The preliminary results indicate that if a strike vote were held today, teachers in those schools would vote unanimously for a walkout,” Gadlin said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    CTU’s voting block is just as out of touch as the Occupy Movement.

    I wrote awhile back about how teachers are overpaid.  Now they want a 30% raise over two years.  Clueless or ambivalent to the financial state of affairs in this town, county, state, country.

    I say go ahead and strike.  Show the world what you’re really all about.

  • WI Billboard: Truth to Power on Teachers’ Unions

    This is an idea I’ve discussed with CTU reps at a meeting one time.  CTU cannot represent “the children.”  The truth is that CTU, WEAC, and all other teacher’s unions have a fiduciary duty to the union members.  The union cannot do anything which would advance the interests of non-members (i.e. children) to the detriment of the members (i.e. teachers.)

    Glad someone’s bring the truth forward.

    A group purporting to advocate for education reform is putting up a billboard attacking the state teachers’ group, Wisconsin Education Association Council, or WEAC, as a tool of big labor uninterested in educating children.

    Reforming Education And Demanding Excellent Results-Wisconsin, or READER-WI, is fronted by Jeff Waksman, spokesman for the Republican Party of Dane County, and David Blaska, former Isthmus blogger.

    The group argues that public education is failing miserably and points to unions as the culprit: “Laws do not allow teachers to use children for partisan political advocacy, but that has not been the case, particularly in Wisconsin. Elementary school children have been forced to take part in anti-Scott Walker activities, even those young enough to not have any real grasp of the actual political issues facing the world. Big Labor has made the classroom much more political than it should be.”

    via The Daily Page.

    Did I mention that this is awesome!!

  • CPS Teacher’s Union Fights Everything

    Having absolutely no logic to defend their position:

    With a 90-day deadline on negotiations with the teachers union having passed, Chicago Public Schools can implement a teacher evaluation system that will see student performance count for 25 percent of an elementary school teacher’s assessment, a figure that will rise to 40 percent in five years.

    The Chicago Teachers Union has opposed such significant weight on student performance, but even at its highest the CPS proposal for student performance is less than the 50 percent used in states such as Colorado, Tennessee and Ohio.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    So we’re still going to be behind other states, but yet CTU is still fighting it:

    “We don’t disagree on every aspect, but we don’t agree on the plan as a whole,” said CTU’s lead negotiator, Carol Caref.  Currently, teachers are evaluated using a checklist that both principals and teachers have called useless.

    I see, the current system sucks and everyone knows it’s worthless but whatever you do, don’t include student performance in any new evaluation method.

    Caref said the union thinks having student performance count for 40 percent is too high because of concerns about the test data’s reliability. He said the union believes it’s a mistake to implement a new evaluation system without first trying it on a pilot basis to identify any problems.

    Ya, problems like it may show that teachers that suck have been given the green light to continue to not educate children year after year after year.  That would be a problem for the Union.

    Big win for the children though.

    CTU can’t die soon enough.  CPS has completely failed generations of students nearly entirely as a result of CTU pushing it’s significant weight around.  Can’t evaluate teachers… shear nonsense.

    CPS lost it’s moral imperative years ago.  We as a people owe it to our children to build a competitive network of schools which give parents a real choice — a voice — in their children’s education.

    If we’re really all in this together, then All Schools are Public Schools.

  • Emanuel vs. Lewis

    Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teacher’s Union President, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have a testy relationship at best.  …

    The two leaders met privately last year ahead of Emanuel’s inauguration.  They went for dinner and to attend a dance — both are fans of the art form — and to develop a working relationship.   …

    “In that conversation he did say to me that 25 percent of the students in this city are never going to be anything, never going to amount to anything and he was never going to throw money at them.”

    via NBC Chicago.

    But naturally Emanuel’s people respond:

    The Mayor’s Office said Lewis made up the anecdote.

    “That’s simply false,” said Emanuel Press Secretary Sarah Hamilton. “The Mayor is committed to making sure that every single child in Chicago has access to an excellent education, which is why he is fighting so hard to transform the Chicago public schools that have failed our children year after year.”

    No one knows what was true except those who there.  But that’s not really the point is it?

    The real issue is that CTU President Karen Lewis believes that the way to improve education is to throw money at it.  And doesn’t that just about say about everything that needs to be said?

    We have been throwing more and more money at CPS for years.  The results have not trended with the spending.  Check this out:

    Educational Spending Over the Years

    I wonder how much more money Ms. Lewis want to spend?

  • Chicago Teachers Asking for 30% Raises

    The Chicago Teachers Union is asking for raises amounting to 30 percent over the next two years, the opening salvo in heated contract negotiations with school officials who are implementing a longer school day across Chicago Public Schools next school year.

    Documents obtained by the Tribune show that in the face of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s expansion of the school day, the union has led with an offer seeking a 24 percent raise in the 2012-13 school year and a 5 percent increase the following year, the net effect being 30 percent.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    This just goes to show the world how completely out of touch the CTU is with the taxpayers that pay the bills.

    The city is broke; the state is broke; the feds are broke.  The wheels are falling off the bus, people everywhere are struggling, and here comes the teachers asking for a 30% raise over two years.

    According to CPS’s own website the starting salary for a teaching with a bachelor’s degree is $50,577.00 for 38.6 weeks or 193 days.  It further provides that, “[t]he salary and total compensation figures are based on a regular school term of 40 weeks, at 6.25 hours per day….

    The way I figure that’s $50,577.00 / (6.25 * 193)  = $41.92 / hour.  That’s not too bad for some 22 year old right out of college.

    Consider some other public servants: Assistant State’s Attorneys.  A Cook County ASA starts at $57,196.00 for a regular, real, full-time job.  $57,196.00 / 2080 = $27.50 / hour.

    So we, the taxpayers, already pay teachers with a bachelor degree over 150% more per hour than we pay ASA’s with a law degree and passed the bar exam.  And on this they want a 30% raise.

    It’s no wonder our schools are failing.  Their They’re run by greed greedy pigs.

    UPDATE:  Fixed some bad grammar as noted.

  • Team Crane Unveil Turnaround Plan

    Crane is not a school; it’s voluntary daytime detainment for youth.  It can’t die soon enough.  If only parents had a real choice of schools they would never send their children to Crane.  But some refuse to let it die.

    A coalition of Crane teachers, students, parents and Near West Side community activists unveiled a plan Friday night to turn around the 109-year-old high school at 2245 W. Jackson Blvd., focusing on adding programming and services to the school.  …

    After an hour of testimony in support of keeping the school open from neighbors, teachers and students (including the basketball team), the Crane coalition took the stage with a rap music video created by Crane students in an After School Matters program in 2010.

    Then they showed off their plan. To improve Crane, they said, programs need to be added to make it more appealing. Add an International Baccalaureate program, add trade-focused classes like cosmetology and video game programming, and reach out more to Crane’s feeder schools.

    via Chicago Journal.

    Video game programming?  Do these people have any idea of what  kind of education it takes to program video game?  Knowledge of vector graphics.  Understanding of electronic inputs and outputs.  The ability to develop very complex logical structures.  And yet:

    In addition, since 26 percent of Crane’s students have special needs, and 87 percent of Crane students are from low-income households, more outreach programs are needed, they said. Solutions, they said, should include mentoring, tutoring and social services.

    An IB program?  Ok, will someone get a bus and drive these people straight to the men with the white suits.  Medication is not going to be enough, they need to be admitted.

    Also worth mentioning, one day I get a chance to write about the locals who are collection millions from the city for after school programs.  They have a financial self interest to be served; this has nothing to do with saving the children.

    If we really want to help our children we’ll inject some competition into the education marketplace and give parents a real choice of where to send their children.  Right now CPS (a/k/a CTU) has a monopoly on public education and it’s failing miserably.