Posts tagged ‘Teachers Retirement System’

“Corporations are People, Teachers are Not. Fix That!”

by , posted on Sunday, May 20th, 2012 at 7:29 pm

A five-year-old girl sitting in a wagon held a sign that read, “How can this be my fault? Tax the 1%”

Her mother, Dr. Annette DeAngelis-Marshall, who came to the teachers’ rally in Naperville this past Thursday,

naper-2
May 17th, was pulling her. Dr. DeAngelis-Marshall is a special education teacher consultant and advocate who came to the rally as a citizen, taxpayer, and teacher to demand attention from politicians enacting pension changes for Illinois teachers.

“I’ve tried to speak to Darlene Senger but she doesn’t listen to me.” DeAngelis-Marshall said.

Senger is on Governor Pat Quinn’s task force charged with the job of changing the teachers’ pension system. Frustration with Senger was echoed by dozens of other people attending the rally. Approximately two hundred people were there. While most were teachers, some were union workers, college students, Occupiers, retired teachers, and just plain parents. All were taxpayers with a stake in good public schools.

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Teachers and Citizens Demand a Seat at the Pension Funding Table

by , posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2012 at 10:06 pm

A group of about forty people from Northern Illinois Jobs With Justice gathered in the noon day sun outside Illinois Senator Mike Noland‘s office in Elgin on Friday, May 4th.  The people wanted Senator Noland to hear their concerns about the lack of revenue and funding for Illinois teachers’ pensions.  Senator Noland is one of four legislators appointed by Quinn to a task force to solve this issue.  While earlier State Senator Mike Noland (D-Elgin) had informed the group he would not be present to respond to their rally, he unexpectedly showed up

John Laesch, from NIJWJ, announced the rally was about the group’s concern regarding the State’s lack of funding for teachers’ pensions, but Noland didn’t seem to understand until the end of the rally that the citizens standing before him had not been sent by the Illinois Education Association (IEA) and were instead concerned citizens and workers—about half of whom happened to be teachers.

“This is a workers’ issue. And we are concerned that our legislators have not funded our teachers’ pensions. We have a revenue problem here. This is a concern to all taxpayers and to all people who work for a living,” said Laesch.

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Rep. Biss Holds Town Hall Meeting on Pensions

by , posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 7:59 am

State Rep. Daniel Biss had the courage to hold a town hall meeting to discuss “pension reform” in Glenview on April 30th. I estimate that 200-225 people attended the overcrowded room that was set up to accommodate 75 people.

Biss Town Hall

The standing room only crowd was a mirror image of other pension discussions happening around the state. The general mood of the cramped, “slightly too warm for comfort” room was polite and respectful. Biss set the tone by taking questions and respecting diverse opinions while facilitating the conversation artfully.

I attended the event because I felt that if Representative Biss had the courage to hold a controversial town hall meeting that he might also have the courage to lead a fight to actually fund pensions and uphold the state’s end of the deal.

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TRS Townhall in Naperville

by , posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 at 12:24 pm

Teachers and retired teachers filled a school cafeteria in Naperville, IL to hear a presentation from Dick Ingram, the Executive Director of the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) on Thursday, April 26th.

trs-packed-house
The staff at the high school had to set up extra seats to accommodate an estimated 300-400 people.

The presentation itself was very “matter of fact” and seemed to be a part of a PR effort to let teachers know that Governor Quinn and the Illinois General Assembly were about to deliver a hard-hitting punch. Most of the information presented was not new, but the use of multiple events and participation by the news media re-enforced the message, “the sky is falling and teachers have to make concessions.” Before delivering the bad news, Ingram did talk about how great it was that teachers had lived up to their responsibility by paying into the retirement system all of these years. He also acknowledged that teachers are not eligible for Social Security (a point that is often missed by the public and seems to be ignored by lawmakers).

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