General Assembly Reconvenes: Nekritz, Cross, & Occam's Razor

General Assembly Reconvenes  (or Pensions and Occam’s Razor)

Occam’s Razor – noun : Numquam ponenda est pluralitis sine necessitate – (Plurality must never be posited without necessity).  Occam’s Razor is the theoretical principle of parsimony in problem solving; in other words, seek the simplest answer from or among many alternatives. 

Although many alternative actions to a nationally infamous Illinois pension shortfall have been suggested and urged over the last few years, many members of the General Assembly have maintained a singular focus of cutting contractually promised benefits to public sector workers.

Alternative suggestions and fixes have included the following: increasing tax revenues with minor transaction taxes, closing business tax loopholes, stopping the gifting of corporations with tax revenue relief based upon their threats and warnings, changing the 1995 billing schedule that “ramps up” the cost of pension payments to remedy the unfunded liability, amortizing the state’s unfunded debt issues, using the recent 2% income tax increase to fund pension shortfalls, reducing the need to achieve 100% funding to 90% funding, passing an amendment to secure a revenue increase by way of a graduated tax system, rescheduling bill payments to prevent shortfalls, etc. 

First term Senators to the General Assembly this spring have described the talk of pensions as noisy, but absent any discussion regarding changes in revenue streams.  One new Senator who recently dropped out of the national race for Jackson’s federal seat told me that he was “proud” of his position to endorse the kind of bill that would come from the House (HB3411).  He explained that it was the fastest and best way to get money to pay back the unfunded liability.  When asked about the constitutional legality, he was impatient and reminded me that “we make laws and those laws are in place after we make them.  When we took the money from you, you also benefitted from the roads and the other stuff you got.  So you benefitted too.  Now it’s time for you to pay for what you got.”

One can hardly argue with logic like that.  In fact, under that reasoning, if I were to steal your wallet and throw a huge party to which you used my lawn as you passed by – you too would be responsible and have to pay for the gala again.  And this is logic and rhetoric that they teach at Northwestern University?   But I digress… in disbelief.  Maybe Senators Jones and Davis can explain how constitution often trumps laws and the rights and wrongs of such illogic to their fellow Senator.

Meanwhile, Representatives Nekritz and Cross have urged the passing of legislation in the Senate that has succeeded for them in the House, using the same kind of fear, irrationality, half truths, and urgency which marked the run-up to the Iraq War.  One can see their histrionics in their latest pieces in the Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-oped-0408-pension-20130404,0,1444056.story.

Together, Cross and Nekritz have designed a path to divert additional billions of dollars from those who were promised contractually their pensions despite the “proverbial elephant in the room” that Nekritz identifies as pension costs – not the necessary payment to unfunded liabilities after decades of skipping payments promised.  While she and Cross decry the increases of the pension costs of “approximately 22 percent of the general funds budget, up from 7 percent ten years ago,” she does not explain that holding to an ill-designed pay-back schedule (which they did not follow to begin with) has created this scenario – nor does she explain that re-amortizing this debt would change the trajectory of payments past and future.  This is how Representative Nekritz keeps the emotion rolling.  She’s good at it.

As the entire body reconvenes on Tuesday, April 9^th, Cross and Nekritz urge their fellow lawmakers that “We cannot let the opportunity for change pass us by…(to pass) a comprehensive pension reform bill.”  This is not the same Elaine Nekritz that sought constitutional solutions two years ago.  This is not the same Representative Cross who promised constituents and retirees that he would protect them from any harm in pension reform.

Instead, this is their invitation to all legislators to ignore past precedent, to ignore contract law, to cut away at the retirement security of hundreds of thousands of families, to punish the future educators and public workers in Illinois, and to break their oaths of office to the State of Illinois.  Let’s see how many accept the call.  And let’s remember who they are.

Call now and warn your legislator you will be watching and you will remember. Call 888-412-6570.  Call NOW.

Send in the Clown - Big Jim Thompson

Send in the Clown (Big Jim Thompson on Pension Fixes)

The liberal writer Chris Hedges warned us that “The power elite, especially the (pretend) liberal elite, has always been willing to sacrifice integrity and truth for power, personal advancement, foundation grants, awards, tenured professorships, columns, book contracts, television appearances, generous lecture fees and social status” (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_treason_of_the_intellectuals_20130331/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig%2FChrisHedges+Chris+Hedges+on+Truthdig).

Enter ex-Illinois Governor “Big Jim” Thompson“ stage right. 

“On March 14, former Illinois Gov. James Thompson spoke at a gathering of the World Presidents' Organization in Chicago and urged the business leaders there to get active in the push to fix the state's pension and budget problems. Mr. Thompson provided Crain's a transcript of his remarks… (http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130403/OPINION/130409951).

As the General Assembly pivots and careens between what is fiscally effective and what might be unconstitutional, former Governor Thompson provides the same kind of simplistic thinking and thievery that characterized his own administration’s total disregard for the public sector workers and the pension protection clause that was sculpted to protect them from voracious, unethical politicians like “Big Jim Thompson.” 

Many sensible legislators and economists have started looking at possible systemic problems with the revenue structure in Illinois, one of less than eight states that rely on an antiquated flat tax rate system.  In fact, our neighbor Iowa has a graduated system that would provide our own state with additional billions of dollars, but not enough in the General Assembly seem ready to embrace that kind of forward thinking.  

Back to the Future: Big Jim would avoid any alterations in the current revenue stream – no transaction taxes, no service taxes, no graduated income tax, repeal of the 2% increase, etc. 

Instead, Big Jim suggests we stop “demonizing the public employees” and then “abolish the compounding cost-of-living adjustments.”  He also urges the State of Illinois increase employee contributions, force simple interest cost of living, and increase health care costs.  What?

Thanks, “BIG JIM,” the administrative manager who reduced our pensions by running the unfunded liability with a roller-coaster funding record from a high of approximately 90 percent then down to 30 percent.            

In the end, Thompson issues his audience a challenge.  Nope, it’s not to find the Tylenol killer that Big Jim and Ty Fahner lost in ineptitude.  Nope, it’s not the renewed analysis of DNA for Gregory Dotson and the underwear that Jim used to wave in front of cameras – before Dotson was released. 

It is instead to threaten any legislator who plans to do “nothing” about pension reform.  Thompson suggests we give our political donations to groups that run attack ads against those who do nothing about pensions.  “’I'm going to contribute to a group that's going to run attack ads against legislators who do nothing about the pension crisis,' that would get their attention."

But here is the biggest and possibly most laughable rewrite of history from Big Jim one could ever imagine: “The point is, people in this state have allowed things to go so far that some public officials think they can get away with anything. And they have. And let's stop pointing our fingers about who's responsible for this — the Legislature, the governor, the public employees. It's irrelevant. They're all responsible. And we're all responsible.”

Here's lookin’ at you, kid.

Milkin' the System (No COLA's for You!)

Senator Jim Oberweis  (or Milkin’ the System)

Sometimes money can’t buy you love - or even a seat on the highest levels, but it can at least get you into Springfield.  After unsuccessful runs for Governor, U.S. Senator, and U.S. Representative; State Senator Jim Oberweis has finally made his political debut.  Now situated firmly in the Capitol Building, unlike many other career legislators, he can be free to act without the concerns or regards for trivial matters like salary, retirement, or (in some cases) constitutional law.  Welcome, Senator Oberweis.

Running so often in the past for so many offices, we can be sure to know and understand just where our new state Senator stands on the significant issues facing Illinoisans: in this case, the unfunded liability owed to public workers for their pensions.  In fact, we can surmise that the Senator will carry these same past and present attitudes and positions into his next (additional) run for Governor in 2014. 

Would-be Governor, Senator Oberweis would have public workers accept his personal belief that our pensions are in themselves benefits and not a contract. 

In a recent voicemail to a concerned pensioner, Oberweis warned: “The state of Illinois cannot go bankrupt, but if we don’t do something, one day in the not so distant future those who are receiving pension benefits instead of getting a check are going to get a letter saying we know we owe you a check this month, but unfortunately we don’t have any money and we can’t make the payment. That’s what I am fighting to prevent.” 

Individuals like AFSCME’s Henry Bayer, who remind legislators that the state is legally on the hook for the unfunded liability of $100 billion (in real dollars) taken from the pension funds, remain exponentially persona no grata around the dome.  If the state cannot go bankrupt, well, then find the money you stole from us.  Such sentiments inflame some Leaders and Senators.  In any case, such words should concern them.

Other cautious legislators who raise concerns about Article XIII, Section 5, of the Illinois Constitution are hushed while in the House of Madigan.  “Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.”     Such phrasing means nothing to the likes of would-be-Governor, State Senator Oberweis, who voted affirmatively for SB35, the most draconian and unconstitutional of bills before the Senate last month. 

SB 35 would cap COLA’s , freeze any cost of living adjustment until age 67 or five years after retirement, create a new Tier Three for new hires in TRS and SURS, increase retirement ages and increase employee contributions.  The Nekritz sister bill is in transit from the House, and it’s probable that Oberweis will vote “aye” on that duplicate.  But why would we be surprised?  For would-be-Governor, Senator Oberweis, public workers have always been “on the dole,” and especially so public teachers.

When discussing fixes for the public school systems in Illinois, Oberweis often cites free-market principles as the panacea to eliminating all financial and educational problems, and he reminds his many interviewers that his record of dealing with the teamster unions at Oberweis Dairy clearly demonstrates his no-nonsense approach to making business work – a transference he sees quite logical for everyone – unions, schools, and charter-business owners.  In an interview conducted for “Public Affairs” with Jeff Berkowitz in 2005, the earlier-would-be Governor expressed support for charter schools, vouchers systems, merit pay for teachers, no tenure at all - calling tenure “ridiculous.”  (http://jeffberkowitz.blogspot.com/2005/07/partial-transcripts-of-oberweis-on.html).

In education, according to Senator Oberwies, everyone proves himself as manager of a classroom, and nothing comes for free.  On the other hand, would-be Senator Oberweis (and his company) does not always follow that righteous theorem in business practice and has ironically accepted lucrative deals at the expense of Illinois taxpayers to fund operations for building and developing his own businesses.  Let’s look at Skokie for one example.

Promising to be the “anchor” store on Dempster in Skokie, Oberweis received a double parcel of land for $400,000 that taxpayers funded with an additional $1.7 million last April.  Oberweis promised additional incomes of $2 million for the city, if they funded his building project with TIF money.  The city conceded.  According to one follower, it will take only 26 years for the city to break even (http://skokie.patch.com/blog_posts/cheeseburgers-tax-dollars-and-the-value-of-an-anchor-store).   That’s better than tenure.

But for would-be Governor, State Senator Oberweis, there have always been those who do, and those who don’t.  And, quite honestly, pensioners who receive a COLA are those who do not (and should not receive one).  As he stated in his voicemail, Oberweis believes, “ Unfortunately, some adjustment is going to have to be made and probably the adjustment will have to be the COLA.  Nobody in private industry has those COLA’s anymore.  They did thirty or forty years ago.  But the companies that had them all went bankrupt.”  Oberweis goes on to name many companies that have declared bankruptcy; in actually, most of them in order to avoid the pension obligations they had built up over the years –

American Airlines for one.  Companies like American Airlines are being taken to court for avoiding their pension responsibilities in order to pay more for their mid-management and executive financial packages.  Hope someone enlightens the would-be-Governor, Senator Oberweis.

But Oberweis has built his political past out of identifying those populations that threaten his vision of the State and country.  Why would public sector workers be any different?  In fact, you might remember that would-be U.S. Senator Oberweis in 2004 ran a self-besmirching campaign warning of the 10,000 illegal aliens per day and the later 2007 call for a national identification card to eliminate the unwanted and un-industrious.  It would appear that past and future candidate Jim Oberweis would continue to warn us all against what is dangerous to America, its workers, and its laws.

So would we.

Joyce/Tribune Polls - Where Tenure is the Devil

“So you think job insecurity is what makes me work hard? I want to be an actor. That’s not an incentive. That’s the thing. See, you take this MBA-style thinking, right? It’s the problem with ed(education) policy right now, this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that. It’s like saying a teacher is going to get lazy when they have tenure. A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a shitty salary and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?” Matt Damon speaking to a Reason.tv reporter (www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/).

Tenure (Hardly Home Free)

Recently, the Chicago Tribune coupled (conspired?) with the Joyce Foundation to implement and report a poll of Chicagoans, which promoted the concept of Charter Schools as an overwhelming positive educational force for good in the city.  The timing of course couldn’t have been better – given the closing of so many schools, the carefully orchestrated vacation-absence of the Mayor, and the furious street-rally reaction by the Chicago Teachers Union.  By the way, the Tribune under-reported that only a few hundred showed up for the protest (of which nearly 150 were arrested).  Nearly 25 – 50% arrested?  Now, that’s a story.

Of course, one group supporting the polling results was Stand For Children, an organization with deep roots and financial benefits in germinating charter schools in the city; however, the numbers are twisty for the newspaper and their charter supporters.  In fact, according to the Tribune editorial “an overwhelming number” of CPS parents are satisfied with their child’s teacher(s) (26 March 2013).  This jumps away from the script of public school failure the Chicago Tribune and Stand For Children have been pushing for years.  As a result, the reporting back of results has been subject to some creative revision. 

Blaming teachers themselves has always worked for the Tribune and others, so once again that old theme is resurrected. “However, that appreciation has limits.  The poll found that CPS parents have little appreciation, nor do we, for leaving teachers who don’t make the grade in the classroom year after year.  More than 6 in 10 respondents (61.7%) believe it’s unfair for a student to have a low-rated teacher for more than a year.  We’re with the majority…”

Thus, the Tribune tries to connect a positive response to the state of parents’ feelings for public education in our city with a negative scenario in order to bend an outcome. This specific kind of fallacious polling is questioned in a recent report by Diane Ravitch, which characterizes the Tribune/Joyce poll as a blatant attempt at “push polling”:  a poll with questions designed to achieve a specific planned objective or pre-determined conclusions (http://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/26/did-chicago-tribune-and-joyce-foundation-do-push-polling/).

Stand For Children used this feint as a bullet point in their website promotion of the poll: “71.9% believe that ineffective teachers should be laid off…regardless of tenure if budget cuts need to be made” (http://stand.org/illinois/blog/2013/03/26/joyce-foundationchicago-tribune-poll).  Who would disagree?  But the idea is to make it seem there is a problem.

Corporatists, Charter Schools and the Chicago Tribune constantly disseminate the erroneous fear/belief that an educator with tenure has the privilege of permanent employment forever and ever.  While most Chicagoans believe their children have good teachers (according to their own polls), it is this possibility of evil that the Tribune uses to foment crisis and therefore corporate takeover of public education.

Want to know what tenure really is?

Tenure is, quite simply, a privilege granted to an experienced educator to due process when or if facing dismissal.   In other words, a teacher who has achieved a position of tenure can no longer be fired arbitrarily.  A tenured teacher may also deserves a list of reasons, evidence, union representation or, in some cases, a remediation plan as described by the collective bargaining agreement of a district.  Tenure, by the way, is not a guarantee against being released from a teaching position.  Even tenured teachers can be fired summarily for cause (section 24-12 of IL School Code).  In such a case, the tenured teacher’s rights include a written notice of charges and the possibility to request a hearing within ten days.  On the other hand, if a charge is considered to be irremediable (damaging to students, faculty, or the school beyond any correction), dismissal may be immediate.  In other situations causing the dismissal of a tenured teacher, a district’s financial constraints may also override the protection of tenure; that is, if financial concerns or other needs require the loss of classes in a school, tenured faculty may be released.  Normally this occurs in about 2 per cent of faculty on the national level annually (Truth About Tenure in Higher Education. www.nea.org/home/33067.html).  Finally, unsatisfactory evaluations for tenured teachers can also result in remediation plans lasting between 90 days and one year.  Collegial mentoring is provided the tenured teacher in question, and intermittent evaluations then determine whether the tenured teacher has been remediated or will be discharged.

The process to tenure is difficult to attain, purposely, so firing or releasing a tenured teacher is as difficult as it is to become one.  In the State of Illinois, the probationary period for a teacher to become tenured at an institution takes four full academic years if first employed by a school district after January 1, 1998.  Besides mentoring and collegial assistance, a new teacher can expect to be observed formally and informally a number of times per academic year.  Written records of observations are combined with late-year reviews and observations to generate a summative evaluation. Even so, failure to achieve growth, take leadership in curriculum development, adjust to new methodology, demonstrate adequate student learning, etc., can result in lower evaluations and ultimately dismissal.

While my neighbors might think the teachers all relax, as Mr. Damon suggests, the opposite is actually more accurate.  Educational research demonstrates “ Teachers with tenure spend over 50 hours per week performing work in classrooms, on committees, in curriculum development and working one-on-one with needy students” (Truth About Higher Education). 

In fact, tenure is more than simply a protection against firing an educator.  It is a provision for academic freedom, including the right to assembly, confront ideas, advance opinion and enter spirited debate without fear of recrimination.  As early as 1887, the same teachers who struggled with the teaching of Huck Finn met in Chicago at the National Educators Association maiden conference to discuss, among many issues, the need for a teachers’ tenure.  Huck was, after all, a boy who spit and swore, not a model for a younger generation of Americans, and pity the foolish and unprotected teacher who dared express a fondness for the ultimate message of Twain’s ironic text if the book had offended the local administrator. “New Jersey became the first state to pass tenure legislation when, in 1910, it granted fair dismissal rights to college professors.  During the suffrage movements of the 1920’s – when female teachers could be fired for getting married or getting pregnant or (gasp) wearing pants – such rights were extended to elementary and high school teachers as well” (www.time.com.nation/article/0,8599,1859505,00.html). Education and its institutions and its employees are hopefully a safe haven from political and current popular whimsy.

In some states, tenure has been replaced with renewable contracts (Oregon) and rehabilitation for under-achieving teachers.  Several other states have eliminated the term altogether, but they have maintained the due-process that is associated with the term tenure ( from the Latin to hold or keep). 

Finally, radio pundits and street corner philosophers may grumble that tenure has injured education; however, considerable numbers of educators and academics also warn that lower test scores and unacceptable graduation rates have little to do with tenure; rather, under-funded districts, economic downturns, familial crises, and wrong-headed emphasis on reductionism/testing have been responsible for the maladies of the modern classroom.

By the way, you won’t see this discussion in the Chicago Tribune.