This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
"Desperate" Chicago Schools Need Half Billion To Avoid Mass Layoffs, Partial Shutdown
Last month, we noted with some incredulity that Illinois is now paying lottery winners in IOUs. Long story short, the state’s inability to pass a budget means big winners will have to wait on their prize money, a ridiculous situation which prompted one Illinoisan to remind state officials that “if we owed the state money, they’d come take it and they don’t care whether we have a roof over our head; our budget wouldn’t be a factor.” State Rep. Jack Franks agreed, noting that the “government is committing fraud on the taxpayers.”
The lottery debacle is just the latest example of Illinois’ deepening fiscal crisis which was catapulted into the national spotlight in May when a state Supreme Court decision that struck down a pension reform bid prompted Moody’s to cut the city of Chicago into junk territory. Since then, the media has been awash with tales of the labyrinthine, incestuous character of the state’s various state and local governments and the deplorable condition of the state’s pension system.
The fallout from the budget crisis is far-reaching in the state with the latest example being Chicago’s public school system (the third-largest in the country), which opened this week with a budget shortfall of nearly a half billion dollars. Here’s WSJ with the story:
Chicago Public Schools—with 394,000 students and nearly 21,000 teachers—has closed more than half of a projected $1.1 billion shortfall through cuts, borrowing and other means, but is looking to the state to come up with the rest. The school board warns of deep cuts later this year if Illinois, which faces its own fiscal crisis, doesn’t deliver an additional $480 million in the coming months, representing roughly 8% of annual district spending.
“It is like the board is a desperate gambler at the end of their run,” said Jesse Sharkey, vice president of the Chicago Teachers Union, in a recent speech.
“We are really now at a point where further cuts would reach deep into the classroom,” said Forrest Claypool, who was named chief executive of the city schools in July.
Since 2011, the school board has made nearly $1 billion in cuts—including $200 million this year that involved eliminating 1,400 positions, mostly through layoffs. Enrollment declines, due to shifting demographics and Chicago’s shrinking population, have led to school closings, including nearly 50 elementary schools in 2013 alone.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has clashed with the teachers union, which went on strike three years ago and is currently without a contract. Another strike isn’t out of the question as the two sides are wrestling over the district’s effort to get teachers to pay more of their pension costs.
A group of parents, educators and activists with the support of union leaders launched a hunger strike Aug. 17 in a push to reopen a closed high school in a historically black neighborhood on the city’s South Side. The group argues the board concentrates money in Chicago’s wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods. Hispanic and black students make up a vast majority of enrollment in city schools, and more than 85% of students are considered economically disadvantaged.
“There is a priorities crisis,” said Jitu Brown, a community organizer and parent who is participating in the hunger strike.
Of course one problem is a sharp increase in pension costs thanks to a “holiday” the board decided to take from 2011 through 2014:
The district’s pension costs have more than doubled in recent years after the board took a partial “holiday” for three years from paying the amount needed to put the retirement system on a path to long-term solvency.
And all the classic options - raising taxes, taking on new debt to payoff the old debt, etc. - have apparently been exhausted:
At first, the board drained reserves and paid off old debt with new, but those options are running out. The district also is raising property taxes as much as it can under a state cap. At the same time, Mr. Emanuel is weighing a much larger increase to confront the city government’s own pension problems, but that wouldn’t go to the schools.
Which means asking the ineffectual state legislature for $480 million, but thanks to gridlock in Springfield, there are no assurances that aid is forthcoming and that, in turn, means that once it's all said and done, the third largest school system in the country will be forced to layoff thousands and implement what amounts to a partial shutdown.
Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said without it the schools would see the layoffs of 3,000 teachers, increased class sizes and a shortened academic year. “We have to resolve this,” he said.
Yes, this has to be resolved and because we want to help, we suggest Governor Bruce Rauner not do things like squander hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money on celebrity budget gurus like Donna Arduin, who, until she was dismissed two Fridays ago for not being very guru-ish when it came to Illinois' budget, was making $30,000 a month or, more than half of what a Chicago public school teacher makes in a year.
- 75377 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -



Stop calling them schools. They are daycare centers.
Wait -- the South Side of Chicago is willing to Hunger Strike themselves until they get a cool $500 Million?
Oh please Barry -- stay out of this one.
Just wondering… How many “broken windows” would it take to bring Chicago back to prosperity?
Krugman? Krugman? Kru… ;-)
Looney
Just hit “Baby Dick” Daley up for some of that kick-back fortune he has stashed in his Michigan lakefront compound.
Looks like the one on the right could use a hunger strike..
Or two.
Where's Mrs O'Leary's cow when you need her?
"Chicago" and "Detroit" both have 7 letters in them.
My money is on the two on the right!
Wait, errr, lady on the right.
pods
The Chicago Schools should declare War on Washington and join Russia. That will likely get Washingtons attention.
Wasn't Obama involved in Chicago politics?
hrm... seem's like we have a prognostication tool for America's future.
Chicago is the poster child for charter schools. The end game is privatized for profit government schools. Get the best kids into charter schools and defund public schools, thus driving ALL kids to charter schools. Its the next evolution in the for profit prison system, they are just vertically integrating. All is going according to plan.
Oh wow, and I thought we could keep paying high school natural science teachers $125K+ forever....
Better call your union rep and up your salary demands- the Chicago way.....
Without all the illegal and immoral wars the US loves so much and the amount of money stolen by banksters, there would be enough money for gold plated desks and chairs.
Who did Chicago go to war with?
This is a local problem caused by promising unions too much - fuck them - make them solve it on their own - no federal money should be used.
So no Plunge Protection Teams in place to save failing pension funds, huh? Hmm....
Go figure...
Yeah, according to Cheney, and every democrat everywhere, debt doesn't matter. Until it does. Yeah, we knew that wasn't true..
Let the third world masses now populating the schools pay the bill. And good riddance to yet another once-great American city. (I know this is impossible, I just like to state it - to annoy all of the alturistic idiots who continue down the suicidal path.)
Unrelated but when I'm reading ZH on mobile this is the part of the comment chain where it looks like I'm reading a book printed on a toothpick. WTF What an outdated and horrible way to run a comment section in a mobile age.
It
looks
just
like
a
book
printed
on
a
toothpick.
That
is
a
hilarious
and
accurate
description!
On a tablet, if you have ads or even adblock on, half of those above words are chopped off with the huge sidebar of blank space.
Turn off you JavaScript - it fixes a lot of problems caused by the ads. The big downside is that anytime you up/down arrow someone the page gets refreshed and does not put you back to that comment.
Cut the tax incentives to keep popping them out would be a good first step.
Mandatory Sterilization before receiving any Public Welfare.
Kobe Beef for Reichsmarshall 2020!
End Cash for Bastards!!!
Both parties are just the same, right guys? I mean the republicans have done the same things to da bik citees write?
"We are really now at a point where further cuts would reach deep into the classroom ... ."
Hilarious.
Do the math, and you discover that they spend $15,228 per student. Twenty kids in a class, that's $304,569 per classroom. Thirty kids (how I was educated), and we're talking $456,853.
Half a million fucking dollars. Per fucking classroom.
Give me a fucking break.
At the end of one's public school education, most, if not all, would've been better served if we'd just saved up the money and gave it to 'em. $15,228 x 12 = $182,741.
Now that's the way you stimulate an economy, Ben.
fabulous post mmp, agree, and btw, call them teachers anf not the pc fuckin' educators!
Fuck, really. I would be super educated with 15k a year.
I could be doing biopsies on cats with that kind of money. With anesthetics. And sterilized equipment.
Fuck, I could own tools and do whatever the hell I wanted with that kind of money. Just give the kids the money and they can buy their own lathes, and drill presses, and make all of their own shit after that!
We have the knowledge. We have the technology. CNC EVERYTHING.
Dude. South side of Chicago. Anchor babies. Dindu tax rebates. Marxist Goodthinker teachers. These are "vibrant" classrooms. You're assuming a level of motivation and intelligence that isn't there.
They spend half a million per classroom, and yet half don't even fucking graduate. The half that does is still functionally illiterate. Sunk costs & Cloward-Piven, ho!
I'd give Boeing half a million per op in my "Cluster Bombs for Chicago" Initiative.
Kobe Beef for Reichsmarshall 2020!
Are they only underfunded in war years? How much of the Chicago budget goes to the military?
Dipshit.
"Sorry, kids, no money for chalk anymore, you'll have to come to the front of the class and write your answer in your own blood. It was either that or my six-figure pension, and you know how that one rolls. Any questions?"
If only governments would raise taxes just enough to cover expenses and fund retirements without accounting BS. The revolution would begin immediately.
Our local charter 8-12 early college high school runs on the average daily attendance allotment from the state. It gets no funding from local property taxes. In this case, the charter school is living on about 1/3 of the annual revenue per student that the local public school district burns through. The public school district gives up the state allotment, but gets to keep the local tax money. It is actually enriched when a student opts out for the charter school. Same story with the local private church-affiliated schools except the state gets to keep the attendance allotment.
Shed no tears for the poor public school districts. They are fiefdoms with overpaid administrators.
You are correct. I work in EDU, and sell to K12 and colleges. Charter schools and adaptive learning are the future. The problem in schools is "power distance." Chicago is a huge district, and no local to policy work really happens. Charters stay close to the community. Breaking Chicago into a large amount of smaller districts would help too. People can scream, but inner city schools need different policy than suburbs. It's still cheaper to educate a child than imprison an adult.
Donkey - this is precisely why it cant be let to happen. Think of all that lost GDP!
Honestly, I'm sick of pretending that these kids are learning anything anyway. Just buy them some TVs, Nikes and gold chain. They'll be much happier.
What exactly do these communist organizers do again?
Stimulate hormone flow.
Turn good food into shit.
But but but, I thought Chicago is a libtardian utopia. Surely they have money galore, everyone's wealthy and they don't have a fucking ridiculous murder rate.
The mantra is that it wont work unless they control the entire system.
It gives them a beautiful excuse going forward.
Its only utopia when it is pure communism.
Well utopia for the great leaders that is
They just need to raise the minimum wage to $125/hr and set taxes at 100%. Then there will be prosperity and schools will be properly funded. Oh, and eliminate the Chicago defense budget.
https://boudicabpi.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/liveleak-dot-com-b4fa769e...
Actually, who really cares anymore? Just another one of many fresh corpses in a Sudanese sun, rotting away, attracting maggots ....
Send all the thugs and parasites, school administrators and their students from Detroit and Chicago to Germany and Sweden while they are being so open hearted. Do not miss a good opportunity.
I say send all of them, minus the students (they are still young and innocent) to Syria. They already love shooting people, we need to get them work.
Young maybe but innocent? I've seen the population of a Trenton school and if Chicago's even a shadow of that, then dem brudda's would do just fine in Syria.
I like innovative thinkers. Good job.
As does the word that describes most their citizens.
Dat funny!
Indeed. Let it burn!!!!
Sell the excess fat as whale oil first.
let me set up an app. I could earn a Ferrrari!
^^THIS^^
I think I cracked a rib laughing so hard. The irony being that Proggys forget about JD Rockefeller having saved the whales.
Gov is all-seing and all-solving...:-)
Proud member of the clean plate club.
They might start eating the children they are "protecting"
Don't get me started.
I hated to vote you up from 69, but I did.
You know it is politically incorrect to mention this. Fat Pride, and all that shit
Solution to this district funding problem: Home Schooling!
Yeah, I've done it, and yeah, it requires work on the part of the parents, or should I say parent(s). My wife and I (she's gone now damnit) homeschooled our son for a year and our daughter for a year at different times for different reasons, and we all benefited from it. But it does take a real effort, (i.e. it is a lot of work for the parents), which means it would not work for most of the FSA.
Shut the fucking district down! The Policeman and Fireman and former teachers and administrators who have their bloated pensions can stick with their "I've got mine, Fuck You" attitude, and the fundamentally corrupt state legs and supreme court can finally see the results of their actions. Everybody has to give on this, and nobody is going to - the results are predictable, and will not be pretty.
And I was a volunteer firefighter for over 20 years, and got jack plus shit for pension for it, and that's fine. Yeah, the public servants, using the term losely, deserve a decent pension they can live on, but most of us know how the unions and their votes have corrupted the system beyond belief. It dishonors so many that served, but they have talked themselves into the "I deserve it" belief system.
Fuckers. You forgot why you served, for those of you who ever got it, and were not in it for a short career and a fat pension. Chicago deserves to crash and burn, and it will, soon.
We don' need no mutherfuckin' water, let dat motherfucker burn!
Just use the money going to the gubmint workers pension to pay the bills.....
For about a hundred years or more. Who could be surprised at this?
Tiny Dancer is working hard to make sure his pals get theirs while everybody else can just suck it. Last year, I think 9 Fingers had a billion in TIF money. Well, fuck those obligations, he had to find ways to payoff those who will finance his presidential run. Cops, Firemen, Teachers? What have you done for me lately? "You vote as you are told and I am still running it."
People are shocked that gang bangers back and own Aldermen. What gang owns Rahmmy?
FORWARD PEOPLE'S PARADISE!
Sweet Home Chicago
What a bunch of pathetic suckers.
It's not fraud, it's extortion.
Exactly right. Any time there is a budget shortfall the first thing that goes are any useful parts of government. Cops, teachers and half the clerks at DMV get fired so you feel the pain. No administrators take a pay cut or get laid off.
One year at my fairly large company we were offered the choice of taking a 5% pay cut or layoffs (with severance). There were also layoffs. This does not happen in government. They should suffer the economic realities like the private sector. Everyone gets a 5% pay cut, or you have to contribute more to your own pension or no raises for five years, etc.
My preference would be to see no extra money and let them keep laying off people until no schools are open, yet they have a $4 billion dollar budget with all schools closed and no teachers. Then the fraud and graft should become pretty apparent.
What gang owns Rahmmy? Well, Daddy Nine-Fingers was a big gun in the irgun (apparently he liked blowing up buses) so that's easy. The same gang or tribe owns him as owns the Community Organizer, David Axelrod, Christine LaGarde. Chicago is still second city - second only to hymie-town.
Simple - Import five million Syrians whose homes the U.S. has destroyed and charge them all a $100 immigrant tax.
We made eight million homeless, but I'm guessing three million or so will want to stay in Europe, drown or be killed by U.S. al Nusra or ISIS forces before they make it out.
Take THAT, Assad!
Barry's war against Assad. Has the Congress gotten around to declaring war on Syria yet? Or do we bother about minor stuff like that any more?
Better yet, export all Chicago children to Israel.
Israel gets three billion a year in free U.S. taxpayer money. Let them educate the children of Chicago - they can afford it.
"Just wondering… How many “broken windows” would it take to bring Chicago back to prosperity?
Krugman? Krugman? Kru… ;-)"
Are there any unbroken windows in Chicago? And I hear it gets pretty cold in Chicago come wintertime. All those broken windows are going to be pretty darn inefficient and not very green, and they'll definitely have to keep breaking windows right through the cold of winter. Mr. Krugman, I thought you were a good liberal - how do you reconcile THAT?!
Socialism at its best and they are getting what they asked for.....
I assume you are also against them getting those $26 million pensions?
Meet Neil Codell an Illinois educator with a $26 million state pension.
Look for 'Codell, Neil C' -- 4th from the top of the list. His estimated career pension is $26,661,604. That's almost $27 million for a single administrator within just one local Illinois school system (Niles, to be exact).
http://dailybail.com/home/make-this-story-go-viral-you-thought-Californi...
It's a great gig if you can get it.
We could use an address and Social Security number prease.
--Peoples Republic Of China PPT
I used to live near Niles and good ol boy Neal's village of Highland Park. VERY EXCLUSIVE areas, North Shore Cook county. What they need is a good F-5 to go through the southside and clean up everything the natural way.
That's it! I'm breaking the news to Father Loki tomorrow; I am going to become a Chicago School Administrator instead of a neurosurgeon. Why should I be poor the rest of my life? I want a purple Escalade too.
Grape Escalade. It's grape, not purple.
That's plum crazy! (Challenger color)
If only FDR had considered data loss, among the repercussions of having a centralized, and easily repeatable universal ID number. What lessons can be learned by the current crop of central planners? Will they even be learned?
Excellent link, Dust. I had forgotten about the California one, too.
All the salaries and pensions of "public servants" (cough, cough, hack, hack!) should be made public. The leftists complain about CEO's, etc. but never their own.
I do not have to support a CEO. His money comes from his company. I do get taxed, ever higher to forefully support the leaches in the government.
"Chicago Public Schools—with 394,000 students and nearly 21,000 teachers..."
Maybe there's only 21K teachers...how many other employees support Chicago Public Schools?
I'll guessing it's something close to a 1:1 employee to student ratio...i.e. 394K employees.
CPS has 41,579 employees, if you believe their stats.
http://cps.edu/About_CPS/At-a-glance/Pages/Stats_and_facts.aspx
Thank you Dear Leader Obama and democrats running the city. If the entire country could only benefit from your awesome laws and orders.
Oh, wait...
"the South Side of Chicago is willing to Hunger Strike themselves"
from the looks of some of those 'activists' it could be a loooong strike
from where wil their insulin injections comes? Because boxes of chocolate flavored horseshit aren't really food anyway.
Wake me up when they A) don't eat the children and B) can subsist off water for moar than 24 hours.
I'm giving you a D on puntuation, but a super-secret handshake finger ring tootsie rool deluxe 20 quadzillion upvotes on the basic message. So, that's a six, overall.
Please read Marshall McLuhan, if ony because nobody does anymore. Or don't.
Illinois, default (already happened, re: lottery), Shemitah (why not?).
Personally, I don't think anything is going to happen in a large economic way this month.
I think of it as a slow grind. If you're either evil or a mobster (as depicted in Hollywood movies), or both, you appreciate the efficiency of the slow grind. Helps to be a sociopath, too, but that's not really something most ordinary people would put on their resumes.
Anyhow, great comment.
I like mobsters compared to government. The business model is more honest and open.
I work in Chicago. The schools are ~60% full, and this is after they closed quite a few a couple years ago. The "hunger strike" school is one that was closed, it is to be a charter school. What they should call it is a sanctuary school. Well meaning parents actually want a place for their kids to learn.
No one mentions that last Wednesday 10 people/kids/yoots were shot to death, coincidentally the first week school was back in session. A lot of this inner city schools are blended gang turf meeting places they want to keep separated to avoid total warfare. Black lives matter.
I went to Chicago Public schools. What we have here are not schools at all anymore.
"I went to Chicago Public schools. What we have here are not schools at all anymore."
This is racist. They just need more funding.
Deficits are racist.
As are bullets, apparently.
pods
Dey jus need mo money fo dem programs
Total US statists/data/graphs of enrollment, demogrphics by graduation/drop-out, etc..:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/historical/
Learning is fun!
A link for the data-driven:
http://heyjackass.com/
Can we show them the path to Germany?
Iceland.
Iceland needs attitude after defaulting on their debt and all.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-06/11000-icelanders-offer-house-sy...
Just go to the lakefront, head east.
From what I see in the picture some will last quite a long time on that hunger strike.
That fat white or somewhat semi-white woman on the right hand side of the picture needs to go on a hunger strike. that repulsive black woman who runs the Chicago teacher's union is another fat tub of shit pig.
F Chicago and their corrupt unions.
Freddie, you're not being very considerate of that fat tub of shit pig's feelings. Might I suggest some sensitivity group sessions?
This is America, we won't see any effects of the hunger strick for at least a year.
By the looks of the female teacher on the photo, she is a prepper and has reserves to go on a hunger strike for months...
...and no one can take it from her.
Hunger Strike? Short Cheetos and grape soda
I can see the headline now.
"Food Stamp program runs suprise surplus in Illinois"
The former chancellor of Chicago Schools, Arne Duncan, has been busy wrecking the schools at the national level. Nobody ever said he wasn't thoroughly destructive.
Yes and fuck them and all that work there.
Meat Hammer:
Stop calling them daycare centers. They are indoctrination centers.
Fixed it for me. Thanks.
Can I weigh in with detention centers?
Public schools = Daycare/Indoctrination/Detention Centers
Really, are the teechers geting the same rate as the corrections officers?
Better. Most corrections instittutions are probably private, now.
"Public schools = Daycare/Indoctrination/Detention Centers"
3 in 1? And here I have always said that government wasn't efficient. Guess I was wrong.
Retardation centers of exceptionalism?
...for kids who cant read good and stuff.
Why not both?
<little-taco-girl.jpg>
The plump chick is a community organizer? Then she is a democrap candidate for the fudgepacker's job...
Juvenile detention centers.
Next up, charter skools & communist core.
Wait til those praetorian guards get screwed out of their pensions.
Pass the popcorn please.
"Wait til those praetorian guards get screwed out of their pensions."
If it comes to that I expect those "praetorian guards" to start "passing the plate" among the mundanes.
you're being generous. i would call them indoctrination centers.
and actually, thats kind of what the architects of the system Dewey and the Rockefeller Foundation called them....indirectly of course
Indoctrination centers.
Not 'schools'
Not 'daycare centers'
Theyre indoctrination & dumbing down centers.
People would celebrate their being closed down -
If They also hadnt been dumbed down & indoctrinated when they were kids.
Re-Edewkayshyn Centers.
"Stop calling them schools. They are daycare centers."
Very close, but not quite.
A daycare center is typically a business that one voluntarily renders their after-tax dollars.
Come on, MH! You know better!
That is the best you got?
Grrrr. My bad, but still appropriate.
...Did not see the posts above me until after the hammer hit my kneecap.
I was going to call them government indoctrination centers!
Boy, if Scott Walker made these cuts, I could just imagine the outrage.
do away with teacher pensions and give them 401Ks like everyone else!
hell, give them nothing like everyone else!
you'll get nothing, and you'll LIKE it
Could I get another bowl of that nothing?
Could I get another bowl of that nothing?
exactly, why would you pay someone to destroy what was once a decent society. paying teachers is beyond me (well, there are a few exceptions of course)
Did you notice that was the one conspicuous option they didn't mention?
Good luck with the 401 idea. When they found out they had to actually contribute toward their own pension there would be mass riots. When the FSA gets free shit for years, it's difficult if not impossible to get them to work or to contribute a penny to their own existence.
liquidate the pensions and throw all these fuckers all into SS
The name of the game is bailout
The Canadian Government has expressed interest in Chicago.
Odd as it seems it would cost less to house their equivalent to felons there.
Tidy up the place a bit first and wire it, Just like home.
Detroit was too much of a cess pool for consideration.
Mexico is looking at Detroit as a penal colony, however.
Gives me fond memories of Harold Washington. Jane Byrne? Not so much.
As other people's money runs out, it's fun to watch the oh-so-altruistic takers battle each other.
Yes indeed, but the idiots that reside in Chicago will vote en masse for every corrupt Democrat candidate for every election just like they have for decade after decade in this one party, bankrupt, violent mess of a city run exclusively by the most virulent progressive leftists out there.
Q: How many progressive liberal democraps does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That's not funny and your a racist and gimme all your money cuz I know how to spend it better than you.
Let them burn. Chiraqui chilluns can't even learn to shoot straight in school, much less reading or writing.
lol – liberals were in disbelief when rahm emanuel went with his tail-between-his-legs, hat-in-hand to steve forbes for “help” on the budget issue
have to see the irony here: school teachers not very good at the “math” of their compensation structure
Actually, it appears they are good at math.
1) Run up massive liabilities
2) Bailout
3) Rinse repeat
That's not math.
That's theft.
Two different things. Amazingly, New York State has some very specific laws on just about everything.
Some parts of the state actually have functioning judicials districts.
So, like, it's not the end of the world (but it sure feels close) today. Kick back. Lower your blood pressure.
Chill.
And please don't even think about buying any silver.
Fuck these union communist greedy sons of bitches. They can go straight to Hell and that queer fucker Obama had better not bail them out.
Half a billion what, rubber ducks?
They have six billion bucks but can't get by? Get the kids assembling smart phones after hours and maybe these schools can turn a profit for once.
The problem will never get better because the staff all feel entitled to spend unlimited amounts of taxpayer money. You could give those morons $20 Trillion and they would still operate the district in a deficit. Some people are simply so incompetent you can't even be in the same room with them; in Chicago, they put those people in charge of the schools.
All I can say is as I have grown older, I have discovered that these people tend to gravitate towards one another. Makes it very easy to figure out where NOT to go.
These azz-hats are clueless.
When one of my nieces went on a week long field trip to D.C. while she was in high school, she caught the flu. The teacher wanted to take the girl into the emergency room, on the weekend. The price quoted for this was outrageous. Instead, her parents told her to rest in bed, drink plenty of fluids, and monitor her temperature. No emergency room for non emergencies. The girl did fine.
Of course, the teacher had never had to pay a cent for their own medical care. Spending the money that taxpayers provided was no concern to them. This person has nothing worthwhile to teach the young. 'Schools' are a major racket in this country, sucking up precious resources and dumbing down our kids. The 'schools' are a major force that has been used to destroy America, - for more than a century, and especially since the 1960s.
On a plus note, my niece was sick that whole week she was in D.C. She never got to visit all the expensive Masonic monuments to the lawyer/liar/politicians in the country. And her nose was too plugged up to smell the stench of that place.
I am sure thousands of 6 figure pensions has nothing to do with it.
But ZH had to throw that little dig in at the end, pretending that Chicago teachers make $60K. Yeah, maybe in your first three years. But every single teacher (or cop, firefighter, water dept bureaucrat, etc) anywhere in the country who works to retirement is literally a millionaire (often multi) when you account for pensions and healthcare.