MEDIA ALERT: Wednesday, August 2, 2017
“SB1 IS NOT A CPS BAILOUT!”
CPS Parents and Students Cry Foul on Rauner’s False Rhetoric and SB1 Veto
Protesters Descend on Gov’s Neighborhood with $6.9 Billion Collection Notice
WHAT: CPS parents and students respond to Governor Rauner’s veto of SB1
WHERE: Governor Rauner’s block: 720 Rosewood Ave, Winnetka, IL
DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 2017
TIME: 10:00 am start
Chicago Public School (CPS) parents and students will gather at Governor Rauner’s house to reject his veto of SB1 and to present a collection notice to him for $6.9 Billion in unpaid pension payments to CPS.
Parents and students will bring attention to Governor Rauner’s false statement that SB1 is a Chicago ‘bailout,’ by pointing out that the state has for years failed to pay billions in dollars due to Chicago for pension support.
Raise Your Hand Action (RYHA) has determined that the state failed to pay at least $6.9B in payments to Chicago Public Schools that they intended to pay according to statute 40 ILCS 5/17-127, item B. Under this standard, and according to information from TRS’ annual reports, the state should have paid a total of between $6.9B and $10.3B to CPS for pensions since 1995.
The group will also canvass in the Governor’s neighborhood, sharing facts about the lack of pension parity for CPS, which contributes greatly to the plight of Chicago children, who attend one of the most financially-disadvantaged districts in the country, just miles from some of the most well-funded schools in the US, those in Rauner’s hometown.
Chicago is not asking for additional taxes or extra money, just its fair share of what the state already allocates to schools. SB1 was designed using recommendations from Rauner’s hand-picked panel to do just that.
The Better Government Association (BGA) conducted an analysis this week and found Governor Rauner’s claim regarding the pension ‘bailout’ language to be false because “it [SB1] only gives CPS what every other school district already has.” It now seems that Rauner would rather demonize CPS than see schools open on time or provide the fair resource allocation that will give kids a chance.
Back of the Yards College Prep High School student Veronica Rodriguez says, “To stop the rise in violence in our communities, we need investment in our schools. We need counselors, teachers and afterschool programs. I need the governor to stop playing politics with my future.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Winnetka is a very white, wealthy northern suburb of Chicago. Rauner spent $27-$28 million of his own money to run for governor. Obviously, he has no understand nor any compassion for those who are not wealthy and white. Illinois has a flat tax rate in which the poor pay the same tax rate as the wealthy. Rauner would never want his wealthy friends to pay more in taxes.
Illinois needs a progressive tax rate so that corporations and the wealthy ‘pay their fair share’. Our pension systems are the worse funded in the nation. The state has refused for years to fund according to the state constitution. It has also borrowed billions from the pension funds to pay state bills.
I remember reading in the local Illinois paper back in 1996 that the state had borrowed $12 billion from the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois. That was right before I left the US to work in Bolivia. I’d just bounced between 4 districts in 6 years as a music teacher and couldn’t stand the stress of not being given tenure. Schools obviously were underfunded and regularly fired new music teachers so that they would never have to pay salaries high on the pay scale. [One teacher in Frankfort, IL told me that I was the eighth music teacher to be fired. He said that we couldn’t all be bad.] Left the country and worked overseas for 11 years. Never worked in the States again.
This comes from Wikipedia.
……………………
As of the census[8] of 2010, there were 12,187 people, 4,102 households, and 3,328 families residing in the village. The racial makeup of the village was 94.8% White, 0.3% African American, 0.1% Native American, 3.3% Asian, 0.3% from other races, and 1.2 % from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.2 % of the population.
There were 4,102 households out of which 45.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 74.3% were married couples living together, 5.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 18.9% were non-families. 17.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.97 and the average family size was 3.39.
In the village, the population was spread out with 36.2% under the age of 19, 2.3% from 20 to 24, 15.2% from 25 to 44, 32.7% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.8 years.
The median income for a household in the village was $207,955, and the median income for a family was over $250,000. The per capita income for the village was $100,506. About 1.8% of families and 1.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.6% of those under age 18 and 2.0% of those age 65 or over.
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I am not sure that I agree with protesting at his personal residence. That crosses a line that I can’t cross. Some things should remain sacrosanct. Protest at the Governor’s mansion, protest at his government office, protest as he makes political speeches, but his personal residence should be off limits.
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I dunno, I’m on the fence about that. If politicians would do their jobs and be responsive to the people, I’d agree with you 100%. But what do you do when your governor refuses to put in appearances in public or even live in the governor’s mansion specifically so that he can’t be available to the public? He can’t have it both ways. If he wants to be a politician and keep his private life private, fine, but he also has to recognize that he serves the public. Rauner – among many others – refuses to do that, so I think there has to be some recourse for the public to track him down. If he doesn’t want a crowd on his front lawn (understandable), then present himself elsewhere for the crowd to address him.
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I agree if the governor or any public official does not reside in nor use the officially designated spaces/offices. Then there is no recourse but to protest where they are as they are bringing it on themselves. I assumed (and you know how that works, eh-ass u me) that Rauner would be using those official spaces. If he doesn’t, well tough shit big boy!
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So how does that work Duane . Usually you can not get close enough to these Public spaces to be even seen these days . They have determined that Public Roads and sidewalks are access to a Public buildings reserving the right to block access to these spaces and close these roads and sidewalks as needed. . Somehow I feel no sympathy for those whose policy devastates millions being forced to put up with the inconvenience of being faced with their anger.
Example Charter Communications here in NY after a vulture capital buyout of TWC has the highest paid CEO in the Nation 99 million a year. Soon to be bought by SoftBank with Sprint in what Trump touts as a foreign investment in America. An investment that will probably cost far more jobs than it creates. ‘Efficiencies of scale ‘
For two years now they have refused to negotiate a contract with the Union who had represented those 1800 Time Warner Cable workers for over thirty years. Not making payments into the Pension and Benefit Plans .
So you would say that if those workers were to inconvenience that CEO by disturbing him and his neighbors from 7AM to 10PM the usual restriction on noise disturbance, that would be inappropriate . I would say that is a mild response and pitchforks and Barn Fires would be more in order.
The same goes for our elected officials who no longer for the most part live in areas where they have to face their constituents on a casual daily basis. The old saying if you can’t take the heat stay out of the kitchen would apply except by being isolated from their constituents they never face the heat.
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Can’t disagree with what you said Joel, except that the head of a private corporation should not be viewed in the same light as a politician who rightly should be viewed as expected to be open and transparent to the citizens.
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Duane,
Normally I would agree with you that the politician’s personal residence is out of bounds. But when I think of politicians whose actions materially harm the personal lives of their constituents, I lose all sympathy.
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And I can’t disagree with you on that, especially as Dienne has suggested that Rauner does not use the official spaces but hides in his personal enclaves. That evasive behaviour by a public figure is abhorrent to an open democratic society. And, yes, I realize those of Rauner’s ilk don’t give two shits about democracy and open government.
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Neither Rauner nor Emanuel has been effective at stopping the violence in Chicago. I believe some of the violence is due to the conscious chaos and disinvestment that have been fostered by both politicians. Poor minorities have been sacrificed to reinvent prime areas of the city in order to provide ROI for developers, charter schools, small businesses and higher tax ratables for the city. It is easy to ignore the needs of the poor when voters choose politicians that are Machiavellian.
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I have no problem w/a protest at (one) of the governor’s homes. However, I don’t think he’s living there, presently (I believe the family to be at one of their other {!!} homes), but it will have an impact on his neighbors–many of whom, I suspect, fully agree with the protesters (& may, in fact, join them).
That having been said, I would refer you back to my comments (the last 3 under Diane’s 8/1 post: Breaking News: IL Governor Rauner Vetoes School Funding Plan).
The plan brought to us, in (large) part, by IL Stand on Children & Advance Illinois (see Laura Chapman’s excellent post–from May 27, I think–on 50CAN), w/some help from TeachPlus & E4E.
All is not as it appears to be. As we teachers always say, do your homework!
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