Illinois Pension Crisis

One of my major sources for this project is the blog by Fred Klonsky at http://preaprez.wordpress.com/page/2/. Fred is my Uncle Mike's brother and has not only been an educator for many years, but has also made it his mission to bring light to the current issue about pension in Illinois. Fred's posts have helped me because it allows me to grasp an inside look at a teacher's perspective about the issue. One of his most recent posts included details about the trip to Springfield that many teachers made in order to make a case to legislators about their proposed solutions to the pension issues. Some of Illinois most recent ideas have included raising the age that pensions can be recieved, lowering the actual amount of money that will be included in any given pension, potentially raising taxes and ultimately having citizens pay for their own pensions, and some legislators have even considered canceling pensions all together until Illinois can gain back the money that they seemingly do not have. As one may have assumed, none of these options have been sitting well with teachers. Many critics of the situation have found that blaming the teachers is the way to go and others have gone as far as to say that teachers are not as important as CEOs or leaders of Fortune 500 companies and shouldn't even be paid as much as they are currently being paid. These kinds of assumptions and closed-minded comments are what is majorly setting back the ability for us to move forward with the issue and continue finding answers. The trip to Springfield was ultimatelty a successful one and the mass group of teachers that drove down made a statement for those all around the state who are at risk of being shoved to the side at the end of the situation.