55 Comments - Anonymous - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 5:37 am: According to the Sun-Times, the title of Topinka’s plan is “Higher Standards, Stronger Schools.” Governor Blagojevich’s plan in 2005 to increase graduation requirements was called “Higher Standards, Better Schools”: http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=4227 So apparently cracking down on plagiarism is not a big part of the Topinka education proposal. - Looking for an adult - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 6:03 am: Blago catches heat from the Springfield press corps and hides behind his little girl. Judy comes out with a thoughtful education plan and Nix hides behind kids with glasses and hearing aids. I’m seeing a theme here: “All Kids, as props, all the time.” - Paying for it? - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 6:52 am: Not a word in the release or on the website on this, but 8.2 billion in spending doesn’t get paid for by 3.7 billion in medicaid cuts. Tax increase? - Cassandra - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 7:08 am: Could the dreaded property tax swap be about to pop up again. Sigh. The idea behind the property tax swap seems to be that a significant number of gullible surburbanites will actually believe that their overall tax burden will decrease as a result of a property tax swap and that their schools will get more money. They don’t want to know that it is a Robin Hood scheme to take money out of the suburbs and give it to Chicago and Downstate schools. Chicago is a wealthy city which can easily fund its own schools and Downstaters don’t want to pay for their schools, they want somebody else to do it. I’m fine with an increase in school funding, but take the money out of our grossly overfunded state bureacracy, reduce the corruption tax we are paying in Illinois, cut the pork. There are so many ways to increase school funding without going after suburban and collar county money yet again. - Shallow Pharnyx - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 7:20 am: Paying for it? That’s $8.2 over 4 years. It would take into account current funding and the Medicaid savings. - Paying for it? - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 7:43 am: Isn’t 3.7 billion over 4 years too? That means one billion per year from current funding. What else has to get cut for that to happen? - DOWNSTATE - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:02 am: Hey this is more money than Meeks ask for does that mean he will support JBT? This is a plan and it is better than the borrow and spend that Blago has or selling off state assets.Can you believe istead of touting thier own plan Blago’s people come out with is a scare tactic using children and old people.This is some more of using Common Sense no one is going to do anything with these people.If Blago keeps going and when 88% of the budget goes to Medicaid then this group of people will lose their benefits. - doesn't buy Rod's bs - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:10 am: Pating for it? don’t you think you should take a look at not only what the current education budget it, but also all of the crap pork spending Rod has given out to all of his friends that could easily be cut? I’m sure you’ll find plenty there to start with…. any more brilliant questions you got from Sheila Nix? - Squideshi - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:14 am: Here are Rich Whitney’s positions on education: For a People’s Budget: Fiscal Responsibility, the Public Good and Fair Taxation Education and Budget Reform The 2007 Budget: A Call to serve the public good through fiscal responsibility and fair taxation Blagojevich Is Gambling on Your Child’s Education — Rich Whitney Is the Safer Bet! - Reddbyrd - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:17 am: Cards take Series 2-1! Act II of the Judy Bore’s Fuzzy Math Follies was even more embarrasing. The biggest number missing from the plan was how does she get to 71 and 36 ….the votes needed to sell bonds for school construction. I loooooked and Loooooked and did not see a word from VandaliaFrank or TomCross&The SockPuppets on how many votes the “plan” AND don’t work haters and handwringers the Ds will have more than their fair share when the time comes. Meanwhile anyone notice the “Common Sense Excuse” tour is drawing sitting Supreme Court Justices? from the Southern: “Following the stop in Mount Vernon the caravan hit Interstate 24 and traveled the 20 miles west to Nashville where they were greeted by an enthusiastic throng of supporters including state Sen. David Luechtefeld, Illinois Supreme Court Judge Lloyd Karmeier and Congressman John Shimkus. The group took a tour of the sprawling Norrenberns Truck Service before all six statewide candidates offered brief comments.” - Gus Frerotte's Clipboard - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:20 am: In addition to the titles, the contents of the plans seem pretty similar. Both focus on the foundation level, school construction, special education, preschool, teacher mentoring, and targeted relief for low-performing schools. There are some minor differences at the margins, but nothing that would matter to the general electorate, only to those who follow education politics very carefully. The real differences between this plan and Blagojevich’s are that (a) she hasn’t identified a revenue source, and (b) her dollar figures are all bigger, which makes sense. Blagojevich’s relationship with the teacher unions has had its down moments, but they haven’t written him off completely. If Topinka had come in with lower numbers than his, she would have a hard time getting their endorsement; clearly, however, she intends to make a serious run at their support. Whatever the Blagojevich campaign is saying today, at some point Topinka will have to announce her revenue idea. Presumably somebody will be turned off by that revenue idea. Then we’ll learn if Topinka’s calculus was correct. If she gets the teacher union endorsements, and the opposition to the revenue idea doesn’t hurt her too badly, then she wins. If she doesn’t get the teacher union endorsements, and/or the revenue idea faces as much critical heat as Blagojevich’s lottery plan, then she loses. - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:30 am: Hey, big spenders, your money grows on our trees. Money does not increase Education Value. All it does is prop up Education Costs. Judy B is pandering to Big Education, but she is not going to split the PTA/Teachers Unions vote, which will go as usual to the Democrats. Unfortunately, the school kids are the ones getting ground down. More of the Same is not going to get her elected. Competitive Choice is the only way to increase value — and it can be done without increasing costs. The “Edifice Complex” Construction Program is a mixed blessing Every new building increases operating and maintenance costs, and debt service for the local share. Love to know who her education guru is. - DOWNSTATE - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:33 am: After 4 years of Blago math and now all of a sudden Blago-dems want exact numbers.Give me a break. - Wumpus - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 8:35 am: Whoa, whoa, whoa, if it doesn’t involve selling the state lottery, I don’t want to hear it! Sadly, most people think more money=better education. It has more to do with families holding their children to high standards and making them go to school and study. until people get this understood, we will forever throw money out the window. It is like giving money to a drug addicted begger. He/she tells you thay they will buy food/ect, but you know they are going to waste it on more drugs. You feel bad and give it to them anyway. - zatoichi - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:00 am: I wish all these plans stopped using the emotional carrots of kids, elderly, and poor to hide their rationale behind. Throwing some self serving statements like “Our kids, our future” or “Now They Need Us” simply leaves the soundbite in people’s head, not the actual plan. Show how the plan will work, what it cost, and how it will be paid for. If money needs to be shifted to cover costs explain why that decision is needed and what happens to the place the money came from. Any business in the state does that exact same thing. State gov faces issues that most business never have to deal with. There still needs to be some ROI/profit so providers can be paid with real money. Tug at the heartstrings, but while you are tugging explain how the bucks will follow in a balanced budget based on earned cash not borrowing, bonds, or anything else that has to be repaid with interest. - Old Elephant - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:06 am: Ms. Nix has unwittingly framed the issue for Republicans. It’s simply a matter of priorities: Since government can’t do everything, choices have to be made. Blagojevich has chosen to provide cradle to grave healthcare including all the bells and whistles (contact lenses, braces, etc.) to everyone, regardless of income level. Topinka is suggesting that traditional government responsibilities, such as providing quality education and meeting our constitutional requirements to fund the pension system, should come first. I think most voters will buy Topinka’s approach. Others may disagree. Let the debate begin. - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:13 am: The Value of an Illinois school education SHOULD be a non-partisan subject. The Cost of said education must be examined in the light of that value. But when we see the State Agency responsible for setting Standards completing an unholy triple play Value comes into question for all of us. The ISBE just lowered the passing grade for certificarion for history/social science teachers. They might have widened the pool from which these teachers come, but that would have run afoul of the EdSchool hierarchy. Before that, they normed up the results of the ISAT and PSAT. That occurred after they dumbed down the tests themselves. We ask for and get better from our Agricultural Inspections, from our Fire Inspectors. It is the kids who get hurt — the ones that have to enable toe country to compete in the 21st Century world economy. It is the parents who get hurt, who are led to believe that the score results are a true measure of value. Scot free are the underperforming teacjers. - At The Fiscal Bottom - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:22 am: Blogo is certainly not one to talk about balancing anything….HELLO…Illinois is on the bottom in fiscal management. Not near the bottom, on the bottom!!! His administration is a good example of a bad example. Way to go JBT, good plan. Now fund the State Employees Pension, do something about energy tax credits for new energy saving businesses and we might have a winning way. Regarding kids and old folks, everyone cares about both but believe there are better ways to accomplish the goal. I hear the bus a’ coming, thump , thump, thump!!! - Lovie's Leather - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:41 am: “If kids are sick, if they don’t have their glasses, if they don’t have hearing health, they can’t learn,” said Blagojevich campaign spokeswoman Sheila Nix. Bull crap. This governor has taken so much money away from the higher education system and put it into welfare. He takes the tools that people use to better themselves and tries to hand out free money. Hey, maybe you should keep the funding in college, and then these kids can go to college, and one day they can afford their own health care! Idiot… read that and let it be known that Blago is all show and no govern! Try to take a big issue and pander, pander, pander instead of getting the state’s house in order. Try being governor sometime…. What a joke!!! Topinka’s plan looks alright. But she’ll still need to cut spending from somewhere else to keep a balanced budget without raising taxes. - steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:56 am: I think the key to all this will be “where does the money come from, and can it be sustained”? I really don’t have any problems in general with the governor’s education proposal, except how he intends to pay for it. He proposes selling an asset (lottery) and spending that money over four years to greatly increase education funding. When the bottom fell out at the end of four years, it would be someone else’s problem to figure out how to replace the now-spent one time revenues. I reiterate, you get in serious trouble when you increase base spending using one time revenues. Use one time revenues to cover one time expenses, such as construction. I want to see how JBT intends to pay for this (tax increase?) and whether it provides the now committed revenues on an ongoing basis, or just short term. As to school construction, passing construction programs isn’t usually rocket science. Legislators like the jobs it creates and the physical evidence of the state doing something important with taxpayers’ dollars. A governor’s failure to pass one is fairly unique in the state’s recent fiscal history. My recollection is that before the current administration we passed one in 10 of the preceding 12 years. Now we haven’t passed one for three straight years. Many will say that it’s the legislature’s fault, but in fact governors have always had to satisfy all four caucuses demands, because we haven’t had partisan super-majorities in either house in years. - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:29 am: Steve – Building is one thing. Stuffing a huge project down the craw of Jersey County after they defeated in in a referendum which was not even close is another. The Grant program enabled the local School Board to build it anyway using the local share as non referendum fire and safety Bonds. It is in the courts now. - Dozer - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:37 am: I wonder who will endorse this plan? Blago has Meeks, will a credible person step up to the plate and put a blessing on this that Blago will have a hard time tearing down? dozer - 4% - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:45 am: Anon 5:37 Easy on the plagiarism charge. The Gov’s plan to increase core classes required for graduation was lifted directly from many House GOP bills filed in the mid 90s. - Bill - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:45 am: Steve’s last sentence contains the key to the solution of many of the problems facing the state of Illinois today. If the Dems can pick up just a few seats in both houses, the obstructionist tactics of the GA Repubs will be foiled. There are several solutions to many of the state’s fiscal dilemnas not the least of which is a comprehensive pension obligation bonding program in conjunction with a capitol development bonding program. While this could have been more lucrative in years past, there is still time to make this the cornerstone of a long term fiscal plan. Natural revenue growth is a component and it is interesting that when Judy suggests it, there is no derision from the Fox news set, however when the Governor mentions it, it is “fuzzy math” or “Blago math”, etc.. The truth is that there is not enough revenue to pay for Judy’s plans anywhere in the state budget without cutting services everywhere or raising taxes. With all due respect to Schnorf, a one time revenue source is better than no revenue source, which is what we see in Judy’s alledged plan. This state needs a Democratic super majority so that the progressive agenda advanced during the Governor’s first term can continue and so that we can continue to adequately fund the state services that all polls indicate that Illinois citizens want and need….Health care, educaton, and public safety. Our state is headed in the right direction and we need to replace those legislators who let partisian politics take priority over the needs of their constituents. - 4% - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:47 am: We can’t wait for the much “rumored” Governor’s task force on education that will be headed by Meeks. Just what we need - another task force. Also - if it true that part of the Gov’s pledge to Meeks was to choose a south suburban superintendent to be named the new State Superintendent….another buyoff? Can’t wait for these sterling announcements in the coming days. - Bill - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 10:55 am: And since you asked….blaming teachers, state employees,students,parents,children and whoever else you can think of for the problems caused by 27 years of republican mismanagement is an old song which isn’t selling anymore. Place the blame where it belongs and not at the feet of the current governor who has done a decent job of cleaning up the repub mess. This will all be over in about 75 days and then we can continue to do the peoples work. - Reddbyrd - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:08 am: Downstate: The simple reason why Judy Bore should be specific and dump the Fuzzy Math Follies is that she wants everyone in the land to believe she is different than GRod. Each step/misstep she takes confirms AccordionGal is the same. Therefore there is no reason to make a change. - Gus Frerotte's Clipboard - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:10 am: 4%, the graduation requirements issue was clearly not new, but the House GOP provided the main opposition when Governor Blagojevich tried to push it. They were attacking it for several weeks as an unfunded mandate. Ultimately they came around and most of them voted for it. In any event, Governor Blagojevich actually got it done, which the House Republicans never did. Many of the ideas in both plans are pretty obvious (was anybody really going to put out an education plan without calling for school construction?), but that seems different than lifting the title of a Blagojevich plan that was only a year old. - Common Sense in Illinois - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:21 am: Couple of thoughts here. First, the Governor’s campaign response is emotional and hyper…can an accusation that JBT plans to take the shoes and coats from our children be far behind? Second, Steve is right to ask about a tax increase, and we’ve been pretty luck to ride a 3% individual state income tax rate all these years…maybe it is time to consider it if we can’t or don’t want to cut enough spending. Third, and again with kudos to Steve, one time receipts for sustained spending was foolhardy when the administration first used it, and win or lose, Illinois taxpayers are going to pay for it in the end. - Frustrated GOP - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:30 am: Wow, a plan, not a press release, not a bunch of stuff from previous press release put togther hap- hazzard, but something with structrue and thought. Thanks JBT, maybe we can now have a debate. Oh, sorry, I forgot Rod doesn’t debate. Oh well. - HANKSTER - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:37 am: I like the focus on education but how is she going to pay for this? She said she can cut $3.7b from Medicare and this plan costs an additional $8.2b. IF that actually happened, where/is the difference made up? Does anyone know the details on this? - steve schnorf - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 12:08 pm: She says the revenue details are coming. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s sell the tollway rather than the lottery, it’s doa, but I’m willing to wait a week or so to see. That will let us know where both candidates stand by Labor Day, which is soon enough. I’m interested in the IEA/IFT/school boards and administrators reaction to the plan itself, and then to the funding. - Bill - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 12:23 pm: Frustrated, Yep, it is a plan all right. The only thing that is missing is the funding. It is kinda like a kid looking through the Macy’s catalog at Xmas. I suppose Judy could get the unions’ support if she advocates a Netsch tax swap but that would just about do it for the few Repub supporters she has left. She can’t win on this. She should have kept her mouth shut. As far as debates are concerned, if you have ever heard both of them speak you know that the last thing Judy should want is a debate…especially if it is held in a no smoking venue. Rod will kill her. - DOWNSTATE - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 12:45 pm: HOMERUN FOR JBT.Look at all the free press she is getting plus the answer from the Gov’s office about kids and old women showed voters what a bunch of morons this group really is. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 1:25 pm: Topinka is expected to release her budget plan in a week or so. Then we’ll know how she plans to pay for it. At the press conference yesterday, she told reporters it would be a combination of natural revenue growth, spending cuts in other areas, and a new revenue stream. She made it pretty clear it wouldn’t be a tax increase. She made it equally clear that it would be sustainable, and my bet is, the numbers do add up. She is the Treasurer. As for Blagojevich’s lottery proposal, according to a report by the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, not only does the botton fall out in for years, but it shortchanges schools by $2.1 billion over the life of the proposal. During the last year of the Blagojevich proposal, schools would get $480 million less than if the state still ran the lottery. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 1:29 pm: Here is a small clue: Blago is hiding the money http://www.cato.org/view_ddispatch.php?viewdate=20060821#3 “…”For the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, the vast majority of states reported saving an average of 10 percent of their budgets, one of the highest percentages of unspent money in decades,” The Washington Post reports. “The $57 billion in unexpected revenue has afforded states an opportunity to find all sorts of creative ways to spend and save their cash, according to a report released this week by the National Conference of State Legislators.” I say again…that money growing comes from our trees. The governments do not grow money — the Feds print it, the remainder spend it. All extract it from my pocket and yours. - Little Egypt - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 1:35 pm: OK, so with GoverNOT Hairdo, we have healthy kids who get glasses and hearing aids if they need them and free preschool. The kids now get to go to school in a crowded classroom, in a school ready to fall down that has a very outdated heating system, poor lighting and perhaps a ceiling fan or two but no A/C, using 15 year old textbooks, taught by underpaid teachers who because of the No Child Left Behind can’t teach the 3 R’s anymore but instead have to teach the kids to take the tests. The kids are driven to and from school in buses that are old and in need of repair but these old buses don’t have to go on road trips anymore because the school, in trying to make ends meet, has cut a lot of extra curricular activities. Unless you happen to be fortunate enough to live in Naperville. Then it’s an entirely different situation. Blogo, do your constituents a favor and without a bunch of press following you and no press releases, sneak into some of the more rural schools in this state and see how well your education plan is working. You get no atta boy from me for visiting schools in the larger cities. And you get no atta boy if you cannot do this unselfishly without a huge entourage following you to make a campaign commercial out of your visits. For once in your life, do something to better educate the kids in this state and do it for the right reasons - not for your own personal political gain. - Southern Ilinois Democrat - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 2:15 pm: Cassandra, I really enjoyed your comment. Chicago is a wealthy city which can easily fund its own schools and Downstaters don’t want to pay for their schools, they want somebody else to do it. As a downstater, who also happens to be a school board member, I resent the comment. We do want to support the schools but the property taxes are high already. Free and reduced lunches are provided to 75% of the students, nearly 25% of the kids that start the school year are not there to finish becuase they move, and farm valuation keeps decreasing which affects the amount of local dollars available. Of course, unless you lived in a poor rural area you would not know that and it’s always easier to make false claims. The saying walk a mile in my shoes applies here. Also, isnt it the Republicans from the suburbs that keep the income tax/ property tax swap bottled up? Maybe the suburbnites are to blame and not Chicago and downstate. - Reddbyrd - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 2:36 pm: The following from the Kaiser website seems to show how Judy Bore & the Fuzzy Math Follies plan to get the $$$ …overbill $600 million, pay 200 million after the G catches you and bingo you got 400 million to spread around Nifty plan: ” The New York Times on Sunday examined allegations that not-for-profit New Jersey-based St. Barnabas Health Care System overcharged the federal government by hundreds of millions of dollars by “systematically inflating the bills” under the Medicare outlier payment system (Kocieniewski, New York Times, 8/20). In 2002, three whistleblowers filed two federal lawsuits over allegations that St. Barnabas, between October 1995 and August 2003, inflated bills for room and board and other overhead services for tens of thousands of inpatients and outpatients under the Medicare outlier payment system, which allows hospitals to receive higher reimbursements for patients who have high costs because of serious illnesses (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 6/16). The federal government later that year began an investigation of the allegations. In June, St. Barnabas agreed to pay the federal government $265 million to settle the allegations but did not admit any wrongdoing. According to the Department of Justice, St. Barnabas overcharged Medicare by at least $630 million between 1995 and 2003. “ - Confused Republican - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 2:45 pm: Downstate….Do you work for Topinka? Always with the homerun for JBT. She couldn’t hit a homerun if you were pitching to her underhanded. Lots of smoke and mirrors and no facts. Anyone can say they will drop a ton into education. We have heard it through numerous administrations and seen little. The state is broke…do you get it? Broke. The plan needs to be to STOP wasteful spending, find a solution to the employment issues, find a solution to stop the business and professional people from leaving Illinois. Show the party loyal those figures and solutions on paper. Show us the data. Enough of the redundant rhetoric. We are covered with it. Homerun….you have never been to a ballgame much less witnessed a homerun. - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 2:45 pm: Reddbyrd I tried to find some connection between the Kaiser report you cited and JudyB. I must have missed something. I may be a few bricks short of a hod, but that doesn’t build my house. - DOWNSTATE - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 2:53 pm: confused repub she has people like you and the press talking so that is a HOMERUN when you are down on cash.Maybe you need to change your name to unconfused democrat.Oh I live near St. Louis and I go to the games about 6 times a year. - Bill - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 3:55 pm: Downstate, I think he was talking about MAJOR (american) League baseball. - DOWNSTATE - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 4:12 pm: Bill what is the Cardinals? - Arthur Andersen - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 4:20 pm: Seems to me we can give the lady a week to provide her numbers. We’ve certainly given Blago & Co. that much time to get their story straight over the past few years. And BTW, is it just old AA, or did anyone else notice that “Bill” went away while Becky Carroll and Filan were on vacation and returned when they did? - YNM - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 5:12 pm: Wumpus … seriously, you really think that analogy is fair? JBT, remember, refused to sign the “no-new-taxes” pledge and I’m proud of her for being willing to go against the party line on that one … like it or not, this may very well require a tax increase and a change in the way schools are funded … and it’s about time. I happen to believe that funding is a piece of the puzzle needed to improve education … I’d welcome some sort of tax swap (which would obviously include a tax incrase) … something like the one that many of the suburban legislators are fighting against, and I’m a Republican! - YNM - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 5:14 pm: Oh, and I’m also one of those “Scot free…underperforming teachers” that TruthfulJames refers to … we’re all evil and all we want is more money and less work because of the evil teacher unions we belong to … - B Hicks - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 5:24 pm: Hey Art, I’m just curious, what’s it matter? Maybe Bill is just some regular dude. Or maybe he is Rod, Bradley, Lon, Carroll, or perhaps Filan, like you suspect. I’d be willing to bet that Judy, Nancy, Roger, Matt, Butch, and several others monitor and post here. So, again, what’s it matter? - Truthful James - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 6:01 pm: YNM – I do not believe that you aligned yourself with the underperforming teachers — unless it was from a sense of union solidarity. But let’s face facts. You may want to refer to — and most likely have not seen — the following 2004 study, written by the President’s Advisory Commission on Science and Technology “Sustaining the Nation’s Innovation Ecosystem”, available on the web. http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/FINALPCASTSECAPABILITIESPACKAGE.pdf It highlights the shoddy performance of U.S. schools. For instance, the Advanced Placement Courses in Physics and Science rank – internationally – at the absolute bottom. That’s in comparison to both the nations of Western Europe and Japan and the emerging countries of China, India and South Korea. Your union refuses periodic subject matter competency. Why is that? Proficiency in Math and science, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2000, drops after the fourth grade. Why is that? Nearly very teacher’s contract offers periodic raises in pay for additional quarters in Graduate Education. None specify graduate courses in the subject you are teaching. Why is that? I have seen and tacken for fun the sample basic Test for Certification to teach in history/social studies as well as Math. Unless Education quality has dropped your basic high school graduate should be able to qualify to teach. Why is that? And as for underpaid, have you checked the average pay for instructors with five and ten years’ experience. The unions are no more than industrial unions in a closed shop a la the CIO in the 1940s instead of a professiona craft union. Here I thought Closed Shops were illegal. My Bad. Underpaid? With the three year end of career bonuses taken out of the hide of of the school budgets so that you can take a larger bite out of the Pension Fund, I think not. The Average teacher’s salary in Illinois is $54K plus. The median for the United States is $42K. No teacher is evil (as far as I know). Under our system, teachers are only exercising their influence to maximize their salaries. This is a normal, Capitalist activity. I can’t fault you there. But when new teachers contracts are approved and ballyhooed to increase salaries only 4% — why do the next year’s budgets show an 8% increase in teachers costs? And your too, Little Egypt, citing unperpaid for jobs from which you can not be fired except for the most egregious of behaviour. It costs districts in excess of $220K to rid themselves of a known incompetent. - So Blue Democrat - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 7:25 pm: This administration should be called “False Hopes”. What about the letter that the Governor’s Office sent to seniors that stated that they could have jobs that do not exist? Where did he receive the mailing list? Was he using client lists from some state agency? - Arthur Andersen - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 9:06 pm: Well, B. if “Bill” is a regular guy, we’ll just let “him” stand up for “himself.” As you say, what’s it matter? Some of us use these cute nom de plumes, or nicknames, because we would have work-related issues if we used our own names. If Bill is just a regular guy, like us, no biggie. To use his old phrase, bring it on. If “he” is a Blagoite in disguise, shame on him if for nothing else than being Captain Obvious. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Aug 21, 06 @ 11:33 pm: Go see the rest of the story. - Bill - Tuesday, Aug 22, 06 @ 7:22 am: Thanks Bobbie! Art, As much as I admire Becky and Filan and appreciate your compliments, I’m just a regular guy who realizes that the Blagojevich administration is the best thing to happen to Illinois in my lifetime. Becky, Sheila, and Abbey do a great job under sometimes trying and stressful circumstances. I don’t have the same pre-occupation with gender issues that you apparently do and Bill is my real name. My guess is that Arthur Anderson is not yours however it is obvious that you admire the disreputable, discredited, Republican,accounting firm that brought us enron and other debacles. We are fortunate in Illinois to have dedicated public servants in the Governor’s administration who put the peoples interests ahead of their own net worth. - Wumpus - Tuesday, Aug 22, 06 @ 10:54 am: It was so smart for Rod to get out earl defining her. I just realized that I was demanding details all summer and it was only June! Is this the normal time that these plans come out? Rod has had plans, even though they’d never work, he had a plan for schools. I think Sista Judy has weathered the storm and will make a race out of this. - Arthur Andersen - Tuesday, Aug 22, 06 @ 10:28 pm: Bill, after reading your recent posts, I will move on and spar with you as just a regular guy, though I do have some lingering doubts. The phrase “My guess is Arthur Andersen is not your real name” did strike me as something that could have come right from the hand of Blago himself, but, we’re moving on. I think we do agree on one thing-we are fortunate to have many dedicated public servants in the Governor’s administration. Let me tell you, Bill- they were all here when he got here, and most of them will still be here when he goes away. Many of them have had enough of “reform & renewal” and are taking their stories to the U.S. Attorney so that the government of our great state and its dedicated employees don’t suffer the same fate as the thousands of employees of another great Illinois firm with a proud tradition. One that traded its integrity for short-term revenue maximization and creative accounting tricks. That’s right, Arthur Andersen. HOMERUN that, Bill. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.