Madigan’s ed reform committee meets today and tomorrow.
Boss Madigan has schedule hearings of his phony education reform committee in Aurora today and tomorrow.
I say phony for several reasons.
- The hearings are scheduled to receive testimony on bills that have not even been written yet.
- The committee is stacked with legislators who have a pre-existing condition, paid for by Stand for Children, a Superman political action Oregon-based outfit who advocate doing away with tenure, seniority rights, union collective bargaining rights and the right to strike.
- The current legislative session is too short to consider any bills that the public, teachers and education groups can respond too.
If you live in Illinois, take the time today to contact your state Senator and Representative. Tell them no reform issues should be considered during the current session. Time is too short for the General Assembly to consider the views of teachers, parents and education groups.
Rank-and-file teachers in both the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association should also have a voice in determining any legislation that is considered in Springfield and schools will not be in session the next few weeks.
Importantly, issues of seniority and teacher evaluations (which are suspected of being the subject of any bills coming out of these reform committee hearings) are local matters that have been negotiated between locally elected school boards and local unions. They should stay local matters.
These will be crucial days for teachers, students and school districts. Please take the time to contact your Springfield reps. A call to the governor’s office wouldn’t hurt. And if you are an IEA member an email to ken.swanson@ieanea.org wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Remind him that schools and teachers struggle with reduced funding, reduced support and more responsibilities than ever before. What we need to know is that our state leadership will fight for the protections we have.
