McHenry County Blog

Teachers unions want legislators who are automatic votes for what they want, when they really want it.

Jacks Franks is one of those automatic votes for the Illinois teachers unions.

For ten years he has tried hiding this position.

Where?

Behind public self-promotions he is for “reform” and fiscal responsibility.

He has even claimed to be a fiscal conservative while supporting teacher unions’ right to strike that drives up costs to taxpayers.

Do front line police officers and fire fighters work year round and around here earn $80,000 or $100,000 as public employees can for teaching elementary or high school gym classes less than nine months of the year.

The teachers unions have more money and political clout in Illinois than any other special interest.

This explains how police officers and fire fighters can get fired for royally screwing up on the job while teachers have tenure.

It was impossible for Franks to hide from an important vote in the House recently.

The issue and legislation was simple.

He was either for helping the neediest kids stuck in Chicago’s worst schools or he was voting the way the teachers unions wanted him to vote.

Jack Franks predictably voted against the kids and how the teachers unions wanted him to.  so did too many Republicans beholding to the teacher unions.

The details of what Franks voted against would have let up to 30,000 kids’ parents have the choice of vouchers to get out of Chicago’s failing schools.

Lawyers like Franks (and Franks) make the misleading claim that these vouchers would have taken money out of public education.

Let’s see how badly misleading this is.

In fact, the savings would have been huge.

It costs about $12,000 each year to “educate” each student in Chicago Public Schools.

The legislation would have given each family only $3,717, if the parents elected for a student to leave the worst Chicago schools.

That would be a savings of over $8,000 for each student who left.

Keep in mind that only students at the worst schools would have been eligible for the vouchers.

Conceivably this could have resulted in a net savings of about $240 million dollars ($8,000 times 30,000  students).

My guess is the savings could have been even larger if thousands decided to leave and the Chicago Public Schools abandoned empty schools and rented them to private replacement schools.  Replacement janitors and other tradesmen would not necessarily have been unionized and certainly would not have had the same restrictive work rules.

When you a liberal like Jack Franks, turning down a savings of $240 million is simply handled by lawyerly claiming he is “fiscally conservative” while campaigning.

The political calculation is that if you say something loud enough and often enough the people who aren’t informed about any of this will actually believe whatever is said.

This is after getting past Franks’ callously turning his back on kids in the worst Chicago public schools and saying they can’t get a chance at a decent education.  It’s a good example of how liberal politics practiced by Democrat insider Franks is callous, not compassionate.

A savings of $240 million would have been huge for education and public schools in Illinois.

The teachers unions and Franks couldn’t care about such a savings if it might mean some potential loss in union dues because it might result in fewer dues paying teachers.

The vouchers program in the D.C. public schools has been a huge success for the students who left those public schools.

Jack Franks’ automatic voting for what teacher unions want has given John O’Neill a variety of issues to bring to voters:

• It gives O’Neill a chance to inform voters how Franks irresponsibly voted against a huge savings for the State that would have given parents a chance to get their kids out of the worst schools.
• It shreds Franks’ claims of being a “reformer” or “fiscally conservative.”

If Franks runs his campaign on these labels, a majority of voters may conclude lawyer Franks’ “pants are on fire,” as his re-election bid goes down in flames to Republican John O’Neill.

As some point Franks risks being seen as being nothing more than an untruthful, lawyer Democrat insider politician.

On the other hand, Franks’ wanting Blago elected Governor may mean Franks is comfortable with these values.

John O’Neill is the Republican candidate running for state representative against ten-years-in-Springfield Democrat Jack Franks.

Franks cheered in the election of Rod Blagojevich and his era of Democrat politics, even asking him for appointments for friends and family.  You certainly can’t find any “Don’t vote for Blago” public campaign statements by Franks.

Once Blago took on a public relations stench, Franks tried to position himself as being for “reform.”

He promoted a recall constitutional amendment, for instance.

Originally, it included the ability of citizens to recall of statewide elected officials, state lawmakers, judges in local circuit courts and justices on the appellate and supreme court benches.

As it ended up on the ballot, only a governor like Rod Blagojevich could be recalled.

But it is so complicated that it won’t won’t ever be used unless we have another Rod Blagojevich and a U.S. Attorney like Patrick Fitzgerald.

So, you’ll understand why I say being a Democrat for “reform” in statewide Illinois politics is like pretending French fries aren’t made from potatoes.  And, although you might order French fries, you’ll get mashed potatoes, probably moldy ones.

Everyone in politics knows the largest amount of campaign money and campaign workers comes from the unions with teacher unions leading the pack.

Franks, like many I’m-entitled-to-keep-this-job politicians, has a nose for which way the political wind is blowing and where the political money is.

His opponent, John O’Neill, is on the McHenry grade school board of education, as well as its library board, and is running as a common sense conservative.

He is the kind of people-should-get-involved candidate that newspapers write about, but I’m betting the Northwest Herald will give a negative slant to O’Neill and won’t endorse him.  I’m also betting they will ignore Franks’ liberal positions in an effort to keep him in office.

Franks is an insider lawyer-politician (probably up in Canada fishing with the Democratic Party power elite right now) who has vigorously defended teachers unions’ right to strike in Illinois.

In lawyerly fashion he defends driving up costs for taxpayers, in union lawyer fashion, as a good thing.

In liberal Massachusetts teachers are not allowed to strike and it is one of the most unionized states in the nation.  Massachusetts is generally regarded as having one of the best public education systems in the country.

What got me thinking about this is the photo I took.  It was of Huntley teachers on strike.  One of the teachers was holding up a union sign with

“Good Teachers Deserve Good Benefits”

It begs the question:

“What about the really lousy, go-through-the-motions, can’t-get-rid-of and way-overpaid-for-what-they-are-’teaching’ teachers?”

It’s in the extreme liberal category to demand teacher unions keep their right to strike.

Driving up costs to taxpayers is anything but fiscally conservative or fiscally responsible.

Although, if you are a lawyer, as Franks is, anything black can be labeled white and puffed up and sold to voters as “conservative.”

Liberals puffed up and sold Barack Obama to voters as mainstream and moderate.

Right.

There’s nothing conservative about being an automatic vote in Springfield for the teachers unions whenever they need one, as Franks is. It’s called liberal Democrat politics and Franks is into the teachers unions as much as any politician in Illinois.  He tries to hide or disguise it, because he has to answer to the voters in McHenry County every two years.

Illinois right-to-strike teacher unionism allows kindergarten physical education teachers to get paid the same as high school English teachers who have to correct and grade essays.

It also allows for pay schemes where they and middle school gym teachers, for example, can get paid $100,000 a year for less than nine months of work days.

The union’s threat of a strike prevents common sense from prevailing.

It makes it difficult for boards of education to say, “No,” to every teacher being paid the same way regardless of what grade or subject they are teaching.

About ten percent of public school teachers are physical education (gym) teachers.  If P.E. teachers have been teaching “health” to students, the push against childhood obesity is one indication their efforts overall on a national level haven’t been successful.

Jack Franks’ liberalism isn’t based on compassion, at least not for students stuck in failing schools.

Liberal Democrat politics can be downright mean to the needy in Illinois.

More tomorrow on how liberal union politics hurt the most vulnerable and needy students.  And how Jack Franks voted to put money ahead of what’s good for students and parents.  It proves how one can be a lawyer and leader, while being a bad leader preventing real reform in Illinois.

After activist Pat Quinn got his Cutback Amendment to the Illinois Constitution passed in 1980, Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Thomas J. Hanahan didn’t stick around McHenry County.

He moved to Park Ridge. I don’t know if that happened before or after his term ended in January 1983, but that’s the address I remember when he was on the payroll of Chicago Democrat Bill Laurino, one of his legislative contemporaries not negatively affected by the imposition of single member districts.

Hanahan knew he couldn’t get elected in McHenry County running one-on-one with a Republican so he abandoned his residence of convenience. (And, no one did until Jack Franks defeated appointed State Rep. Mike Brown after a bitter 1998 primary election with Steve Verr.)

The son of a carpenters union official, Hanahan had been told to move to McHenry County in preparation for the 1996 election cycle.

Rural Union’s Billy Giblin and he represented McHenry County after the 1964 bed sheet ballot, when reapportionment was not accomplished and all candidates ran statewide.

Both Republicans and Democrats slated candidates for two-thirds of the seats. The Democrats won the legislative contest with a slate headed by untested Adlai Stevenson III.

Republican A.B. McConnell of Woodstock was the odd man out in that 1964 election, not having had enough clout to be listed in the top half of his party’s candidates.

In 1966, when three-member districts again were drawn, Hanahan beat out Giblin, who served only one term, to become McHenry County’s Democrat.

His trade union buddies helped him build the house he lived in while serving in the Illinois General Assembly.

The district was composed of all of the county and points south, west and southwest into DeKalb. The other district included Grafton and Algonquin Township and everything straight east to Lake Michigan. I can’t remember if it was one or two township high.

One of the big issues in the 1971 General Assembly was the authorization of the unionization of teachers.

It was a key issue in 1972campaign, when I ran for the GOP nomination for state representative against former Belvidere Mayor (“Get More with Les”—really; that was what his cartop said) Les Cunningham and northern Dundee Township’s R. Bruce Waddell.

Waddell had won a special election when Dundee nursery owner Jack Hill was killed zipping his motorcycle around his business property at the northeast intersection of Routes 31 and 72 and hit his head on a pipe sticking off the back end of a truck. There was a closed casket.

One of Hill’s great admirers and supporters, McHenry’s Goldwater-inspired Tom Davis ran to replace him, but Waddell won.

At any rate, in the teacher unionization fight, Hanahan was on the side of the Chicago Teachers Union and its statewide affiliate, the Illinois Federation of Teachers. After all, those unionized teachers were connected with the AFL-CIO and the Illinois Education Association wasn’t.

Only the Woodstock High School District was composed of IFT members. All the other area district’s teachers were members of the IEA.

The IEA found an Algonquin attorney named Joseph Coleman. The IEA used him to “teach Tommy a lesson.” They put a precinct worker in every precinct and gave Hanahan the scare of his life.

The election turned out this way:

Cal Skinner – 72,395 1/2
Bruce Waddell – 66,395 1/2
Tom Hanahan – 53,848 1/2
Joe Coleman – 32,226 1/2

After that, Hanahan was much more responsive to the IEA’s desires and, while I don’t know this for a fact, probably was the bridge between the IFT and the IEA for the collective bargaining bill that eventually passed.

Part 2 Tomorrow

Finally.

After a strike and more than a month of trying to renegotiate terms of the contract the teachers overwhelmingly ratified, the union co-presidents for Huntley’s teachers signed the contract.

Not that Julie Hunter and Kim Aschenback really wanted to.

In fact they had refused to tell the board when they would sign the contract.

So the Board had to get firm.

Here’s the contract that we are going to implement (with all of the i’s dotted and t’s crossed), please sign by end of day Wednesday.

It was a “please sign” or face possible legal action.

Obviously the local union leaders couldn’t get support of the IEA to legally defend their “let’s keep negotiating” position.

It’s tough for even an IEA lawyer to successfully argue how, with IEA professional negotiators on the Huntley teachers’ team, they didn’t know what they were agreeing to in writing with the Board of Education.

Hunter and Aschenbach blinked.

Of course, this was after they cost taxpayers more money in legal fees for the past month.

It’s doubtful that Hunter, a Wonder Lake resident, cares very much how much money she costs District 158 taxpayers.

Obviously the “Chief Negotiator,” as the union liked referring to board member Larry Snow in its press release, was likely not in any mood for a contract do over, a phrase common in teaching circles.

And Snow had support of the board, Superintendent John Burkey and Lauren Smith, HR Director.

Lore has it that the Woodstock teachers weren’t happy with the IEA professional negotiators many years back and voted out the IEA as their bargaining agent. Woodstock District 200 teachers are now representative by the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

If you are a Huntley teacher paying $600 per year in union dues–$1,800 over 3 years–would you want better results than an, oops, why did we agree to that?

And that?

And that?

The word on the street is the IEA Region 54 negotiator Susan Goudreau was a newbie, with this being her first IEA contract to negotiate.

What’s humorous in a way is how anonymous teacher bloggers railed against the District’s hiring “newbie” teachers instead of experienced veterans, but had Goudreau working for the Huntley teachers in her first year of IEA full-time employment.

If you are a single teacher in Huntley, you now have to pay a minimum of $240 per year for medical and dental insurance.

That’s a victory for taxpayers when in the previous contract many single teachers didn’t have to pay a dime.

If you are Goudreau and the IEA, you probably don’t want the newspapers picking up on how the Huntley Board got this cost sharing into the contract.

Finally.

After a strike and more than a month of trying to renegotiate terms of the contract the teachers overwhelmingly ratified, the union co-presidents for Huntley’s teachers signed the contract.

Not that Julie Hunter and Kim Aschenback really wanted to.

In fact they had refused to tell the board when they would sign the contract.

So the Board had to get firm.

Here’s the contract that we are going to implement (with all of the i’s dotted and t’s crossed), please sign by end of day Wednesday.

It was a “please sign” or face possible legal action.

Obviously the local union leaders couldn’t get support of the IEA to legally defend their “let’s keep negotiating” position.

It’s tough for even an IEA lawyer to successfully argue how, with IEA professional negotiators on the Huntley teachers’ team, they didn’t know what they were agreeing to in writing with the Board of Education.

Hunter and Aschenbach blinked.

Of course, this was after they cost taxpayers more money in legal fees for the past month.

It’s doubtful that Hunter, a Wonder Lake resident, cares very much how much money she costs District 158 taxpayers.

Obviously the “Chief Negotiator,” as the union liked referring to board member Larry Snow in its press release, was likely not in any mood for a contract do over, a phrase common in teaching circles.

And Snow had support of the board, Superintendent John Burkey and Lauren Smith, HR Director.

Lore has it that the Woodstock teachers weren’t happy with the IEA professional negotiators many years back and voted out the IEA as their bargaining agent. Woodstock District 200 teachers are now representative by the Illinois Federation of Teachers.

If you are a Huntley teacher paying $600 per year in union dues–$1,800 over 3 years–would you want better results than an, oops, why did we agree to that?

And that?

And that?

The word on the street is the IEA Region 54 negotiator Susan Goudreau was a newbie, with this being her first IEA contract to negotiate.

What’s humorous in a way is how anonymous teacher bloggers railed against the District’s hiring “newbie” teachers instead of experienced veterans, but had Goudreau working for the Huntley teachers in her first year of IEA full-time employment.

If you are a single teacher in Huntley, you now have to pay a minimum of $240 per year for medical and dental insurance.

That’s a victory for taxpayers when in the previous contract many single teachers didn’t have to pay a dime.

If you are Goudreau and the IEA, you probably don’t want the newspapers picking up on how the Huntley Board got this cost sharing into the contract.