Letter: CPS budget is a joke that's not a joke
Dear Substance:
I am still reeling from the hoops I had to jump through to get my hand on a copy of the budget (13th floor of 125 S. Clark) - had to call in advance and was told they'd be ready on Tuesday (August 18, 2009). Mind you, the last public "hearing" (please forgive my quotation marks) was Wednesday (August 19).
King High School teacher Karen Lewis asks questions of the Board of Education's budget people during the final hearing on the proposed CPS 2009 - 2010 hearings. The final hearing was held at Black Magnet Elementary School at 9101 S. Euclid in the "Pill Hill" section of Chicago's South Side. The room which held the meeting was a combination gym, auditorium, and lunchroom, according to LSC members from Black. Ms. Lewis asked several questions of the Board's budget staff. The answers, in all cases, were "We'll get back to you on that..." Substance photo by Susan Zupan.I consider myself a reasonable quick study, but at 345 pages of information (dare I use quotes again) that are laughable at best, I just didn't have the time to do the due diligence I would have liked to. I never got to the 1,500 pages on the CD in the back of the book.
I have often wondered why the letter from the CEO this year and last insisted upon blaming teacher pensions and salaries for the huge deficit in the budget.
I am stunned when Arne Duncan, last year and Ron Huberman this year refer to monies going to the classroom. Is the classroom run by itself? Of course, teacher salaries and benefits are going to be the largest portion of the budget. AS THEY SHOULD BE. No teacher nor administrator should ever apologize for that. In addition, they are so dishonest about how the pension will bankrupt the schools, that there ought to be redress in the courts for the fraud that has been perpetrated on citizens of Chicago.
But I didn't have time to digest all that.
What I did see were the student to teacher ratios listed for each school. Never mind that it was almost impossible to find schools because they are alphabetized by the first name of the school.
I was looking for Kelly high school, because I know that school is so overcrowded they have several shifts, but couldn't find it simply because I did not know Kelly's first name (I was able to text one of Kelly's delegates to find out it was called Thomas Kelly). While this is frustrating enough, this was the same problem that existed last year. So imagine my surprise when the student-teacher ratio for Kelly reported out as 17-1. Completely laughable.
Examining the mendacity of the student-teacher ratio, the projected bankruptcy of the system due to pension costs, and the bizarro world alphabetizing by first name, I asked how could this budget be believed when on the face of it, it was simply full of lies? I also made the comment, that if my boss told me to fix something last year that turned up as a problem this year, I would be on the receiving end of an E3 and a step closer to forced retirement.
We all know that when the Chicago Teacher's Pension Fund returns to 90 percent "funded", the Board will no longer have to pay its fair share. We all know that the Board has not paid its fair share for a significant time — which is one of the reasons why CTPF is "underfunded" today. But to continue to promulgate that lie that Arne Duncan began last year is a disservice to all the teachers and retired teachers — including my own 81-year old mother — and the taxpayers of the city.
My last thought about this fraudulent budget is that it is clear that there is a huge conflict of interest when the mayor can appoint the CEO and the Board and determine the funding (or lack thereof) through his political expediency of refusing to raise taxes.
Unfortunately, the children of Chicago and the teachers who nurture them are the victims of a carefully orchestrated attack. Since the corporate media won't cover this story, I don't know how the public will hear the truth.
Thanks Substance for giving voice to the real culprits of malfeasance.
Sincerely,
Karen GJ Lewis, BA, MA, MFA, NBCT Delegate King College Prep
CORE Co-Chair
Each one of those initials costs the Board a lot of dough!
