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Archive for October, 2025

Report offers mixed review of educational progress in Illinois

Posted in Barrington Education Association, Capitol News Illinois, Education, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Organizations, Springfield, Taxes on October 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Campbell

Attainment levels are growing, but proficiency rates stagnate despite billions in new spending

By Peter Hancock | Capitol News Illinois

A new report about education in Illinois suggests that overall, the state has made significant progress in key areas, from readying toddlers for kindergarten to helping young adults earn college degrees or industry certificates before entering the workforce.

But it also shows that despite billions of dollars in additional spending on K-12 education, proficiency rates in reading, writing and math have stagnated, and in some cases have declined, a fact that mirrors national trends.

Those findings are reported in the 2025 edition of “The State We’re In,” a biennial project of the nonpartisan research and advocacy group Advance Illinois.

The report looks at measurements across the entire spectrum of education, from birth through college and professional school. It examines inputs such as staffing and funding, as well as outcomes like proficiency rates and overall educational attainment.

Robin Steans, president of Advance Illinois, said in an interview that while there is significant cause for concern in some areas, “overall educational attainment in Illinois continues to move in the right direction, and it does so for every single group.”

Higher education attainment

In 2009, state lawmakers established the Illinois P-20 Council to bring together multiple state agencies, educational institutions, local schools, community groups, employers and citizens to identify needed reforms and make recommendations for improving the quality of education in the state.

The “P” stands for preschool and “20” refers to grade 20, or education after college.

The following year, the council put forth a goal that within the next 15 years, by 2025, 60% of Illinois’ adult population would have either a high-quality degree or industry credentials.

According to this year’s report, Illinois appears to have fallen just short of meeting that goal.

Read more here.

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Gov. JB Pritzker won $1.4 million via gambling, 2024 tax returns show

Posted in Chicago Sun*Times, Commodius Maximus, Fat Bastard, Girlie man, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, The Chicago Way on October 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Gov. JB Pritzker and his wife, MK Pritzker, greet supporters at a campaign rally at Crossing Park Field House in June. | Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

The governor and first lady MK Pritzker more than tripled their income in 2024 to $10.7 million, according to documents released by his campaign. A good chunk of that came at a casino.

By Mitchell Armentrout | Chicago Sun*Times

Last year brought good fortune to Gov. JB Pritzker in his investment portfolio — and at the casino, too, according to 2024 income tax returns released by his campaign Wednesday.

In his joint filing with first lady MK Pritzker, the billionaire Democratic governor reported an adjusted gross income of almost $10.7 million, more than tripling the roughly $2.8 million they reported in 2023.

The latest windfall was boosted by $1,425,000 in gambling winnings, their federal filing shows, in addition to $4.2 million in capital gains, nearly $3.9 million in ordinary dividends and more than $800,000 in taxable interest. Pritzker doesn’t take a salary as governor.

A campaign spokesman said Pritzker “had winnings and losses from a casino” in Las Vegas, but didn’t name his game(s) of chance, nor exactly where he beat the house.

Gambling options have proliferated in Illinois under Pritzker, who signed legislation in 2019 that legalized sports betting, authorized six new casinos and expanded the pool of tens of thousands of slot machines in bars and restaurants to help fund his signature $45 billion capital infrastructure upgrade plan.

Pritzker’s billionaire family, whose wealth is rooted in the Hyatt hotel chain, has held financial interests in casinos for decades. Before he was first elected in 2018, Pritzker previously invested in a company that had a 1% stake in Elgin’s Grand Victoria Casino.

The governor, with an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion, doesn’t own a piece of the action anymore, and he’s had his investments in a blind trust since taking office. That allows him to profit off the investments but removes him from decision-making in an effort to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

Read more here.

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DoorDash, Uber, Ticketmaster and toll road hikes: $1.5 billion in potential taxes explained

Posted in Cost of Living, Economy, Entertainment, Illinois Policy Institute, METRA, Taxes, Unions on October 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Prices for DoorDash, Uber, Ticketmaster and Illinois tolls might go up now to cover $1.5 billion for Illinois transit agencies. A real estate transfer tax for homes in the Chicago suburbs is also on the table.

By Ravi Mishra | Illinois Policy Institute

New tax and fee hike proposals on DoorDash, Uber, Ticketmaster and toll roads could hit Illinoisans to cover shortfalls in the Regional Transit Authority budget. The RTA, which oversees the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace, faces a looming budget crisis as federal pandemic funds run dry.

Revenue options include:

  • A $1 delivery charge for delivery orders over $100, excluding pharmaceuticals and groceries to fund public transit. Revenue estimate: $102 million
  • A 25-cent increase in CTA fares. Revenue estimate: $76 million to $78 million if 2025 CTA fare trends hold steady.
  • A 10% tax on all rideshare trips in the RTA region (Cook and collar counties) to fund public transit. Revenue estimate: $132 million to $291 million
  • A ticket price surcharge of $5-10 would be added to tickets at venues that contain more than 10,000 people. Revenue estimate: $150 million to $250 million
  • A 25% surcharge on tolls, charged once per day, which would increase the average cost of tolls by $0.60 to fund public transit. Revenue estimate: $438.5 million
  • A $1 surcharge on all tolls. Revenue estimate: $1 billion
  • A fee of $0.03 per kw/h tax on electric vehicle charging at public chargers to fund public transit. Revenue estimate: $3.2 million to $14.2 million with increased adoption of electric vehicles
  • An extension of the Chicago Real Estate Transfer Tax to the collar counties, which taxes $1.50 for every $500 during the transfer of a property to fund public transit. Collar County dollars would be used for Metra and Pace transit needs, not for the CTA. Revenue estimate: $82 million
  • A one-time transfer of funds from the Illinois Road Fund to fund public transit.

The Regional Transit Authority has already seen dramatic growth in its budget even as ridership remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Spending was boosted by billions in emergency COVID funds, but with that money gone, the system is facing a $230 million fiscal gap next year.

Read more here.

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Editorial: Chicago budget should not cut mounted police nor sell off their horses

Posted in Animal Welfare, Chicago Tribune, Dumb and Dumber, OP/Ed, Politics, Preckwinkle's Rules of Order on October 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The Chicago Police Department’s mounted unit takes part in Chicago’s Columbus Day parade along State Street on Oct. 13, 2025. | Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune

Is Chicago really going to sell off Ella French’s horse?

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

As Mayor Brandon Johnson prepares to give his budget address Thursday, one idea should get tossed aside: eliminating Chicago’s mounted police unit.

We make this argument with the full knowledge that Johnson must close a projected $1.15 billion deficit. And we’ve said many times that Chicago’s fiscal woes stem less from a lack of revenue than from a chronic inability to control spending.

But Chicagoans tell us they want to see investments in public safety. A little goodwill doesn’t hurt, either, and that’s one of the main functions of the mounted police.

In August, Johnson’s Chicago Financial Future Task Force recommended disbanding the mounted police unit and selling off the horses.

That’s a bad idea, and we doubt it’d gain support in the City Council. We’re not sure if it’ll find its way into the mayor’s budget proposal, but we sure hope not.

“If there’s any discussion of getting rid of the CPD mounted unit, I will raise hell,” Ald. Matt O’Shea told us, and he added that the idea of selling the horses is especially absurd.

“You don’t sell an old horse,” he said, noting some of the horses were donated, not bought, to begin with.

Officers Maria Kuc and Syed Kazmi wash and brush horses on Feb. 6, 2025, in the Chicago Police Department’s mounted unit stables at the South Shore Cultural Center. | Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

Operating under the Special Functions division of the Chicago Police Department at a cost of about $2.7 million, the Mounted Patrol Unit patrols parks, the Loop, the lakefront and major shopping districts — providing visibility, deterrence and mobility where foot or vehicle patrols fall short. It also plays a major role in crowd management at large events, such as parades, protests and festivals, allowing officers to have better views above the crowd to spot potential trouble.

Read more here.

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Kids who use social media score lower on reading and memory tests, a study shows

Posted in Education, NPR, Topics Of Interest on October 15, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Juliana Belo Gutierrez/iStockphoto/Getty Images

By Rhitu Chatterjee | NPR

Preteens using increasing amounts of social media perform poorer in reading, vocabulary and memory tests in early adolescence compared with those who use no or little social media.

That’s according to a new study that suggests a link between social media use and poorer cognition in teens. The findings are published in JAMA.

“This is a really exciting study,” says psychologist Mitch Prinstein at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

“It confirms a lot of what we have been hearing about from schools all across the country, which is that kids are just having a really hard time focusing on being able to learn as well as they used to, because of the ways in which social media has changed their ability to process information, perhaps.”

While most previous research has focused on the impact of social media use on kids’ mental health, “it’s critical to understand how social media use during school hours specifically affects learning, especially as so many schools are considering phone bans right now,” says study author and pediatrician Jason Nagata of the University of California, San Francisco.

A look at reading and memory 

To understand that, Nagata and his colleagues used data from one of the largest ongoing studies on adolescents, called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. Scientists have been following thousands of preteens as they go through adolescence to understand the development of their brains.

The ongoing study has been surveying kids about their social media use every year and giving them a range of tests for learning and memory every other year. Nagata and his colleagues used data on over 6,000 children, ages 9 to 10, as scientists followed them through early adolescence.

They classified the kids into three groups based on their evolving patterns of social media use. The biggest group, consisting of about 58% of the kids, used little or no social media over the next few years. The second-largest group, about 37% of kids, started out with low-level use of social media, but by the time they turned 13, they were spending about an hour each day on social media.

The remaining 6% of kids — called the “high increasing social media group” — were spending about three or more hours a day by age 13.

Read more here.

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Madigan reports to West Virginia prison

Posted in Chicago Sun*Times, Crime, Deception, Perjury on October 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan began serving his prison sentence Monday in West Virginia, 500 miles from Chicago.

By Jon Seidel | Chicago Sun*Times  

In West Virginia: Michael J. Madigan, the longtime former head of Illinois’ Democratic Party, is in prison. The 83-year-old surrendered Monday to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Morgantown, West Virginia — 500 miles away from Chicago and a 1.5-hour drive south of Pittsburgh — according to a source. Prison camps are known to have little to no fencing and inmates have access to a prison commissary.

The sentence: U.S. District Judge John Blakey handed Madigan a 7.5-year prison sentence in June, four months after a jury convicted him of bribery conspiracy, wire fraud and other crimes. Madigan testified in his own defense at trial, and Blakey found that he lied to the jury.

Key context: Madigan’s surrender caps a massive corruption investigation that began in 2014. But it wasn’t until Jan. 29, 2019, that the Sun-Times revealed the FBI had secretly recorded Madigan inside his private law office. About 20 people have since been charged. Madigan is the 11th to report to prison. Three others are due behind bars in the coming weeks.

Read on here.

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Illinois checks, balances? Not under Pritzker

Posted in Clown Car, Commodius Maximus, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Ethics, Fat Bastard, Illinois Policy Institute, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes on October 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

As veto session begins and power goes back to the Democratic majority state legislature, the consequences of a single-party state are more evident than ever.

By Lilly Rossi | Illinois Policy Institute

Pritzker could have used his veto power when the regular session ended to address the numerous bills that will make it harder for those living, working and paying taxes in Illinois.

Instead, he was a rubber stamp for Illinois’ Democratic majority, signing 433 of 436 bills into law.

Of those 436 bills that passed both chambers, 59 were introduced by Republicans.

Only three bills were vetoed and the state budget implementation bill had a $161 million error in capital spending that Pritzker corrected by vetoing just that line – passing the rest of the bill. That means less than 1% of bills received some type of veto.

Senate Bill 2510, the fiscal year 2026 budget appropriation bill, was chopped, swapped and passed within 24 hours. The need for Pritzker to fix the state budget after the fact shows the recklessness of a dominant political party putting a record $55.2 billion budget together at the last minute and in secret.

Veto session is when the legislature has the opportunity to override any gubernatorial vetoes. But this year, Pritzker has made sure there is a light load with only three vetoes to consider.

Read more here.

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Village Adjudication Hearing(s) today

Posted in Adjudication Hearing, Village Code, Village Government on October 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The monthly Village Adjudication Hearing(s) is scheduled for today at 11 AM in the MacArthur Board Room.

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It’s not your Mother’s League of Women Voters anymore (And it hasn’t been for some time)

Posted in Barrington Education Association, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Ethics, Fat Bastard, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois State Board of Elections, Immigration, League of Women Voters, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Unions on October 13, 2025| 4 Comments »

What follows is from the League of Women Voters of Palatine, Barrington and Schaumburg Area’s website:

“No Kings 2 Rally — Unite and Rise for Democracy

The League of Women Voters is an official, national partner of the No Kings II rally. We are marching on October 18 to support the Bill of Rights, oppose federal overreach, and reject cuts to essential services. Join us!

We are calling on friends, neighbors and the community at large to unite at a nearby protest and rise up for our democracy.

This is our time. It’s our time to be present, brave, and loud, working together as a concerned community to speak out for our neighbors and the Constitution.

The League has made simple signage that you can print and take along.

And if you can’t attend, we hope you’ll raise your voice with a window sign, or by helping us promote the event and encourage others to attend via social media or a good old fashioned phone call!

There are three nearby locations:

  • Palatine — Volunteer Plaza at the Clocktower — 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
  • Arlington Heights — Recreation Park (NOTE new location!) — 3:00 pm – 5:00 p
  • Schaumburg — North Roselle and Schaumburg Roads — 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Look for a member of LWVPA holding an LWV sign at the Palatine and Arlington Heights locations to meet up. In Schaumburg, look for an LWV member holding purple and gold balloons. If you are able, try to attend more than one event. For example, Palatine at 11:00 am and then Arlington Heights at 3:00 pm. Help us make these rallies the largest yet!”

Note: The LWV website states: “The League of Women Voters of the Palatine, Barrington, and Schaumburg Areas is a nonpartisan political organization and does not support any political party or candidate.” Really? This may have been true at one time, but we’ll leave it up to readers to decide if it is today.

And it should be noted there is no disclosure statement revealing who or what is funding this political campaign, and that is what it is. The staggering of the rally hours provides partisan candidates the opportunity to appear and speak at all three rallies.

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Forest Preserves of Cook County October 2025 Newsletter

Posted in Crabtree Nature Center, FPDCC, Horizon Farm on October 12, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Visitors to Busse Forest—one of the largest and most ecologically diverse locations in the Forest Preserves—can enjoy hiking, biking, fishing, boating, leaf peeping, wildlife watching and more. | Busse Forest, Photo by: Maria Sacha

In this Issue:

  • Volunteers Find Purpose and Peace in Seed Collecting
  • Deer Grove is a Restoration Landmark After Nearly 20 Years
  • Identifying Leaves in the Forest Preserves
  • Mexican-American Artist Brings Color and Culture to Trailside Gallery
  • Public Hearing Set for 2026 Budget Recommendation; Plan Ahead for Your 2026 Celebration in the Forest Preserves; Use Our Web Map to Discover Fall Color; Boo! at the Zoo Returns to Brookfield Zoo Chicago; Conservation Cup Raises Over $150,000 to Support Restoration and the Next Generation of Conservation Leaders
  • Upcoming Events
  • Volunteer Opportunities: Together for Trees

Find it here.

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