Chicago Taxpayers Send Teachers To Vegas Resort

[AngryAmish]

Source: CBS 2 and Better Government Assoc.

CHICAGO — The Chicago Public Schools system is suffering from a $700 million budget shortfall. So why did some educators travel to Las Vegas just days after a travel restriction was ordered?

CBS 2′s Dave Savini and the Better Government Association investigated questionable spending of school tax dollars and how children are impacted.

Former Scammon Elementary School teacher Laura Hoffman is angry that 14 of her Chicago Public School co-workers went on an all-expense paid trip to a Las Vegas resort and spa for a conference last year.

Read more: http://www.bettergov.org/chicago_taxpayers_send_teachers_to_vegas_resort/

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Chicago Public Schools exist for the betterment of the employees and vendors, not the children or taxpayers.

[WatsonT]

1. Well good luck

with your soon to be slashed budgets.

People generally don't like these sorts of things when there is a surplus and the economy is doing well.

To do it now is just idiotic.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Places like Las Vegas are geared for conferences and conventions and are often

the lowest cost venue. From a business side, it makes a fair amount of sense.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Also, organizations want to sweeten the pot and get maximum participation

By putting winter conferences in Scottsdale/Vegas/Southern Cal/New Orleans/Miami, etc. That's true for professional organizations of almost any stripe. Of course, the reporter could have considered this fact, but then that would pour cold water on their hatefest...

Isn't CBS 2 the station who also had that shameful smear job against Chicago libraries last year??

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Why doesn't the article name the conference?

That's weird. Seems like it would be relevant information.

[Blue_Tires]

4. Maybe the trip was bought and paid for before the travel ban?

and it was too late to get any refunds? Let me get this straight: It cost the school system $15,000 to send FOURTEEN teachers to a conference and folks are outraged?

Overall, this is some very shitty reporting -- The writer poses a bunch of questions (some are legit), but makes NO effort to answer them, aside of stacking quotes and innuendo from parents and a watchdog organization.

[gratuitous]

6. That occurred to me

Conferences like this generally have non-refundable deposits, so cancelling the reservation could have cost just as much as sending the teachers. Fifteen thousand dollars for 14 teachers seems like a pretty good deal, actually. This has all the features of some tight-fisted station manager or news editor who wants to rail against "greedy" teachers. Professionals go to conferences; it's part of being a professional. Teachers are professionals. Or, at least, everybody wants them to be professionals, but people who run the local TV station aren't willing to let them be compensated like professionals or to conduct their careers in a professional manner.

[Pale Blue Dot]

7. This sounds like a plant.

More "teachers are the bad guys" crap.