The school system tapped borrowed money to make a $634 million, state-mandated fiscal 2015 payment to the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund by a June 30 deadline. It also announced $200 million in spending cuts last month that include the elimination of 1,400 jobs.
Talks with the retirement fund over giving the district a $500 million break on its fiscal 2016 pension payment ended without a deal.
As with most professions today, there are rapid developments in teaching that are being driven by social and technological changes. Keeping up to date with these developments within education will pay dividends with improved teaching skills. The skills needed to be a great teacher have now changed; modern teachers need to be competent in many new skill sets that were unknown to their predecessors.
With many educators pushing for students to use resources on the Internet with class work, the federal government is now grappling with a stark disparity in access to technology, between students who have high-speed Internet at home and an estimated five million families who are without it and who are struggling to keep up.
