Ben Velderman and Chuck Goudie. Separated at birth?
As I read the phony expose by ABC’s Chuck Goudie’s I-Team (“I-Team” apparently standing for the “I’ in Illinois Policiy Institute) on teacher pensions, I kept thinking I’d heard this all before.
And I had.
Back in February of 2011.
Kyle Olson did a blog post about how Wisconsin teachers didn’t pay into their pension. He had read the contracts. And they said that the board would “pick up” the pension payment.
I pointed out at the time that this was typical Education Action Group nonsense. That “pick up” meant that the board would send the teacher payment directly to the pension system rather than the teacher writing a check. The board was simply a conduit.
EAG is a small group in Michigan that we have talked about before. Their Ben Velderman was the one who filed the FOIA request for my emails.
They are funded (although they go to great lengths to hide their funders) by groups who are in turn funded by the Koch brothers.
The Illinois Policy Institute is similar. Another corporate funded outfit.
ABC Chicago has now become the public relations front for the AEG, Koch brothers and IPI. With their faux investigative unit treating IPI press releases like they were evidence of scandal.
There is no scandal. Teachers pay their share of TRS.
And where is the IEA on this?
Why are independent bloggers the only ones responding?
They should be on this story like white on rice.
Fred Klonsky 
Much, much more on Kyle Olson and his fake Education Action Group on the EAGTruth website: EAGTruth.com