Chicago Public Schools cannot erase its $1 billion budget deficit alone – it’s going to need some help. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the school board know the situation is dire. This is why they have proposed closing 120 schools next year, a move that could save $500,000 to $800,000 per school closed. But, to...
By Ted Dabrowski
05/11/2012
Increasing local pension accountability would increase each school district’s total costs by an average of 3.7 percent.
By Ted Dabrowski
10/13/2011
Public employee unions balked at pension reform when it was introduced this spring because they claim government workers already have “paid their fair share” by kicking in “8 percent, 9 percent or more from each paycheck” to their retirement funds. But when it comes to public school teachers in Illinois, paying their own way to...
by Mark Cavers Earlier today, Governor Quinn announced his appointment of former mayoral hopeful Gery Chico to the head of the Illinois State Board of Education. Chico will face a challenging job as he oversees schools in communities as diverse as Chicago and Sparta. He is charged with overseeing all 868 school districts, 2.1 million...
In February, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn proposed an unbalanced budget that relied on hefty tax increases and $8.75 billion in borrowing – not to mention, increased overall state spending by $1.7 billion. If followed, Gov. Quinn’s budget will prompt Illinois to run recurring, annual deficits of nearly $3 billion by the year 2016. By the...
Budget Solutions 2012 is an alternative budget that does not rely on the states recent tax hikes as a revenue source, does not include borrowing and has positive cash flow for fiscal year 2012.
Several significant events over the past year have raised awareness for the education reform effort called the charter school movement.
by Collin Hitt The Illinois State Board of Education has announced that it will release school report cards today, showing whether schools are doing better or worse at meeting state and federal academic standards. The decision to release information on a Friday afternoon heading into a weekend when everyone is going to be focused on...
by Collin Hitt Last Monday, the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to Illinois school districts urging them to frantically spend newly available federal stimulus funds totaling more than $400 million, before the end of November. Highly unusual, however, was that the letter and the governor’s instructions were apparently written and circulated...
