Even as CPS opens more new schools, children with special needs have a tougher time finding options. Placements in private therapeutic schools are scarce, and some charters are reluctant to enroll them.
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In the News: CPS pays millions for unused time off
By: Cassandra West / February 03, 2012
Cash-strapped though it is, Chicago Public Schools spends tens of millions of dollars annually to departing employees for unused time off, the Sun-Times reports.
Since 2006, the district paid a total $265 million to employees for unused sick and vacation days, according to an analysis of payroll and benefit data obtained by the Better Government Association under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. Beneficiaries included former schools CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. Secretary of Education, who received $50,297 for unused vacation time when he left in January 2009, according to the data.
During February's installment of WBEZ's "Schools on the Line," Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard fielded questions from parents, teachers and students about the longer school day, paid protesters, and just when school might begin next fall. Brizard gave his most extensive comments to date regarding media reports of protesters who say they were paid by pastors to attend hearings on school closings.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has named veteran higher education executive Paula Wolff board chairman of Chicago City Colleges. (Sun-Times)
IN THE STATE
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty senate passed a resolution Monday stating that university President Michael Hogan "tolerated and participated in" a "culture of leaked documents, suspicion and intimidation" to undermine and manipulate faculty input. (Tribune)
IN THE NATION
The flow of venture capital into the K-12 education market has exploded over the past year, reaching its highest transaction values in a decade in 2011, industry observers say. They attribute that rise to such factors as a heightened interest in educational technology; the decreasing cost of electronic devices such as tablet computers, laptops, netbooks, and mobile devices; and the movement toward standardization of curriculum through the Common Core State Standards. (Education Week)
Ellen DeGeneres just hosted on her television show a teacher from a Pennsylvania public school district that ran out of money — prompting unionized teachers to vote to work without pay — and handed her a $100,000 check for her school. (The Washington Post)
The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating a complaint that Harvard and Princeton universities discriminates against Asian-Americans, according to a report filed Thursday by veteran higher-ed reporter Daniel Golden at Bloomberg. (The Washington Post)
I have a question for the
I have a question for the teachers who voted for the longer school day. How do you feel about CPS trying to take away your sick days?
How About Reporting Instead of Demagoging?
The SunTimes is so ridiculous with its 4-inch-high headline about the payout of unused sick days at CPS. Not even the most incendiary gossip rag uses those tactics. To this point in time, unused sick day payouts are legally negotiated benefits. If the city wants to stop the practice, put it on the table for the next contract. Quit acting like teachers gained their benefits at the point of a gun. Weak-willed, my-career-first politicians in Chicago agreed to everything in every CTU contract. They had no moral fortitude to stand up for what they considered right. Now they whine and whimper about how unfair they were treated by a bunch of elementary school teachers. Let's hope these politicians never have to put themselves on the line for the safety of the public.
No Pay For Unused Sick Days
CPS has put it on the table. CPS has put in the new 35 page contract, no pay for sick days that are not used!
Only one side of the story
The news today about sick day payouts only tell one side of the story. Let's start with those paid maternity leaves teachers get - oh, wait, in a profession of mostly women, they DON'T ! Sick days are the only paid time off new moms get. OK , let's talk about those excessive vacation days teachers get - oh, wait , no matter how many years you work, CPS teachers only get 2 weeks paid vacation , EVER. And they can't choose to work those overly generous 10 days of vacation because there are no kids in the schools during Xmas or Spring break ! THEN this must be about all that paid time off in the summers - oh, wait, that money is deferred from the teachers' own earnings and then paid back to them in the summer , without interest, by the way.
So, teachers save their sick days for maternity leaves, illnesses, to take care of their sick kids or elderly parents, and there's something wrong with that ? ALL of the huge payouts listed in the paper were for ADMINISTRATORS, not teachers. Teachers who didn't miss days in front of their classes, teachers who didn't want their students to have a substitute , teachers who showed up at CPS schools when they were the only ones open on snow days every other district cancelled. Yeah, those teachers !
Contract
Lets face it...CPS call the suntimes and trib to act like it was invesitigative journalism....but they are really just calling to print this stuff to p off the public so we get less and less in our contract!!!!!!!!!!
The Press is Complicit in Mispresenting Reality
Contrary to the narrative that CPS likes to see the press regurgitate over and over, teachers don't stand in front of 35 kids contemplating how they can abscond with public funds. They're teaching every minute.At the end of 2 weeks a check is handed to them that may or may not be correct (why doesn't some reporter investigate how many payroll mistakes are made by CPS and how long it takes to get them corrected). Teachers may or may not glance at the unused sick days that start to accumulate after the first year (unless he got the mumps the first year from a kid and used up all his days before June!). Not one teacher sits down to figure out how he/she can turn those sick days back to the Board in true missionary fashion. I guarantee you that it would be an IMPOSSIBLE task to accomplish because the bureaucracy of the Board is set in stone. But legislators will keep feeding their enabling press partners the notion that teachers should give back salary and benefits because it's the Yankee Doodle way.
media and the reality of education in Chicago
Continually Outraged is not correct that the media misrepresents reality in relation to many of the pictures being painted of unionized teachers, it presents a picture of teachers that is very much one sided. It is focusing on how different the over all benefit packages are for public sector unionized workers than it is for the vast majority of the non-unionized private sector workers in our country. That is without question real, and it easily breeds resentment among many people who are earning far less than teachers do with minimal benefits.
The fact that public sector workers have their salaries paid by taxes on the vast majority who earn less than the average teacher in Chicago adds fuel to the fire. The fact that in Illinois, because of our flat income tax, the earnings of our most wealthy and our poorest taxpayers are paid at the same rate does not generally sink into the minds of people just eking out a living. The fact that our property tax system in Cook County is so complex, and such a high percentage of these taxes goes to fund education, again stokes the flames.
Another factor in all of this is that journalists have experienced a dramatic and significant decline in their salaries and benefits in the Chicago area over the last ten years. Some are just as bitter over this as workers who on average make far less than full time journalists do. The subtext to Mayor Emanuel’s campaign for Mayor was that the public sector in Chicago had become too much of a burden for the average citizen and something had to be done about it. That is why he got almost no support from public sector unions in the election and Mr. Chico got the support he did. While the vast majority of citizens who voted for our Mayor probably did not grasp how far Mr. Emanuel’s pledge to curb public sector costs would go, they clearly did vote to contain these costs.
Public sector unions in Illinois are in the process of being crushed via a more controlled manner than has happened in Wisconsin. The truth be told in Wisconsin about 39% of unionized households, especially unionized construction trade union household, voted for Governor Walker. Right now about 45% of the electorate in Wisconsin support the Governor and what he did to public sector unions, 45% are opposed, with 10% sitting on the fence. Mayor Emanuel poll numbers appear to still be strong and his position against the CTU is still a winner.
Rod Estvan
Reality of Education in Chicago is a Farce
The press has for quite a number of years now erased the lines that separate objective reporting from opinion pieces. Any time the press represents only one side of a story, or represents their own bitter feelings about the state of their industry on any page but the opinion page they are misrepresenting reality.
It is no secret that union teachers are out of favor with the public. This is true partly because of the state of the economy, but in larger part due to the nonstop bludgeoning of teachers in general, and union teachers in particular, by a non-objective press. Their campaign has given the public a ready-made target on which to focus its frustration.
If the press published stories on a daily basis that detailed the behavior of self-serving legislators over the last fifty years who made deals for which they had no money or used teacher pension money for other purposes, there might be a little balance in the public perception. If the press used double-page spreads every day to document the ridiculous spending by Illinois legislators, there might be a little balance in the public perception.
While we might just be at loggerheads over semantics, I don’t give the press in Chicago a pass.
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