Think About the Children and Not Your Pension

I was dismayed this morning to wake up and read the news about the teachers striking in Chicago. I decided to dig deeper into the situation and find out what they were angry about and what was so damn important that they felt the need to walk out of the classrooms at the expensive of the children's education. Must be something pretty important...monumentally important....right? WRONG!!! Here are the issues at hand.

• FINANCES: To cover the $665 million dollar deficit in the budget which began in July, the district was forced to drain its financial reserves and raise property taxes to the highest levels allowed under the law. The Unions did not seem to have a problem with the impact of these steps to close the deficit. The problem arose because of a plan to reform the teacher's pension plans which are underfunded by 80 BILLION DOLLARS!!! But asking the teachers to contribute 3% more into their pensions is apparently too much to ask. Even though they are among the highest paid teachers in the country making about $70,000 per year...which brings us to the next issue. 
• SALARIES: Because of the budget crisis, the district decided to reduce the 4% salary increase due this year for teachers to 2%...but last week raised it back to 3% during negotiations and also agreed to 16% in salary increases over the next 4 years. Apparently not good enough, even though the teachers in Illinois are the second highest paid teachers in the country. The teachers feel they are over worked and under paid. Higher wages are what they feel compensates them for the over crowding of the classrooms...which brings us to the next issue.
• CLASS SIZE: On this issue, I actually agree with the Unions. Class sizes are too big... But how do we fix this??? By paying teachers more??? NO!! You fix this by hiring more teachers...which raising current teacher's salaries makes impossible to do since the district is already broke. The Unions are mad that the district is closing down schools which will increase class sizes even more...and again, I agree with the Unions that closing schools down will be a disaster for the school system in Chicago...But again...How do we fix this??? By paying teachers more??? NO!!! The schools are closing because the district is broke.
• SCHOOL HOURS: To me, this is the most self indulgent issue of this entire sad ordeal. When Mayor Emanuel took office in 2011, Chicago was the only one of 30 major city school districts where elementary school students received less than 1,000 hours of instruction a year, and he vowed to implement a longer school day. He and the union agreed before schools opened this month to extend the school day by about 90 minutes. The deal calls for hiring about 500 more teachers from union members laid off previously at a cost of $50 million, rather than making existing teachers work longer hours. The hiring of those teachers has become an issue in the talks as the union wants them hired based on seniority and Emanuel wants school principals to make the decisions. Because Unions think a principal should NOT be able to decide who is the best available teacher for their school and instead the schools should be forced to choose a teacher based solely on seniority, they rejected the prior proposal which was going to bring in more teachers and help with class sizes which is one of the chief complaints. Go figure.
• STANDARDIZED TESTS: The last main component of the Union's decision to strike is that they feel that teacher's should not be assessed based on their student's test scores. I'm back and forth on the standardized test issue. I'm not a fan of George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policies as I feel that it makes the teachers teach like robots going down a check list of government mandated curriculum. I don't think that is the best way to teach children. However, it seems that no matter what the mechanism is to evaluate teachers...the Unions are opposed to it. I ask the question: How should they be judged if not on test scores? Some teachers will argue that city schools can't compete with more rural schools because of crime and living conditions of the children in their districts (sadly, they have a point) However, if every teacher is held accountable by the same standards based on test scores of similar districts, then I believe its quite easy to weed out the good teachers from the bad.

 

 

 



The fact is that Unions have over promised to their members on the backs of taxpayers. These pensions can simply not be paid over the long term. Its a scam!!! With each wave of retirees it takes more and more employees to cover the costs and time has run out. There are too many retirees and too few employees to pay for it. You can argue over who is to blame...but the fact remains that pension reform is necessary in order to help prevent budget shortfalls. I personally don't believe that Unions have any place in the public sector...but that's my opinion which I'm sure many disagree with. However, its a proven fact that pensions are bankrupting cities all over this country...that is not up for debate. I wonder why Unions are so against cutting benefits for their members...why are they so against pay freezes or cuts even when its in the best intrest of the city? Because a pay cut for one of their members is a pay cut for them...That's why. Unions have become corrupt over the years...and power hungry. The fact is that Unions are losing their power little by little every year (more so in the private sector than public). A power that would appear they are unwilling to relinquish without a fight.

There's not much on which I agree with FDR...but on this one...he was absolutely right! SCHOOL CHOICE!!! SCHOOL CHOICE!!! SCHOOL CHOICE!!! SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!SCHOOL CHOICE!!!