Below are links to news stories of interest from newspapers that came up during a search today. These links were active at the time of this e-mail, but should you want to save a story, printing it or cutting and pasting the entire article and saving it to your computer is recommended.
State News 
Meeks open to school vouchers A key legislative proponent of improving Illinois’ public schools is reversing his usual course by pushing school vouchers. Sen. James Meeks said academic disparities and recent violence in Chicago schools have changed his mind about vouchers. The Chicago Democrat is calling for an Illinois School Choice Program in Senate Bill 2494.
Dist. 300 considers more cuts
Chicago Daily Herald – When the Community Unit District 300 school board votes on $6.4 million in budget reductions this month, it might not be the final word on next year’s budget. District 300 administration presented additional proposals Monday that could
D300 extends contract for teachers union
Elgin Courier News – for a year if the school district and its unions haven’t negotiated new contracts by the time the old ones are up. But the teachers’ union contract wasn’t set to expire until June 30. Local Education Association of District 300, or LEAD, and District 300 began negotiations in mid-January when the superintendent proposed $6.4 million in cuts to the district’s 2010-2011 budget
Kaneland explores cost-cutting measures
Chicago Daily Herald – fiscal year starts June 30, and the final budget must be adopted by Sept. 30. Dozens of people in the audience were both Kaneland teachers and district residents. Earlier in the day, the Kaneland Education Association announced members had refused a request from the district to give up the pay raise they are scheduled to get next year.
Kaneland parents, teachers, taxpayers sound off on budget cuts
DeKalb Daily Chronicle – Monday, in the wake of a decision by Kaneland teachers to refuse to negotiate away their pay increases, more than 200 parents, teachers and residents of the Kaneland School District packed into the cafeteria at Kaneland Harter Middle School to discuss the district’s proposals to trim $2.6 million from next year’s district budget.
Kaneland teachers refuse to renegotiate contract
Beacon News – has spent three months attending meetings, doing research and weighing options to make the most informed decision possible concerning the district’s request to renegotiate this contract,” a Kaneland Education Association statement said Monday. KEA President Linda Zulkowski said 75 percent of its membership voted not to reconsider terms of the contract.
D204 expects state funding cuts
Suburban Chicago News Budgets for units of government all over Illinois are being slashed to make accommodations for the worst recession since the early 1980s, and Indian Prairie School District 204 is no exception. “We are in the middle of tough times right now,” Superintendent Kathy Birkett said Monday at the district’s regular board meeting.
District 303 receives grim report from superintendent on budget cuts
St. Charles Sun – Illinois school cuts may be worse than feared next year, according to Community Unit School District 303 Superintendent Donald Schlomann. At Monday night’s District 303 board of education meeting, Schlomann relayed a message that cuts look to be at least $1 billion across Illinois next year. The message was from a Large Unit District Association meeting with legislators
Clock ticking on D118 staff cuts
Danville Commercial-News – the fiscal year in July following a one-year deal last year that provided a modest pay-raise and created a new step for experienced teachers. That agreement followed a multi-year contract. Danville Education Association President Robin Twidwell did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
Plainfield school cuts delayed
Joliet Herald News – Plainfield school board postponed a vote Monday night that would have cut more than 200 jobs to reduce a $16 million deficit. The district faces a $16 million deficit that must be erased in three years
Pre-K Program Prepares for Worst, Hopes for Best
Harrisburg WSIL (ABC) 3 – The state has only paid the Williamson County Early Childhood Co-op eleven percent of the funds they were promised this school year. The co-op has been making do by borrowing from Williamson County school districts.
Moline schools look at budget-saving options
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus Leader – Superintendent Cal Lee presented 67 budget-saving options valued at more than $6.5 million Monday. The district plans to adopt about $3.5 million in cuts next school year, he said, adding the list of Phase 1 and Phase 2 cuts made him sick to his stomach. Those cuts include some of his personal “sacred cow items” such as delaying new textbooks, he said, adding the deeper Phase 2 cuts were “devastating.”
More cuts loom in D-26
Crystal Lake Northwest Herald – District 26 schools likely will have to bear about $3 million more in budget cuts over the next few years – and that’s a best-case scenario. The reductions would be on top of the $5.4 million that officials already planned to cut for the 2010-11 school year.
U-46 appeals bilingual waiver decision
Arlington Heights Daily Herald – Elgin Area School District U-46 is asking the General Assembly to override a state board of education decision denying the district’s request to exceed class-size limits for students learning English. The state board voted Jan. 14 to reject the request, upholding state law
Higher education going under Since July 1, the state has made only sporadic payments on no particular schedule. At Southern Illinois University, for example, the state has paid only 23 percent of the appropriated funds. At campuses throughout Illinois, the state is $735 million behind, and as a result — just as they teach in Accounting 101 — the universities don’t have the money to pay their own bills.
Political News
Gov. Pat Quinn wants Tammy Duckworth as Illinois lieutenant governor candidate
Chicago Sun Times – Scoopsville? Sneed hears former Illinois state veterans chief Tammy Duckworth is Gov. Quinn’s personal pick as lieutenant governor nominee — replacing the scandal-ridden Scott Lee Cohen.
Hynes won’t replace Cohen, but who will?
The scramble is on to replace Scott Lee Cohen on the Democratic general-election ticket. And just about the only certainty is that Dan Hynes won’t be the man to fill Cohen’s shoes as the party’s lieutenant governor nominee. Hynes, who narrowly lost to Gov. Quinn in last week’s Democratic governor’s race, said Monday he doesn’t want state government’s No. 2 job.
Dan Hynes doesn’t want Scott Cohen’s lieutenant governor post, but who will get it?
Chicago Sun – And just about the only certainty is that Dan Hynes won’t be the man to fill Cohen’s shoes as the party’s lieutenant governor nominee. Hynes, who narrowly lost to Gov. Quinn in last week’s Democratic governor’s race, said Monday he doesn’t want state government’s No. 2 job.
Boland says he should fill Cohen’s ballot slot for Democrats
Quad Cities Dispatch Argus Leader – State Rep. Mike Boland of East Moline said it makes sense for him to replace the Democratic Party’s disgraced lieutenant governor nominee Scott Lee Cohen. Mr. Cohen, who won the primary election Feb. 2, dropped out of the race Sunday after news that he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and holding a knife to the throat of an ex-girlfriend who is an alleged prostitute.
Cohen controversy renews debate over value of the job
Arlington Heights Daily Herald – The controversy surrounding Scott Lee Cohen’s nomination and subsequent withdrawal from the race for Illinois lieutenant governor has renewed the debate over whether the position is needed at all. The job has few official duties other than to wait for the governor to die or resign, and critics say that vague job description is reason enough to eliminate it.
Cohen election exposes total system failure
Chicago Sun Times – Now that the Scott Lee Cohen debacle is over, voters have every right to be disgusted. Not only did the media drop the ball by not digging deep enough into Cohen’s past, but we didn’t even follow the money. Cohen spent an estimated $2 million of his own money during a campaign that pitted him against a field of seasoned politicians.
Cohen move gives Democrats a rare do-over
Springfield State Journal Register – Democrats in Illinois are getting a political do-over: the chance to pick a new lieutenant governor nominee themselves now that the primary winner dropped out of the race because of revelations about his checkered past. Gov. Pat Quinn has the rare opportunity to help choose his running mate, but refused to say Monday who was on his short list of potential partners.
Could trickle of absentee, provisional ballots lift Kirk Dillard over Bill Brady?
Chicago Sun Times – Now that the Cohen saga has quieted down with his decision to withdraw, attention will return to the far more important business of deciding which Republican will face Gov. Quinn in November, even while Quinn and the Democrats go about the job of picking Cohen’s replacement. Of immediate interest is the tallying of late-arriving mail absentee and provisional votes.
Blago attys refused trial plans
Journal&Gazette Times-Courier – A federal judge refused Monday to give former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys an early look at key evidence in his corruption case, saying their request was based on “rhetorical flourishes,” not legal principles.
GOP wary of pitfalls in Obama’s health care summit
Boston Globe – Even as Republicans publicly welcome President Barack Obama’s call for a bipartisan confab on health care, some privately worry that he might be laying a trap to portray their ideas as flimsy. If so, a shaky showing by GOP leaders could possibly embolden congressional Democrats to make a final, aggressive push to overhaul the nation’s health care system,
Congressional Dems blame Rahm
The Hill – Democrats in Congress are holding White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel accountable for his part in the collapse of healthcare reform. The emerging consensus among critics in both chambers is that Emanuel’s lack of Senate experience slowed President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.
Cheney’s Revenge
The Wall Street Journal – Dick Cheney is not the most popular of politicians, but when he offered a harsh assessment of the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism last May, his criticism stung—so much that the President gave a speech the same day that was widely seen as a direct response. Though neither man would admit it, eight months later political and security realities are forcing Mr. Obama’s antiterror policies
John Murtha dies; longtime congressman was master of pork-barrel politics
Washington Post – Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Vietnam War veteran who staunchly supported military spending and became a master of pork-barrel politics, died Monday at Virginia Hospital Center. The 19-term lawmaker died from complications of gallbladder surgery. He was 77. Elected to Congress in 1974 from a southwestern Pennsylvania district that has been economically devastated
Stimulus funds for high-speed Internet access tangled up
USA Today – The Obama administration knew that there’d be a lot of interest in the $7.2 billion for high-speed Internet projects it included in last year’s huge economic stimulus package. The goal was to quickly create tens of thousands of jobs and connect millions of poor and rural communities to broadband, a technology that’s essential for economic development, modern medicine and education.
National News
Obama wants school vending machine changes – Diet and nutrition
WMAQ-TV (MSNBC ) Chicago – would also push for bigger reimbursements for schools serving breakfast. In addition, the administration is seeking to link local farmers with school cafeterias and improve parent and student education about nutrition. Lawmakers from both parties have expressed interest child nutrition. Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee,
Race to the Top: For Minnesota, figuring out new federal education plan is far … MinnPost.com – REUTERS/Larry DowningPresident Obama and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visiting Wright Middle School in Madison, Wis., last fall. …
Education chief urges big push for innovation Greensboro News & Record – Even though he was snowbound in Washington, Education Secretary Arne Duncan was playing to the crowd Monday at the Raleigh
Education chief: Don’t teach to test News & Observer – … US Education Secretary Arne Duncan told nearly 200 people gathered Monday at the Emerging Issues Forum at the Raleigh Convention Center. …
‘No Child’ program needs some changes Washington Observer Reporter – ? When Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced proposed reforms to No Child Left Behind last week, he laid out a scenario to prove the point
U.S. Troops Prepare to Test Obama’s Afghan War Plan The looming battle for the small town of Marja could prove to be an important indicator of the prospects for U.S. forces in Afghanistan
Asian Carp in the Great Lakes? This Means War! Invasive species of Asian carp may be infiltrating the Great Lakes. If they establish themselves in Midwestern waterways, scientists say they will destroy the existing ecosystem
Al-Qaeda Wedding: Celebrating in an Unfortunately Named Town An unexpected wedding invitation to an unfortunately named town highlights Yemen’s promise — and its challenges. An evening with the villagers of Al-Qaeda
Book Excerpt: Anatomy of an Iraq War Crime The second and final excerpt of TIME contributing editor Jim Frederick’s new book highlights how Private First Class Steven Green and his co-conspirators masterminded their crime in Iraq
Facebook Gifts Get Real The social-networking site wants your money — and your friend’s mailing address
Word of the Day for Tuesday, February 9, 2010
vitiate \VISH-ee-ayt\, transitive verb:
1. To make faulty or imperfect; to render defective; to impair; as, “exaggeration vitiates a style of writing.”
2. To corrupt morally; to debase.
3. To render ineffective; as, “fraud vitiates a contract.”