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* Study: Third-World math scores in Chicago
Chicago’s public schools do as badly as schools in some Third World nations in math, a first-of-its kind study released Wednesday has found.
Although CPS math scores have improved since 2003, fourth-graders still tested worse than all but Cleveland and Washington, D.C., in the United States. Just 13 percent of CPS eighth-graders were proficient in math, putting them on par with students in countries such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Jordan and Macedonia.
* One-Third of Illinois Schools Fail to Meet Federal Targets
* ‘Schools need to get out of the bedroom’
* Property owners promised tax relief
Flogging a favorite whipping post, Daley demanded that Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan make real-time adjustments to reflect declining property values.
“The taxpayers of Cook County want immediate relief. There has to be . . . flexibility. If not, there are gonna be more abandoned homes, more foreclosed homes and more people moving out of rental apartments. They can’t afford it. You have to act immediately,” Daley said.
* Alderman: Why is upkeep of Millennium Park costing taxpayers?
A South Side alderman on Wednesday demanded to know why Mayor Daley was spending $8.1 million in hotel tax revenues to secure and maintain Millennium Park when upkeep of the park beset by construction overruns “wasn’t supposed to cost taxpayers a dime.”
* County hospital board seeks $100M more in budget
* Campaign donations issue raised in prosecutor’s race
Cook County state’s attorney candidate Anita Alvarez has accepted nearly $30,000 in campaign contributions from at least 85 employees within the office, even as other politicians have stopped the practice.
Most of the donations were relatively small, topping out at $1,000. But in a state where bosses have come under fire for shaking down their employees, it’s a position that contrasts with the Democrat’s message that she’s the candidate to change the “good ol’ boy mentality” in the office.
* Low-income disabled to ride free on CTA, Metra, Pace
It marks the latest expansion of a free-rides push that started in March after Gov. Rod Blagojevich granted free rides to senior citizens.
* Skyway considers open-road tolling
Drivers who save time and money by using open-road tolling on the Illinois Tollway might someday enjoy the same benefits on the Chicago Skyway.
The Spanish-Australian consortium that’s paying the city $1.83 billion for a 99-year Chicago Skyway lease is laying the groundwork for open-road tolling.
* New state toll authority chief a familiar face
The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority is turning to its past for its future.
Tollway directors are expected to approve hiring former chief engineer Jeffrey Dailey as the new executive director on Oct. 30, officials announced Wednesday.
Dailey was chief engineer from 2004 to 2007 and a major player in starting up the authority’s extension of I-355 South and a $6.3 billion congestion relief initiative. The construction program aims to increase lanes from three to four on clogged sections of the tollway system and is nearing completion.
* Illinois Tollway chairman offers pick for agency’s $189,000 top post
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 10:10 am
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Also just heard a horrible stat on % of public high school students graduating is now LOWER than ever [don’t know if it was IL or Chicago or US]. Clearly what has been forced on us is not working and simply throwing more $$ at the problem isn’t improving it. Has anyone looked at successful schools to see what we can do to pattern ours after the BEST schools?
Are Chicago scores/graduation % better or worse than Detroit schools? Than Iraqi schools? Than Chinese schools? Anyone know?
Comment by North of I-80 Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 10:31 am
There’s only one toll booth on the Skyway. What’s the advantage to using open road tolling there?
Comment by Levois Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 10:33 am
The AP story says the $8 million to maintain Millennium Park is coming from hotel tax revenues. If I recall correctly, the city’s share of those funds are supposed to fund tourism promotion. I wonder if the hotel owners consider cutting the grass at Millennium Park tourism promotion.
The state’s share of the Chicago hotel tax, I believe, backs McCormick Place bonds and funds state tourism efforts. If the city is using it’s share of the money for maintenance, maybe the GA should revisit the tax split formula. I believe the McCormick Place bond fund will soon face a deficit and the state is responsible for any shortage.
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 10:43 am
Daley (and other politicians) are completely disingenous when blaming the Cook County Assessor for high tax bills — they are trying to divert attention and blame. There is ONLY one cause of high tax bills — government spending. The Assessor’s figures simply are the proportion of what one owes.
Comment by Just Observing Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 10:50 am
What’s the advantage to using open road tolling there?
It all circulates back to Chicago and Illinois Daley, Blagojevich, etc.
Prepare yourself for another major Illinois Tollway increase.
Comment by Northside Bunker Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 11:35 am
Levois-
Every toll booth stop slows everyone down by about 35 seconds on average. Multiplied by 40,000 vehicles a day, this is a lot of wasted time and extra emissions from the stop-n-go.
Plus, less tollbooths = less toll collectors = more profit, minus the electronic collection costs.
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 11:57 am
Levois-
Of course, the new Skyway operators have already reduced labor costs significantly.
http://www.tollroadsnews.com/node/983
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 12:00 pm
To bicker a point, I’d hardly call Cyprus, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Jordan ‘third world’ countries. Depending on what you use to judge them and I chose the Human Development Index:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index)
Three of the four: Cyprus, Macedonia and Bulgaria, rate in the high category and Jordan is on the high end of the middle category.
It is pretty sad that the Sun Times chose to reference them as ‘third world’. I would hazard a guess that people in, say the Ivory Coast, think people those countries have it pretty nice.
Comment by Gish Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 12:09 pm
Houlihan should really call the mayor’s bluff on this one. When a homeowner’s assessment decreases and the tax rate increases, who will the mayor blame then?
Comment by Elliot Ness Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 1:24 pm
This is rich - Chicago schools are on par with third world countries, and they want to use my tax dollars to establish a PUBLIC high school for gay and transgender students. How about we get the students literate before we worry about their sexual preference. Just a thought.
Comment by steal your face Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 1:35 pm
Every dollar that Houlie saves for his residents by manipulating the assessment system has to be raised by increasing property taxes on business and industrial property — just what creates jobs for them that can read, write and do sums.
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 2:24 pm
Dittos to TJ & Elliot.
There are only two ways to reduce property taxes, and that is to reduce spending.
1. Cut them and swap with income tax increases.
2. Freeze the LEVY and cut spending in each taxing authority.
HB 750, of course, is a fake swap, as it does not permanently reduce, nor significantly reduce property taxes. (How well have those “designated funds” held up, Ralph?)
The people passing a fake swap will pay dearly in the next election cycle, and the people who actually pass an honest swap (including substantial and permanent relief) will be popular.
Writing up legislation for a statewide “Levy” freeze would probably be hugely popular with everyone except politicians and gov. officials.
Comment by Bruno Behrend Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 6:01 pm
The Assessment system has for many years been playing games with the people and the law.
In the first place, in law there is no such thing as comparability in real estate. True comparability would mean substitutability of one piece of property in a transaction without the permission of the second party
There were strict limits on the extent which under statute Cook County was to have a multiple classification system. 33 1/3 ratios were required on all classes of property in all other counties but Cook. The State equalizing factor provided discipline to all other County assessment systems/
In Cook, classes could be assigned separate ratios (17% originally against homes; 38% against commercial properties if and only if the difference between the lowest ratio and the highest ratio was no more than 250% Assessment staffs working for politicians broke that ratio wide open. If a residential property owner had the right assistance, your ratio could be lowered to 11%, and if the moon was right and your assistance was politically connected down to (sshh) ten percent — for a fee, of course.
The poor fools without assistance were told by the Township Assessors whose power had been reduced to record keeping to ‘go fish.’ Find a comparable property with a lower valuation and rat out your neighbor. And in the not so old days, before a couple went to jail, the Board of Review people encouraged you to put a white envelope in the top left hand drawer of the desk where they sat. No credit cards, of course.
And that is a true story.
Houlihan inherited a mess. George Ryan had a State Board of review law passed, and those worthies were not under County control. The big guys figured it out. If the ratio differences could be no greater than 250% and the residents were being assessed at a de facto 10%, that meant that their commercial property could be assessed not at a 38% ratio, but at 25%, so would the State Review Board lower the valuations, please. And more than that, would they roll back prior year’s valuations to the same ratio. And would the Cook County Treasurer please rebate the differential taxes paid in error.
The problem was that the local units of government had already used the money. They had gotten the game changed so that instead of the Treasurer keeping the taxes being appealed, it was distributed to the taxing bodies who were told to play nice and not spend it. Of course temptations arone, and ‘the devil made me do it.
So the County Assessor tried to get the State Review Board abolished, or better still, just take away their funding. Didn’t happen.
That made the only money available to the Treasurer for rebate was from the current collections which the taxing bodies were supposed to get and for which they had budgeted. Hard times were ahead.
This all became the nexus for the increase in tax anticipation financing and the so called working cash bonds.
What is the Assessor to do? What are the taxing bodies to do? Where are the bodied buried?
Continued tomorrow
Comment by Truthful James Thursday, Oct 23, 08 @ 7:17 pm