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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

4-1-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher

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



Vote for Fred #19


CTU. Outrage at Rahm’s pension proposal.
Dear Fred, In carefully examining the pension “deal” put forth recently by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, we have found that the plan does not, in any way, solve Chicago’s pension problem. As we have said many times before, over and over and over again: This is a revenue problem. Our members are rightfully enraged, as the cuts that the mayor is proposing are just more of the same—more of the same burden bein


Ten minute drawing. Not an April Fool’s Day joke.

More on Rahm’s pension deal.
I posted earlier today about Rahm’s claim he had a city pension deal. He claimed a few days ago through the Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman that a pension deal with the CTU was “hours away.” The CTU quickly shut that nonsense down. Back before the elections Senate President John Cullerton declared that passing a bill cutting city pensions was job one when the General Assembly got back in session


Mark Stefanik. I’m sorry.
- Mark Stefanik is a middle school Language Arts teacher and frequent contributor to this blog. I am so sorry for all of the name-calling that I’ve promoted and enjoyed on this blog site. I regret surrendering to my wicked Irish tongue. In the future, I will write to collaborate, not excoriate. I have learned a fundamental truth: elected representation, whether union leadership or statehouse memb


Rahm is not waiting for the courts to decide. He announces an unconstitutional agreement.
When I spoke with my State Senator Iris Martinez last November about her vote on pension theft, her answer was a strange one. “I’m against the bill, but I’m voting for it. We should let the courts decide.” Senate Bill 1 passed. Unions and organizations representing the state’s public employees and retirees have filed suit. Those suits have all be consolidated and will be heard in Sangamon County
Conventional wisdom is often not wisdom at all when it comes to retired and active teachers.
SORE members hold a soup kitchen and serve half a cola outside Representative Robyn Gabel’s Evanston office. Our chapter of IEA Retired, the Skokie Organization of Retired Educators, met over lunch yesterday with Will Lovett from IEA Government Relations. Among other things, Will is our IEA Springfield pension lobbyist. It was a full room at Ruby Tuesdays, down the street from Old Orchard Mall -


3-31-14 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: Standardized testing? “We’re out.”1 by Fred Klonsky / 1h hide  //  saveWeingarten Rights. Our Miss Brooks never got in trouble with the principal or central office administrators.. For all the many years that I was Grievance Chair, union local Vice President and President I always made a big thing abo