Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, who alwayssaid she wasn’t running for mayor, now really isn’t. (WSJ)
The contract Chicago teachers okayed contains wins for both sides. (Times, WSJ, Tribune, Sun-Times)
Like other city agencies, the Department of Education has been told to cut its budget. (GothamSchools)
The principal of Fort Hamilton High School seems to be leaving amid investigations. (GothamSchools)
Investigators found evidence of fraud in another day care operator. (GothamSchools, Post)
The 4-year-old cancer survivor whose busing had been botched now has a ride to pre-K. (NY1)
Liz Ward is a City Year volunteer at Queens’ I.S. 126, which she attended a decade ago. (Daily News)
A former city DOE consultant will spend three years in jail for bilking the city of $1.7 million. (Post)
Checker Finn: American schools are bad at identifying, educating, and enriching giftedness. (Times)
D.C. has set new performance targets for its schools under its federal NCLB waiver. (Washington Post)
In Syria, schools are supposed to be open, but many remain closed because of ongoing strife. (Times)
Vote NO!
From the NY Times’ story on the Chicago strike:
“Counting student test scores in teacher evaluations was a provision that
concerned the union, but that process would be phased in gradually and
include a way to appeal contested evaluations. By the third year of the
contract, student scores would constitute 30 percent of a teacher’s
evaluation, in keeping with state law. ”
In Chicago when teachers are “railroaded” with this new evaluation scheme, they will have a right to appeal. In NY that right is only reserved for 13% of the teachers. At least in Chicago they know what it means to be a “UNION.”
Mr. Flerporillo
From the other NY Times story on the Chicago strike:
Having skipped its pension contributions for many years, Chicago is supposed to start tripling them in another year under state law. But the school district has drained its reserves. And it cannot easily turn to the local taxpayers, because of a cap on property taxes. Borrowing the money would be difficult and expensive as well, because of a credit downgrade this summer. One of the few remaining choices would be to make deep cuts in other services.
I don’t understand why Rahmbo didn’t admit “game over” when he came in, instead of pretending there was hope for the schools. Chicago is one of those places where taxpayer underfunding, rather than retroactive pension enhancements, gets most of the blame (the reverse of NYC) although of course as always there was both.
Disaster, disaster, disaster. Get this. As in NY, the City Chicago has its own critically underfunded pension systems while other local governments are part of the state systems, also underfunded. And the state has been kicking (rarely, but still) for local government employees in the rest of the state using state taxes collected in part in Chicago!
While NY’s state and local tax burden, as share of its residents’ personal income, is about the highest in the country, the Illinois state and local tax burden has been below the U.S. average for years. How did they do it? They sold the future.
And yet when I calculated a “sold out future” index based not only on pensions but also debts and infrastructure investment, Illinois was only 47th in the U.S. If NYC had been a separate state, it would have been worst at 48th. Mass worst of all.
Larry Littlefield
“Pension fund documents say the teachers continuously made their share of the contributions, 9 percent of each paycheck. But in fact, the teachers have been putting in just 2 percent of their pay, while the school district has been making up the rest of what is called the “employee contribution” every year. The practice began under an agreement reached in the early 1980s that was supposed to reduce future pay raises, keep money in the fund and take advantage of a federal tax break.”
Same with the NYC police. If people had any idea what has been going on, they’d go nuts. Then again, Wall Street seems to have gotten away with it.
Mr. Flerporillo
“I don’t understand why Rahmbo didn’t admit “game over” when he came in, instead of pretending there was hope for the schools. Chicago is one of those places where taxpayer underfunding, rather than retroactive pension enhancements, gets most of the blame (the reverse of NYC) although of course as always there was both.”
Although the pick-ups are effectively a retroactive enhancement, assuming the un
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