Skokie District 73.5: Non-union Raises Include Merit Pay

* Posted at the request of the GEA Presidents

 

The Skokie School District 73.5 Board last week approved salaries for the district’s top administrators as well as classified staff that include merit raises in each case.

 

That the district’s newest salaries for non-unionized employees contain both a pool for merit pay and ties to the consumer price index may indicate how the district wants to pursue salaries with its unionized teachers in the future.

 

Under terms approved by the board, Superintendent Kate Donegan’s salary will increase by 1.5 percent from $185,188 to $187,996 in 2012-13 and another 3 percent in 2013-14, percentages tied to the consumer price index.

 

In each of those years, Donegan can make up to an additional 2 percent, a non-compounding bonus that will be based on performance.

 

Business Manager Cyndi Cohen’s current five-year contract was extended a year through 2017, which is when she expects to retire.

 

Cohen’s salary raises for the next two years are also tied to the consumer price index — 1.5 percent from $164,049 to $166,510 next year and another 3 percent the following year.

 

Like with the superintendent’s salary, Cohen can make up to an additional 2 next year and 3 percent the following year based on performance.

 

The district’s classified staff will see similar percentage increases — 1.5 percent in 2012-13 and 3 percent in 2013-14. The classified staff will also be able to make additional merit raises drawing from a 2 percent pool each year.

 

In total, District 73.5 will pay an additional $50,336 for the annual increase in classified staff salaries and $17,404 for additional administrator salaries that include the district’s three principals, assistant principal and director of technology.

 

While District 73.5 has had some merit provisions in certain salary increases in the past, merit pay has never been so broadly applied across an entire range of non-unionized employees, Board President Jim McNelis said.

 

Officials believe the district now has a more consistent and reliable blueprint on which to base raises.

“The methodology and thought process for determining raises wasn’t necessarily the same each year,” McNelis said. “It also wasn’t consistent across the different classes of non-unionized employees.”

One of the big changes to this structure, he said, is that the merit bonuses will not compound, which will not hurt the district as much financially.

 

“I’m thrilled to have this tied to the CPI for a multitude of reasons,” Donegan said.

 

Those reasons include more reliability in predicting salaries, which is the greatest expense for school districts, and the ability to reward employees for an outstanding one-year or long-term performance, she said.

 

“I would love for this to be a trend in the way we determine raises for the future,” Donegan said.

 

The district and unionized teachers agreed to an unprecedented three-year contract last year. In 2011-12, each teacher at District 73.5 received a raise of $1,400, but that amount was not added to the teachers’ wage scale. In this way, the methodology for the one-time payout mirrors the new merit raises for non-unionized staff in that neither of them compound.

 

The teachers’ contract also provided a one-time $1,000 payment not part of the wage scale to teachers who earn National Board Certification, a highly valuable certification program. This component can be looked at as a merit pay of sorts.

 

“Merit pay has always been an item of discussion during collective bargaining and will continue to be,” McNelis said. “Previously, the district hasn’t had a consistent methodology or framework to use as a model and now we’re taking a step in that direction.”

Biz group plans to spend $1 million on lawmakers who back pension reform

* Posted at the request of the GEA presidents

March 12, 2012

 

A top business-backed group has begun to open its wallet wide in key legislative races in next week's primary elections, and says it may spend $1 million by November to elect lawmakers who back pension reform.

 

We Mean Business in the past week has donated more than $100,000 to legislators for their campaigns, usually in chunks of $10,000 or $20,000 each. The group has raised even more in the past several weeks, with a total available war chest of more than $300,000 to spend by March 20.

Group founder Ty Fahner, who also is president of both the Commercial Club of Chicago and its Civic Committee, says this is just the start.

 

"We want to build a $1 million pot," Mr. Fahner says. Most will be spent in direct donations to candidates, he adds, but some also will go to "independent" expenditures that have a freer hand under Illinois law to spend big bucks.

 

The group already has notched a win of sorts with its top recipient: Downstate state representative hopeful Brad Halbrook. He's received $40,000 and his primary foe, incumbent Roger Eddy, withdrew from the race a few days ago.

 

Mr. Eddy had received major donations from the Illinois Education Associations, the teachers union. He has accepted a job with the Illinois Association of School Boards.

 

Another $20,000 went to Sen. Carol Pankau, R-Roselle, who faces a primary challenge from Rep. Randy Ramey, R-Carol Stream, the DuPage County GOP chairman.

 

Among other receivers are Deputy House Minority Leader Tim Schmitz, R-Batavia; Rep. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook, the point person for House Democrats on pension reform, and Rep. Darlene Senger, R-Naperville.

 

Though We Mean Business legally is a separate entity from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, its leadership is much the same and includes top corporate leaders.

 

The group had raised $142,750 by Jan. 1. Since then, it has more than doubled that figure, with various members of the Crown family and their employees donating $60,000; Abbott Labs chief Miles White giving $10,000; Exelon CEO John Rowe (who is set to retire today), $10,000, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange, $10,000.

 

Mr. Fahner said other substantial donations will be disclosed to the State Board of Elections within a day or two.

 

The decision to donate big money — particularly in primaries, and particularly in the GOP primary — represents a change in tactics.

 

Traditionally, Civic Committee chiefs have pretty much stuck to Springfield lobbying. When they gave, it usually was for general elections and often through political party committees.

 

But school reformers had success two years ago targeting individual legislative contests, early and late. By all accounts, the We Mean Business folks are following along.

 

The donations come as lawmakers consider various proposals to remake the state's pension funds, which have unfunded liabilities totaling more than $85 billion. On the table are proposals to require workers to pay more, accept lesser benefits, or both.

Speaker: Don’t Blame State Workers fo Fiscal Woes

* Posted at the request of the GEA Presidents

Ralph M. Martire loves to quote from Adam Smith, the founder of modern economic thinking and a favorite of fiscal conservatives.

He cites the 18th century economist saying the remedy of taxation should be “relieving the poor” and “burdening the rich” to help society. But Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability in Chicago, admits that quote sounds like it came from another historic figure.

“That is not Karl Marx speaking. It’s from Adam ‘Freaking’ Smith!” Martire said, drawing laughter from many university professors and others gathered Monday night in the Lumpkin School of Business lecture hall at Eastern Illinois University.

Martire uses more than rhetoric when he talks about tax policy. He loves to shoot down political myths on Illinois and its taxation system.

For example, cutting wages of lower- to middle-income households in different ways only hurts economic growth, Martire said. He said the research of the CTBA, a non-partisan center, shows raising taxes on higher income earners and a sales tax on consumer services could draw on the 36 percent of income generated from services in the economy.

“Low- to middle-income families are the better spenders. They spend it in the local economy. And much of the economy is consumer spending. Cut their wages and you take more consumer spending out of the economy,” said Martire, whose lecture was sponsored by the faculty University Professionals chapter at Eastern.

If politicians cut $4 billion from the state budget, as some lawmakers have proposed in Springfield, then that could cost 56,000 jobs, Martire predicted. Double those cuts and it costs the state 128,000 jobs.

“The public rhetoric on tax policy is 180 degrees from accuracy,” Martire said. “Hurting the local economy doesn’t make any sense.”

He argued against claims that the state income tax increase has wrecked the Illinois economy.

“State taxes are not the significant burden people pay. It is false to say the higher state tax rate causes a bad economy. And Illinois has a lower overall tax burden than many states,” he said.

The budget proposed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn is targeting the most vulnerable people in the state with billions of dollars in cuts to human services, including assistance to the mentally ill, developmentally disabled, women needing help against domestic violence and children with special needs.

“Illinois is low already on human services funding compared to other states. It’s not the Cadillac program some claim it is. Illinois overall has the fifth richest state economy. And that’s how we take care of the most vulnerable people in our state,” Martire said. “These cuts will actually hurt us more later because they create problems we will have to fix years from now.”

Martire said the myth that state workers are bilking the taxpayers in Illinois must be exposed. He cited data showing lawmakers in the past shirked their responsibility to properly fund the state pension system.

“They used the revenue to pay for services. This has nothing to do with outrageous benefits. We have to get away from this silly talk about taking away benefits from employees who have paid into the system,” he said.

Schools' New Curriculum Adds Up to Harder Work

*Posted at request of the GEA Presidents


Published in The Daily Journal print edition March 3, 2012

How much students grow academically each year will become a key measure of whether schools and teachers are meeting state learning standards.

The new "growth model" of testing is a key part of the Illinois State Board of Education's plan to correct the failures of the No Child Left Behind Act -- which relied on a single test each year to gauge what percentage of students met, or did not meet, state standards.

"It's the better measure of the benefits students are getting from the classroom," said Myron Palomba, Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53 superintendent, whose opinion is shared by many other local educators.

While the new method is considered a fairer way to judge teachers and schools, it doesn't mean they won't be required to meet set goals.

"While a growth model is good, we have to get all students to standards," said Chris Minnich, Council of Chief State School Officers' senior membership director, whose organization helped establish the new learning standards adopted by 44 states. "At some point we have to care about proficiency. We can't just grow kids if we don't get them to where we want to be."

In Illinois' plan -- outlined in a waiver filed with the U.S. Department of Education to NCLB's rules last week -- growth must be on a trajectory to, within six years, cut in half the number of students who won't meet or exceed state standards. Students will take shorter tests several times per year, rather than a single, multiple-day test -- starting in the 2014-2015 school year.

If enough students aren't growing quickly enough, the school won't earn a passing grade.

"We can't just say they're growing and growing," said Margaret Trybus, Illinois Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development president and associate dean of Graduate and Innovative Programs at Concordia University in Chicago. "We might have to say, 'You need to grow faster.'"

Gary Phillips, vice president and chief scientist for the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit organization that helps states write their standardized tests, said meeting state standards is often easier with growth models.

"I suspect more students will be meeting it, but it will be a fairer measure," Phillips said. "Student success isn't just how much you've learned, but also how much you've improved."

But it won't be that easy, because passing the Illinois Standard Achievement Test will also get harder. The state board will be raising the minimum scores required for students to meet or exceed state standards. That will leave about 50 percent of elementary schools below state standards, compared to 15 percent currently, the state board estimates.

The growth models are also considered a better way to gauge the effectiveness of teachers than the old status tests of NCLB. In Illinois, the results will appear on teachers' performance evaluations -- accounting for 30 percent of their evaluation -- and the results will be made public on a school-by-school basis.

"If you're a lazy teacher with smart students you get credit for them," Phillips said. "But you might have an energetic teacher who makes a lot of progress, and she doesn't get any credit."

Dan Montgomery, Illinois Federation of Teachers' president, said growth models are an improvement, but he still has reservations.

"These are elaborate statistical models," Montgomery said. "I don't think it's possible to isolate every influence and measure a teacher on it -- but people are trying."

In the modern world of education, 2+2 won't just = 4.

The right answer will require students to illustrate the answer with a picture and a written narrative explaining how two whole numbers equal another whole number. A good answer would include the reasoning that two even numbers added together equal another even number.

"You used to see districts teaching the steps to get to the right answer," said Joshua Ruland, Manteno Community Unit School District 5 director of curriculum, instruction and assessment. "We now want kids to understand the concept so they know the alternative ways of solving it, and why it's a correct answer."

The simple math problem serves as an example of how classrooms will be transformed across Illinois -- and across the nation -- under the Common Core State Standards being adopted in 44 states. They define what students across the state are expected to learn in school and what will be on standardized tests.

The change to the more rigorous standards was a requirement of a waiver the Illinois State Board of Education filed last week with the U.S. Department of Education to the No Child Left Behind Act's rules.

Likewise, the way schools and teachers are held accountable for student learning is going to get much more complicated.

"It will become more difficult for parents to understand," said Chris Minnich, senior membership director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, whose membership includes the state education officials overseeing the changes.

In Illinois, schools will be measured by how much students grow academically over the school year. Instead of being tested once a year to see if they meet a set standard, they will be tested multiple times to see how much they are learning. But they will also be measured against set standards, according to the accountability measures outlined by the state board in the waiver.

The teachers who help their students grow the most will have better job security, because the teachers who don't will be the first to go, if a school sheds jobs for financial reasons.

The work will also be getting harder.

The new standards will require students to learn skills and concepts earlier than they presently are, pushing subjects such as algebra into lower grades and requiring students to read more difficult books earlier. And even more, they will have to demonstrate the ability to use their knowledge.

Margaret Trybus, Illinois ASCD (formerly Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) president and associate dean of the College of Graduate and Innovative Programs at Concordia University in Chicago, said that will be challenging for some educators. But research has shown kids can handle it.

"What we know is we can't underestimate how well a child can evaluate and synthesize and contrast and compare. Those are higher thinking skills," Trybus said. "If we're going to be competitive, we need critical and creative thinkers and problem solvers. Those are [21st] century skills."

Kadner: Shifting teacher pensions onto property tax bills

* Posted at the request of the GEA Presidents

 

Illinois voters better start lobbying their lawmakers, or they’re going to be hit with a whopping property tax hike in coming years and see schools unable to educate their children.

 

Gov. Pat Quinn, Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) all have talked about shifting the state’s obligation for paying teacher pensions onto local school districts.

 

That’s about $800 million a year that homeowners and businesses will have to pick up on their property tax bills.

 

Cullerton told me any such transfer of pension obligations would be phased in over a period of years and also suggested that school districts could cut costs to reduce the burden on taxpayers.

There’s been no public outcry from the usual suspects over this proposal. Educators, municipal leaders and state legislators from the Southland have been silent for the most part.

 

“Nothing’s really been decided,” one senator recently told me. “Everything’s up for discussion because the state is in such bad financial shape.”

 

But I’m not buying it. It’s not mere coincidence that the governor and the two legislative leaders happened to mention this shift of pension funding to local school districts at around the same time.

 

“It’s certainly an idea that has some traction,” said a legislative lobbyist for the Illinois Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, who has been involved in talks with elected officials in Springfield about pension reform. “It’s the one idea for pension reform that passes constitutional muster.”

 

The IEA has indicated that it would legally challenge most of the other pension reform plans that have been suggested.

 

Among the items being discussed is whether school districts could collect money for pension funds outside the current property tax cap. In other words, could they levy a tax just to fund the pensions, similar to what municipalities do to finance their pensions?

 

I made a few phone calls to find out what the effect might be on some Southland school districts.

If Orland District 135 were to pick up the state’s entire share of the pension burden, it would cost the district $8 million this school year. For Consolidated High School District 230, which also serves Orland Park, the figure would be $13.5 million.

 

So that would be quite a double tax whammy for property owners in Orland Park.

 

There’s no doubt the state needs to slash its pension costs. Its overall obligation is estimated by the Civic Federation of Chicago to be about $6.5 billion in fiscal 2013. That’s about one-fifth of the state’s overall budget.

 

And the state has about $80 billion in unfunded pension liabilities from previous years. That’s because the state largely ignored its pension obligations for years.

 

“Now that they have messed up the state’s finances,” District 135 board member Joe LaMargo said, 

 

“They want to put it on the backs of the school districts. The state assumed these pension obligations, not the school districts.

 

“Our property taxpayers can’t assume any more of this burden. That’s why, for the first time in anyone’s memory, we froze our levy this year.

 

“There are people paying $8,000 and $9,000 a year property tax bills living on fixed incomes. It isn’t right to keep increasing that burden.”

 

My guess is that state lawmakers will try to phase in the shift of teacher pension fund payments over a period of five years.

 

There will be a 2 percent additional cost two years from now that they hope no one will notice and then maybe another 2 percent in 2015 until people become accustomed to it. That would minimize the public outrage at the Legislature and the governor.

 

In addition, people in Springfield tell me they don’t expect a vote on this issue until after the March 20 primary election or maybe not until November, when a lot of legislators will be leaving office.

District 230 already pays about $14 million in annual special education costs because the federal government, which mandates special ed, doesn’t pay its fair share.

 

The state has cut transportation costs for busing, although it requires transportation for some schoolchildren. And the state has underfunded public education for 25 years.

 

If school and town officials and voters don’t scream in protest about this proposed shift in pension funding, a deal will be cut behind closed doors.

 

Unfortunately, the silence until now has been deafening.

Proposed Budget Would Raise Lawmakers’, Governor’s Salaries

* Posted at the request of the GEA Presidents

Published : Friday, 02 Mar 2012, 9:32 AM CST, FOX Chicago News

 

Chicago - Illinois lawmakers may be getting a pay raise even though the state faces a major financial crisis.

 

Under the budget presented by Gov. Pat Quinn last month, state lawmakers will get a $600 pay raise.

The governor will see his own salary go up to $179,100. That's an increase of $1,600.

State Rep. Kent Gaffney has introduced a bill to rescind the raises.

Pension Shifts Face Opposition

Posted on February 29, 2012

• by Oliver Wiest

A proposal to shift teacher pension costs from the state to local school districts is opposed by Edwardsville’s school superintendent and its state representative.

Gov. Pat Quinn raised the issue Feb. 22 in his budget address to the General Assembly. He said that only 22 percent of the state’s $5.2 billion in pension expenses this year is for state employees.

The state makes about $7 million a year in pension contributions for teachers and administrators employed in Edwardsville School District 7, Superintendent Ed Hightower said Monday. District 7 contributes another $3 million a year.

While no legislation has yet been introduced, Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has put forth a proposal. “Early estimates indicate that annual school district contributions would rise from a total of $171 million per year to more than $700 million per year, while the state’s annual contribution would drop from $2 billion to $1.3 billion,” according to an analysis of his position by the Teachers Retirement System.

“Springfield has created a real mess,” said first-term Rep. Dwight Kay, R-Glen Carbon. “They don’t know how to fix it, so they want to download the inefficiencies” on local school districts.

“It’s easier to cut and run than it is to fix the problems,” Kay said. The governor and legislature should “step up to responsibilities to taxpayers and teachers.”

Both the House and Senate leadership, controlled by Democrats, “want to push it down to the local level,” Kay said. “That’s just not right.”

Kay met Monday with school superintendents from the 112th House District, one of a series of scheduled sessions. Not surprisingly, ideas about how to eliminate “unfunded mandates” and pension reform suggestions were on the administrators’ minds. Hightower said abruptly shifting state pension costs “would be just devastating to the school districts and communities across Illinois.”

“When people are hurting like this,” as a result of high unemployment and the continuing housing crisis, “(it) is not the time to shift all of these added costs to the school districts,” Hightower said.

Hightower ticked off the list of economic bad news that his district has dealt with over the past five years:

• General state aid has dropped $7.2 million.

• Equalized assessed valuation (the district’s tax base) has decreased $107,000, reversing years of gains.

• School bus costs reduced $1.5 million (over three years) due to reduced state reimbursements. In addition to the $9 million whacked from District 7’s budget over the past three years, the board is looking next month to cut spending next year another $3 million, which could lead to the elimination of as many as 34 teaching and administrative positions.

http://www.theintelligencer.com/local_news/article_77bbba4c-62f8-11e1-9b3a-0019bb2963f4.html

Dump Duncan

Here is another petition that might interest you.

dumpduncan.org

The future of public schools is in jeopardy. Private interests, aided by the Federal Government, are attempting to supplant local control and to transfer public funding to the hands of corporate interests. Public schools, locally controlled, are a cornerstone of our democracy. Relegating them to corporate-owned test prep factories places our nation at risk and steals our children’s future.

Return joy to our classrooms where exploration, creativity and innovation are prized along with academic programs that foster life-long learning by signing the letter to Obama. Once you have signed the letter, you may share it with your friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter using the buttons provided.

_____________________________
Samuel E. Yusim
Region 37 GPA

Governor Quinn Do Not Cut Our Health Insurance!

To be delivered to: Governor Pat Quinn

 

Governor Quinn! We Urge YOU to restore the State's contribution to Retired Teachers Health Insurance ('TRIP') Program -- that you slashed from the Illinois' Budget!

In his 2013 Budget -- Illinois Governor Quinn proposes to "zero out" the State's Contribution to Retired Teachers Health Insurance (TRIP)! Active Teachers and their districts contribute every pay check to this Insurance Program, Retired Teachers paid a substantial premium every month -- without warning Governor Quinn unilaterally proposes to slash state support! As a result, Retired Teachers Health Insurance Costs will double! Governor Quinn is breaking the State's promise to the men and women who spent 35 years teaching the children of Illinois -- Tell Governor Quinn this is no way to support teachers!

Petition link:  http://signon.org/sign/governor-quinn-do-not?source=s.fwd&r_by=2770571

_____________________________

Samuel E. Yusim
Region 37 GPA