Naperville North Physics instructor Kevin Farrell speaks with Illinois Treasurer Mike Frerichs at the 2014 IEA RA. Frerichs received the 2013 IEA Friend of Education Award.

ESEA Reathorization The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was originally passed in 1965 to help assure an equal opportunity to a quality education. It has undergone several reathorizations over the years, the most notable of which was the 2001 "No Child Left Behind Act." There are currently 2 competing versions on how to reathorize the current law.

Please check out Homeroom, the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education for the most up to date information on the ESEA.

NUEA Meeting Calendar: All NUEA Representative Assembly, Executive Board, and Region 39 Council Meetings for 2014-2015 may be found on this schedule.

We Need a Graduated Income Tax!: Illinois is only 1 of 9 states that still use a flat income tax. With this system, Illinois' lowest 20% earners pay 13.7% of their income in sales, property, utility, and income taxes to the state, while the top 1% pay only 5.3% of their income to the state. This is largly because lower wage earners spend most of their income, thus paying more sales taxes. Higher wage earners traditionally invest much of their income, thereby avoiding taxes.

After adjusting for inflation (using the Employment Cost Index) and population growth, the FY2013 General Fund budget was approximately 22% less than the budget in FY2000. In FY2012, human services were cut $454 million, and EC-12 education was cut $286 million, despite already being one of the lowest funding states in the Unites States. Similar cuts have become typical over the last 13 years.

If Illinois used Iowa's tax structure, the state would pull in an additional $6.3 billion in revenue every year. This FAQ illustrates further comparisons with our neighboring states, and should be seen by every tax payer in Illinois!

Progressive Tax Calculator: This Excel spreadsheet allows you to enter your taxable income. It then calculates your federal tax, current Illinois income tax, Illinois income tax after 1/1/15, and your progressive tax due, if passed. This spreadsheet was updated April 13, 2014, to reflect Harmon's recent tax proposal and to accomodate household exemptions.

Remember that in a progressive tax, you only pay increasing tax rates on portions of your income...not ALL of it. (If you earn $22,500 for example, your fist $12,500 is taxed at 2.9%, and the next $10,000 is taxed at 4.9%, leading to an actual rate of 3.79%.)

Cutting Benefits Won't Fix State's Pension Crisis
If you want to believe that "unaffordable" pension benefits promised to public-sector workers in Illinois like teachers and social workers caused the state's outsized, $83 billion unfunded pension liability, stop reading now. This column will only make your head hurt by disproving that canard with facts. If instead you'd rather understand both the true cause of that underfunding and how it actually strains the state's budget, then by all means continue reading.

Read this October 4, 2014 article from Politico.com about the privatization of public schools.

We are IEA (Commercial):