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 
Illinois faces $2 billion in cuts; education hit hard More than $2 billion will have to be cut from the state budget next year — nearly half from public grade and high schools — budget information released Wednesday by Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration shows. The dismal news is contained on a Web site — http://budget.Illinois.gov — created by the administration give the public more details about the state’s precarious finances and to seek suggestions from them about what to do.
Schools to take wallop in 2011 state budget Without an infusion of cash, Gov. Quinn plans to slash more than $2 billion from next year’s state budget and make already cash-strapped public school systems across Illinois bear the brunt of that cutting, his budget director confirmed Wednesday.
State $33M behind in payments to EIU
Mattoon Journal Gazette – higher education committee colleagues to have the state set a timeline for paying money owed to public universities and community colleges.On Monday, the 10 legislators sent a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Daniel Hynes asking them to notify the higher education institutions of a payment timeline. If a timeline is not available, the legislators have asked to meet with Quinn
Budget “Catastrophe” Predicted for Schools
Harrisburg WSIL (ABC) 3 – Illinois State Superintendent of Schools Christopher Koch is predicting a “catastrophe” for Illinois schools in the next fiscal year– a one billion dollar shortfall.
School supts. preparing for cut in state aid Williamson County school leaders braced in February for worst-case scenarios as they began to plan budgets for the 2011 fiscal year without clear direction from the General Assembly or state board of education. All five districts discussed cuts this month to prepare for possible layoffs or reductions in force to be decided in March.
Auburn considers cutting teachers, other employees As many as 8 1/2 teaching positions and 20 other jobs in the Auburn School District could be eliminated next year as Auburn school officials deal with the expected loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars of state aid.
Scores of local teachers get notice of potential cuts
Lake Forester – Probationary teachers in Lake Forest Elementary District 67 and Lake Forest High School District 115 received Reduction in Force (RIF) letters in the last two weeks as part of cost-cutting measures
State of Illinois currently owes AFC CUSD 275 more than $444,000
Ashton Gazette – AFC school board approved the amended agreement between Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) and Ashton-Franklin Center CUSD #275 regarding reimbursement of expenditures
Large crowd expected for school budget forum The Springfield School Board’s public forum on budget cuts tonight at Grant Middle School will jumpstart a budgeting process that will take months to complete. School Superintendent Walter Milton last weekend proposed $5.3 million in budget reductions during the next school year.
Proposed charter school would ‘devastate’ SD 227: Lawyer
Chicago Daily Southtown – charter school in Rich Township High School District 227 will “devastate” the district financially, and could lead to an illegal admissions policy, according to an attorney for District 227. The school board recently voted to oppose the creation of the Southland Charter Prep School, championed by proponents as a college prep-oriented alternative to district high schools plagued by years
Dist. 200 cuts irk parents, teachers As Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 officials continue to develop a strategy to address a projected $8.6 million deficit in their 2010-2011 budget, a growing number of parents and teachers are voicing their opinions.
SCHOOL DISTRICT 89: Teachers may have to pay back salary overages
West Proviso Herald – Some School District 89 teachers were paid higher salaries than their classification warrants and they may have to pay back the school district. An audit discovered 35 teachers have discrepancies in their pay,
Limited English students face daunting task in the ISAT
Medill News Service- “We have linguistically modified language forms for math and science tests. For open-ended math questions, students can respond in Spanish.” Still, some bilingual teachers say the the accommodations don’t go far enough. “If students can’t understand English, it will not help even if teachers read the directions and questions to them,” said Fareesa Khan,
Sangamon school district reps agree on necessity of sales tax CHATHAM — Representatives of nine school districts, including Springfield, agreed Wednesday night that the projected $19 million in revenue from a proposed Sangamon County schools sales tax is sorely needed.
Illinois ponders ‘sexting’ trend Explicit images by phone Only charge is child porn, even for teens in the photos. Who should be punished? Many say ’sex offender’ label doesn’t fit in these cases.
School districts plow through snow days
Macomb Journal – districts use the five snow days built into the calendar, they can apply to the State Board of Education for Act of God days,” Messersmith said. “That is my intent.” Under illinois school Code, school calendars must include 176 days of student attendance and at least five emergency days. When things happen that are beyond their control,
School Board too busy to let honor student talk
Julian High School senior Shantell Steve was walking on air last year after she was commended as a role model during a national address to schoolchildren by President Obama. But in her own hometown Wednesday, Shantell said she walked away from a Chicago School Board meeting feeling insulted and disrespected.
8 schools to be closed or overhauled After a turbulent month of public outcry and reversals by the district, the Chicago Public Schools administration received approval Wednesday to overhaul eight schools for low enrollment, poor facilities or struggling academics.
Political News
Bill would let schools skip mandates
DeKalb Daily Chronicle – Over the past 17 years, the Illinois Legislature has passed 110 unfunded mandates, many targeting public schools, according to State Rep. Robert Pritchard. And Pritchard thinks enough is enough. “Every year (districts) talk to me about the mandates we pass here, and they generally talk about how ridiculous the mandates are and how many don’t apply to them,” he said.
Our View: Whom to turn to in near-bankrupt Illinois?
Peoria Journal Star – It’s not exactly like the Civic Federation is some leftist organization, eager to tax Illinoisans into oblivion. Indeed, the 116-year-old institution headquartered in Chicago is officially non-partisan, though it’s always had a pretty pro-business, conservative slant. Its current leader worked for Republican governors Jim Edgar and George Ryan.
Editorial: Illinois must reform pensions, make cuts before tax talk
Westchester Herald – Illinois’ budget hole — almost $13 billion — is the result of years of the state spending beyond its means, years of neglecting pension reforms and years of mismanagement. The solutions will be painful, but doing nothing would be worse. One potential solution, proposed by the Civic Federation, calls for $2.5 billion in cuts, an income tax increase and pension reforms.
Committee OKs plan to eliminate lieutenant governor An Illinois House committee has approved a plan to allow voters to decide whether to abolish the state’s No. 2 post.
Madigan plan to abolish lieutenant governor office advances
Chicago Daily Herald – approved by both houses of the General Assembly, Madigan’s measure would go before voters in November along with the proposed recall amendment, an idea championed by Gov. Pat Quinn that would enable Illinoisans to oust a governor from office. In a letter to Democratic leaders, House Republican leader Tom Cross warned that a “judicious and prioritized approach” is needed
Senate panel advances legislative scholarship changes Illinois Senate President John Cullerton Wednesday said he hopes a set of proposed changes in the way lawmakers hand out scholarships will put to rest the notion that the tuition waivers are just a political perk.
National News
Getting Rid of Bad Teachers In an article this week, The Times described the slow progress New York City officials are making in their efforts to get rid of teachers who have been judged incompetent. Despite a two-year push by the city, only three teachers have been fired, a rate of success that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein called “far too modest.” He and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have blamed the teachers’ union for defending the rules governing the system, which requires that teachers receive full pay while their cases are being decided (they spend the days in one of the system’s so-called rubber rooms), a burden that costs $30 million a year. The city’s critics point out that its officials approved many of the rules in the teachers’ contract.
Los Angeles Times: LAUSD teachers gain control of 22 campuses in reform effort (Howard Blume, News, California) “In an unlikely victory, groups of teachers, rather than outside operators, will run the vast majority of 30 campuses under a controversial school reform effort, the Los Angeles Board of Education decided Tuesday.”
San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego teachers, parents, students protest — millions cut from San Diego Unified budget “(Maureen Magee, News, California) The San Diego school district would cut all salaries by 6 percent, impose five furlough days and raise medical co-payments. More than 232 probationary teachers would get laid off. And dozens of programs — including free school bus transportation for some families — would be eliminated in the fall.”
San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. school board votes to send out nearly 900 pink slips (Jill Tucker, News, California) “Nearly 900 San Francisco teachers and administrators will see a dreaded pink slip in their mailboxes next month, a mass mailing made necessary bythe district’s need to brace for a $113 million shortfall over the next two years.”
Columbia Missourian: Senate committee considers bill to give children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition (Theo Keith, News, Missouri) “No one voiced opposition to a bill providing children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition in a Senate committee hearing Wednesday, something the bill’s sponsor said was a surprise.”
USA Today: Mass firings at RI school may signal a trend (Greg Toppo, News, National) “The mass firing of teachers at a Rhode Island high school this week is hardly new: For nearly two decades, states and school districts have been “reconstituting” staffs at struggling public schools.”
TIME.com Today’s Top Stories
5 Things to Watch at Obama’s Health Care Summit
Renewal in the West Bank: A Little Noticed Mideast Success The Palestinians have made real progress toward stability. Israel should reward them for it
In Medellín, a Disturbing Comeback of Crime After a few years respite, the drug wars are reigniting the hills around the city, raising fears of a return to the very, very bad old days
An Outrage Smackdown: Family Guy Defeats Palin Politics’ master of cultural outrage and personal offense meets her match — a cartoon character
Why Washington Can’t Fix Itself Congress and the President have broad powers to find and fix what ails government. Congress has oversight and investigative authority granted implicitly by the Constitution and explicitly by statute
Most Viewed Articles on washingtonpost.com
1) Looking outside the race box So many black women are single, she says, because they are stuck in the groove of a one-track song: sitting alone, waiting for that one “good” black man to come along and sweep them off their feet.
2) Teacher’s body may have been moved The teacher slain at a state-run juvenile detention facility in Prince George’s County appears to have been attacked in a stairwell of a campus building, her body then dumped just outside a door, sources familiar with the investigation said.
3) At summit, Obama urges parties to focus on areas of agreement President Obama opened a bipartisan conference on health-care reform Thursday in a last-ditch effort to secure a compromise bill, urging lawmakers on both sides of the issue to focus on areas of agreement.
4) Trainer killed at SeaWorld loved killer whales ORLANDO, Fla. — Trainers will continue to interact with a killer whale that grabbed one of their colleagues and dragged her underwater, killing her, but procedures for working with him will change, SeaWorld said Thursday.
5) X-Games skier dies after fall at Calif. ski hill SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Current Olympians and others in the ski community are mourning the loss of professional free skier C.R. Johnson, who died in a fall while skiing a steep chute at California’s Squaw Valley.
7) Obama opens health summit with plea for agreement WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama pleaded for bipartisan agreement at a last-ditch summit to save his healthcare overhaul on Thursday, but quickly clashed with Republicans who urged him to scrap his plan.
8.) Democrats already look past health summit Congressional Democrats are already looking beyond the White House health-care summit, reckoning that Thursday’s session will amount to little more than political theater and focusing instead on a final round of intraparty negotiations that are likely to determine the fate of President Obama’s to…
9) When the filibuster is the enemy For liberals, the constitution is the greatest enemy.
10) Many Americans see U.S. influence waning as that of China grows Facing high unemployment and a difficult economy, most Americans think the United States will have a smaller role in the world economy in the coming years, and many believe that while the 20th century may have been the “American Century,” the 21st century will belong to China.
Word of the Day for Thursday, February 25, 2010
gregarious \grih-GAIR-ee-us\, adjective:
1. Tending to form a group with others of the same kind.
2. Seeking and enjoying the company of others.