Latest News and Comment from Education

Monday, September 30, 2013

9-30-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:





A federal government shut-down means nothing to the jerks who run the Illinois teacher retirement health insurance program.
Bev Johns sent me this remarkable letter from CMS, the management firm that runs the Teacher Retirement Insurance Program (TRIP). Letter, 4 pages printed on both sides of two legal size pieces of paper, is from CMS and HMS Employer Solutions in Jeffersonville, Indiana. “FAILURE TO RESPOND TO THIS VERIFICATION LETTER WILL RESULT IN THE REMOVAL OF YOUR DEPENDENT(S) FROM THE TEACHERS’ RETIREMENT INSU


There is nothing shared about this sacrifice.
We are coming down to another time of crunch when it comes to Illinois pensions. There are likely to possibilities. SB2404 is deader than Walter White in the final episode of Breaking Bad. The Gang of Ten will reach some agreement and if it, as Representative Elaine Nekritz suggests, it calls for reducing cost of living increases to retired state workers, then the unions will go to court proving



Illinois retiree health insurance. One day and counting.
On October 1, Medicare eligible teacher retirees are supposed to know what their options are for purchasing supplemental health insurance. Oh. You thought retired teachers in Illinois didn’t pay for supplemental health insurance. You were told it was free. Wrong. Central Management Services (CMS) has promised to release the options available to retirees tomorrow. What we choose will become effect



Nekrtiz says Gang is “close” to a plan to violate the constitution’s pension protection clause, cutting nothing from the billion dollar unfunded pension liability.
Illinois House-Speaker-in-Waiting, Elaine Nekritz says the Gang of Ten pension committee is thisclose to coming up with a plan to cut cost of living adjustments to public employee retirees. “We’re close enough where I think that there’s a definite possibility we could take action in veto session,” Nekritz said of the scheduled Oct. 22 return of the General Assembly. “We have a few, what I would ca

The NY Times wants to refight the Sixties?
You’ve heard the old joke. If you say you remember the Sixties, you weren’t there. Funny. But not true. I was there. And I remember it. At sixty-five I sometimes forget where I put the keys. Or where I left Ulysses. But the Sixties? I remember it vividly. Bill Keller, columnist and former editor of the New York Times, writes that the Tea Party crazies are the SDS of the Republican Party. What’s


9-29-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Sunday reads.Nine things you should never say to a teacher. North Carolina teachers are going to walk out over pay freezes. Seymour Hersh says U.S. investigative journalism is pathetic. Never more true than in Chicago. U.K. teachers and postal workers will strike this week. Principal Marian Strok said