Chicago Public Schools

School choice must yield results: CPS to close two underperforming charters

02/27/2013
School choice should be the foundation of any successful school system. This includes learning options of all kinds, including online learning, private schools, charter schools, homeschooling and more. While alternative learning options provide much-needed options for students, these programs should not be exempt from performance reviews. In a surprise move, the Chicago Public Schools, or...

Contagion: Strike fever spreads across Illinois

By Paul Kersey
02/04/2013
  [updated Feb. 4, 2013] With the Chicago Teachers Union having waged a largely successful strike against the Chicago Public Schools, we can expect to see other public school unions, and maybe other government employee unions, following their example. Strikes allow unions to preserve costly wages and benefits, or block needed reforms, by shutting down...

CTU’s answer for failing schools: Blame the ‘fat cats’

By Paul Kersey
12/29/2012
It is a fairly standard piece of Alinskyite strategy: make the argument about personalities rather than principles or results. Find an enemy and make the whole fight about him or her or it. As progressive icon and “Rules for Radicals” author Saul Alinsky himself put it, “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize...

Bringing it all together: what Right to Work means for Michigan and its workers

By Paul Kersey
12/13/2012
On Tuesday Michigan’s Legislature took the final steps in passing Right-to-Work legislation, and Gov. Rick Snyder signed the bill into law. Outside the Statehouse, union protesters became more agitated, tearing down a tent where Right-to-Work supporters had gathered (a handful of people were almost trapped inside the canvas) and assaulting a Fox News correspondent. In...

Twinkies, Ho Hos and the future of Illinois state pensions

By Ted Dabrowski
11/20/2012
If Illinoisans want a glimpse of the state’s upcoming fiscal cliff, they should look no further than the failed negotiations between the maker of Twinkies and the unions that took them on. Hostess Brand’s bankruptcy is much more than the demise of famous brands like Twinkies, Ho Hos and Wonder Bread. It’s also the tragedy...
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Pathway to a Profession: How Apprenticeships Could Reshape Illinois’ Beauty Service Industry

Occupational licensing requirements present one of the steepest barriers to low-income Illinoisans starting careers in beauty services. Illinois requires anyone seeking to become a barber, cosmetologist, nail technician or hair braider to obtain a state license, essentially a permission slip to work. Unlike 45 other states, Illinois offers only one pathway to licensure for each...

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Diana Graham

Process for unionizing non-state workers raises red flags

By Paul Kersey
06/19/2014

CBS Chicago: Illinois’ highest-paid superintendent receives $400K per year to oversee 1,200 students

By Ted Dabrowski
05/02/2016