It’s becoming clear that teachers’ union bosses are doing a lousy job representing the best interests of their members. Case in point: Chicago Teachers’ Union President Karen Lewis. Not only did she organize a strike and agree to a contract that she knew would cost thousands of her fellow union members their jobs, but she...
When Chicago Public Schools, or CPS, unveiled its list of 50 schools to be closed this past summer, Chicago Teachers Union, or CTU, President Karen Lewis acted as if the union she leads was a victim of the city’s $1 billion deficit — not a willing accomplice in its creation. Lewis will probably never say...
This week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office issued a press release boasting of steps the city has taken to make it easier and faster for small businesses to get city licenses. According to the statement, visitors to the city’s Small Business Center can now take advantage of an express lane, a self-service station and additional “customer service”...
By Benjamin VanMetre
08/01/2013
Illinois can’t pay its bills. Lawmakers continue to eat away at the Illinois family budget with higher taxes. And the state refuses to stop ballooning pension payments from crowding out core government services. Yet Gov. Pat Quinn announced that Illinois will invest $54.8 million 27 private colleges and universities in the Chicago area. Some of this spending...
Buried beneath the news of Chicago Public Schools’ dismal Illinois Standard Achievement Test scoreslast week was another bombshell: students from receiving schools – those schools that students from closed schools will attend next year – saw less than half of the gains on the ISAT as the rest of the district. In other words, thousands of displaced...
by Josh Dwyer The big news from the Chicago Public Schools school board meeting is that Ericson, Garvey, Jackson and Manierre schools will remain open. Still, 50 other schools are on the chopping block. Forty-eight schools will close in June. Canter Elementary will get a one-year reprieve and Attucks Elementary will close at the end of...
by Josh Dwyer When Chicago Public Schools first announced that it was closing schools, the primary justification it gave was to save money – upward of $500,000 to $800,000 per school. It needed the money to address the looming pension cliff the city is facing next year. When people began questioning those numbers, CPS’s story...
By Brian Costin
04/29/2013
Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, districts are a controversial economic development tool – and there is no concrete evidence they actually work. In fact, a study from professors at the University of Chicago and Lake Forest College showed that Illinois communities with TIF districts “grew substantially slower than non-adopters.” By law, TIFs are intended to promote economic...
By Brian Costin
03/31/2013
WBEZ in Chicago has published one of the more incomplete stories on charter schools Ive read in a long time. It asserts: Charter advocates and even the Chicago Tribune editorial board say 19,000 kids are on charter school waiting lists in the city.
