Chicago Public Schools

Pension Costs Will Hit Home: Charting Illinois’s Pension Crisis

05/18/2011
Download a pdf of this report and chart here. The required pension payment for Chicago city government and Chicago Public Schools will jump to $1.92 billion from $650 million between now and 2020. Current law will require local taxpayers to foot the bill. That’s a citywide per capita jump to $715 from $241. Illinois is...

Illinois’s $100,000 Plus Workforce: Strong and Growing

05/16/2011
by Mark Cavers Illinois will have $8.3 billion in unpaid bills by the end of the fiscal year, a projected deficit of $1.7 billion for fiscal year 2012 and $86 billion in unpaid pension liabilities. A contributing factor to our deficits, and a major reason behind calls for higher taxes is government employee’s pay and benefits. Rather...

Congratulations to the New Mayor of Chicago

05/16/2011
Inauguration day carries a spirit of optimism. Changes are needed in Chicago, and we can all hope today is the day that those changes begin to take place. Chicago is a great city, and in almost every way it could become the greatest city in America. But sober realities await the new mayor. The city...

Update: Performance Counts Bill (SB7) Passes

05/12/2011
by Mark Cavers Update: Today is a big day for children in schools across state. Senate Bill 7, which represents a significant step forward in the effort to give all our children an excellent education just passed the House!  By a margin of 112-1-1 the Illinois House of Representatives sent a strong message that they...

Chicago’s Big Hurt on Pensions: Charting Illinois’s Pension Crisis

04/26/2011
Chicago residents face twin financial crises at Chicago Public Schools and City Hall, driven by the costs of public employee pensions.  The steep tab for the retirement benefits of school and city employees is coming due. More retirees than ever are collecting pension checks. And state law will soon require the City and CPS to...

Emanuel Names New Head of CPS

By Chris Andriesen
04/20/2011
by Mark Cavers Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel has named Jean-Claude Brizard to serve as the new head of the Chicago Public Schools. Mr. Brizard spent the past three years as the Superintendent of the Rochester School District where he pushed for a number of the education reforms that Chicago will need to implement to give our kids...

Teacher Tenure or High Performance?

04/14/2011
by Collin Hitt We’ve reached an important moment for education reform. Teacher tenure – the impregnable job protection held by teachers good and bad – could soon be replaced by a system that protects only high performance. The threat of strikes could be diminished. And school districts could no longer be forced to bargain away...

A Moral Obligation

03/25/2011
by Mark Cavers An article in the Chicago Tribune yesterday quotes a representative of the Chicago Teachers Union arguing against the CPS decision to explore closing some under enrolled schools in an effort to close a $750 million deficit. The president attacks the decision saying the Chicago Public School system has, “a moral obligation to … stop these...

A Second Chance

02/28/2011
Last year, a bill aimed at giving families in the worst performing Chicago schools a better opportunity failed in the Illinois House. This year, its back.
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FAQ: How the federal scholarship program would help Illinois students

Illinois students could soon benefit from scholarship money to help them find a tutor, attend ACT or SAT prep sessions, pay tuition, get special education services or assist with other academic needs. That will happen in Illinois only if Gov. J.B. Pritzker lets the state’s schoolchildren benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, established...

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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