Family Taxpayers Foundation

Focus on Illinois Schools

Are school board associations sabotaging education reform?

A provision in Illinois’ 2011 education reform law requires all newly elected school board members to receive training “in areas including education, labor law (and) financial oversight,” reports EdWeek.org. Is that a smart new reform that will ensure better school governance? Or is it a clever way for teacher unions and their allies to teach [...]

Plan to cut regional school chiefs advances

A House committee unanimously endorsed a plan Tuesday to cut the number of regional school superintendents in an attempt to slash spending on the state’s education bureaucracy. Under a plan heading for a vote in the full House, the number of regional offices of education would be reduced to 35, down from a current 44, [...]

Citizens’ Group charges Geneva SD 304 with ‘Enrollmentgate’

A Geneva School District 304 resident Monday questioned how enrollment figures given in the 2007 referendum were inflated. Sandra Ellis said she questioned how the enrollment projection could be so inflated, even beyond the district’s own consultant’s highest projection. That consultant had projected increased enrollment from 2006-2012 at 345 students. Yet school officials in 2007 [...]

Momentum for School Choice (except in Illinois)

Many states have opened their public schools to competition. Indiana has set up an expansive voucher program that covers students in families that have incomes below $61,000 a year. Wisconsin has expanded school choice programs in Milwaukee and Racine. Ohio will give tuition vouchers to as many as 60,000 students by 2013. Under Louisiana’s ambitious [...]

Emanuel urges Illinois lawmakers to take on pension reform

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel visited the state Capitol on Tuesday and testified about his proposal to cut pension costs. He wants to raise the retirement age, make city employees contribute more to their pension funds and halt cost-of-living increases for retirees. He also wants the state to contribute pension money for Chicago teachers, as it [...]

Education News, Policies & Opinions

Bullying Teachers

Teachers unions have engaged in aggressive behavior towards dissenting teachers and competing organizations for decades, according to this report from the Heartland Institute. The idea is to coerce teachers into quietly accepting union membership and keep competitors at a safe distance. Thus far their tactics have been frighteningly successful. The unions have been able to [...]

Slaves to the Government Class

The government class plays by a different set of rules, dictated by unions and implemented by the politicians they help elect. Their income is not determined by job performance, but by how many years they’ve managed to stick around. They will retire at an earlier age and with a pension providing a guaranteed income, something fewer than [...]

Education and Activism – A Fine Line

OK. Raise your hand if you believe wholeheartedly that public school teachers are employed by taxpayers to educate students in the academic subjects required for high school graduation — and not to feed students their personal political or social-issue opinions and encourage protests. The problem is that it can be tough to spot a difference [...]

Education is the Key to a Healthy Economy

In addressing our current fiscal and economic woes, too often we neglect a key ingredient of our nation’s economic future—the human capital produced by our K-12 school system. An improved education system would lead to a dramatically different future for the U.S., because educational outcomes strongly affect economic growth and the distribution of income. Click [...]

How Retirement Benefits May Sink the State

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently offered a stark assessment of the threat to his state’s future that is posed by mounting pension and retiree health-care bills for government workers. Unless Illinois enacts reform quickly, he said, the costs of these programs will force taxes so high that, “You won’t recruit a business, you won’t recruit [...]

Solutions for Success

Homeschooling still a Popular Option

The reasons parents homeschool their children varies. They like the flexibility; plus, they like the influence they have on their children by teaching them at home. Some parents primarily decide to homeschool for reasons of faith. And parents of special needs children or gifted children are choosing to homeschool because they can tailor the curriculum and program [...]

Ideas to improve Southland (South Chicago Suburban) schools

“Mr. Shelstrom, every year (after the school report cards are released) you come to this board meeting and criticize our schools’ performance. Why don’t you move?” — Consolidated High School District 230 Board member Kathy Quilty Perhaps the reasons why Southland schools are generally considered among the most underperforming in the Chicago suburbs have [...]

Fund the Child, Not the District

Mike Pettrelli and the Fordham Institute should be commended for starting the conversation on “school governance.” Mike’s two important posts on the topic can be found here and here. This triggered comments from the grande dames of the status quo, Randi Wiengarten and Diane Ravitch,. The discussion brings an important question into focus. Why do we even need “school districts?” [...]

Focus on Illinois Schools

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