Free Republic

Chicago taxpayers, prepare for another kick in the teeth. In fact, it might be a good time to grow fond of the toothless grin. Another recent court decision will put taxpayers on the hook for additional city pension debts. Yes, even more than before. A circuit court judge in March struck down a 2014 state law that eased pressure on the pension fund of Chicago Park District retirees. The law had increased Park District employees’ own contributions to the fund, increased their retirement-eligible age, reduced their annual cost-of-living increases and reduced duty disability benefits. But those changes will be rolled...

Maybe you think the worst is over for Chicago Public Schools: Springfield sprang for millions in budget and pension relief last year. Time to lean back and sip an icy beverage. Sorry to interrupt this reverie, but there are 1 billion reasons that you’re wrong. That is, the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund is short another $1 billion, according to the fund’s consultants.(snip) Why is this happening? Because of new estimates that reduce expected investment returns over the next decades by a half-percentage point, from 7.75 percent annually to 7.25 percent. Even a relatively small tweak creates a big hole. Hence,...

Chicago Public Schools will lay off about 1,000 employees, nearly half of whom are teachers. Officials with the nation’s third-largest school district characterized the layoffs Friday as part of the “normal” yearly staff movement between schools and that they expect most people will be hired for other jobs. CPS has about 1,000 teaching vacancies. …

Backed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, top Illinois Republicans called Wednesday for a state takeover of the financially troubled Chicago Public Schools, which faces a nearly $1 billion budget deficit that could lead to thousands of teacher layoffs and a possible strike in a matter of months. Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno called the plan a "lifeline" for CPS, though Democrats quickly shot down the idea. Radogno and House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said the legislation would give the Illinois State Board of Education control over the nation's third-largest school district. They also noted that GOP lawmakers may reveal a bankruptcy...

A second financial ratings agency has downgraded Chicago Public Schools’ debt rating to junk status, reinforcing Wall Street’s dim view of the district’s finances. Fitch Ratings on Monday downgraded billions of school board bonds to its “BB+” ranking, which it said reflected the “limited progress” CPS has made to address a vast budget gap as well as the district’s meager cash reserves. Fitch said those reserves are likely to be extinguished by next year. District officials have announced $200 million in spending cuts. Fitch said the district also will require “a combination of tax increases, contributions from the state and...

Chicago school and city officials detailed $200 million in cuts—including layoffs, scaled-back maintenance and reduced transportation—to the nation’s third-largest school district Wednesday, one day after the district paid a $634 million pension bill officials said it couldn’t afford. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said schools would still open on time in the coming school year and class sizes wouldn’t be affected. He put the blame on state legislators for worsening the situation and said a property tax increase was up for consideration. The district had to borrow and factor in the cuts to make the pension payment by Tuesday’s deadline because legislators,...

Activists from several Chicago community groups on Thursday called for a one-day boycott of Chicago Public Schools because of what they say are discriminatory practices against poor African-American and Latino students. The group is asking students to skip school Wednesday and parents and supporters to forgo a Chicago Board of Education meeting to attend a rally in front of the board's downtown office, followed by a march to City Hall. **SNIP** The activists said the school district's decision to close 49 elementary schools and a high school program has destabilized minority communities and put student lives in danger. Many mentioned...

... At schools in the city and across the United States, chronic absenteeism is affecting performance, particularly among children from poor families. Absenteeism costs money for school districts, because they receive no state payments for students who are not at school. It also contributes to cycles of failure in neighborhoods already facing high rates of crime and poverty. The connections between poverty, absenteeism and academic failure are evident, said Robert Balfanz, a research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. A 2006 study of high schools in high poverty neighborhoods with the lowest...

... Chicago’s pitifully short school day is getting even shorter. At five and a half hours, Chicago’s school day is already the shortest of any of the 50 largest districts in the nation. During the mayoral campaign, both Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel and a rival, Gery Chico, brought that up. Mr. Emanuel noted that a child in Houston gets four more years of K-12 instruction than one here. But now comes “Breakfast in the Classroom ” for 410,000 students. Most schools already offer a cold or hot breakfast before the start of classes. It’s free for the 86 percent of public...

The Chicago public schools’ [CPS] response to a recent court desegregation ruling — a plan to use students’ social and economic profiles instead of race to achieve classroom diversity — is raising fears that it will undermine the district’s slow and incremental progress on racial diversity. Chicago schools, like the city itself, are hardly a model of racial integration. But a Chicago News Cooperative analysis of school data shows the district has made modest gains in the magnet, gifted, classical and selective-enrollment schools, where, for nearly 30 years, race has been used as an admission criterion. Those advances may be...

The NYT reports that during a press phone call yesterday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan "unleashed a barrage of dismal statistics about the South Carolina schools" whose Governor, Mark Sanford "has told the Obama administration that he would not accept some $577 million in educational stimulus money for South Carolina unless he could use it to pay down state debt." During the putative barrage of dismal statistics Duncan noted that "only 15 percent of the state’s black students are proficient in math and that the state has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates." This is a pot kettle...

The Chicago Public Schools, whose superintendent, Arne Duncan, has been tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to be the next education secretary, failed to meet the Illinois state standards set under the No Child Left Behind Act every single year the standards have been in force. For the last five school years (2004-2008), the Chicago district (District 299) failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) in key areas, according to the district’s progress report on the Illinois State Board of Education Web site. Under the No Child Left Behind Act that Congress passed in 2003, each state must “develop and implement...

This morning I took a minor detour into Chicago's Uptown neighborhood while driving home from my local running club's weekly run. I took this photo outside the Joan F. Arai Middle School at 900 W. Wilson Avenue. The entire caption reads "Uplift Social Justice." The signage in front of Arai lists it as an "Uplift" school, although I couldn't find out what that meant on the Chicago Public Schools web site. So here we have our tax dollars at work honoring this "champion" of social justice, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Does the Arai school have any lessons on Guevara in it's...