International surveys conducted by the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) found that teachers in their union suffer significantly from stress (ETUCE, 2011). Furthermore, survey data in the United States reveals that teaching is a “high stress” profession (Kyriacou, 2000). The harm caused by this stress is evident by the high rates of teacher […]
Investing in higher education is a smart economic development policy that boosts incomes, supports employment, and grows the economy. Illinois has world-class public universities and community colleges that serve as economic engines in local communities. The recent budget crisis in Illinois, however, had negative impacts on public universities and community colleges in the state. This […]
Over the past five years, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has confronted annual budget crises prompting CPS to cut resources from classrooms, reduce the number of teaching professionals inside schools, and close public schools. Our research examines how the proliferation of charter schools in neighborhoods of declining population has contributed to CPS’ fiscal stress resulting in […]
Illinois needs to revamp its system of funding public education. Currently, school districts receive the bulk of their revenue from property taxes. With relatively high property tax rates and funding inequities across the state, raising property taxes in Illinois is often not an option for school districts. There are alternative policies that can be enacted […]
This report finds that public school teachers in Illinois are highly skilled and are compensated accordingly through competitive salaries. Properly understanding teacher pay is critical to developing an efficient teacher compensation structure. Teachers in Illinois are among the best-educated in the nation and earn appropriate incomes that reward their skill. Illinois’ teachers are highly educated, […]
The exit-voice tradeoff has helped scholars explain lower job satisfaction among union workers compared to nonunion workers since. Scholarship has further extended the exit-voice tradeoff to within-union samples by examining job satisfaction’s relationship to union participation instead of between union and nonunion workers. But how exactly does the exit-voice tradeoff apply to moderately or highly-satisfied […]
The Labor Education Program of the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois conducted surveys of 983 Chicago Public School (CPS) teachers during winter 2011-2012. In light of the recent debate over the length of the school day, this study offers a profile of a teacher’s standard school day workload and […]
For the past three decades, tax increment financing (TIF) has been the primary public financing tool used by the City of Chicago to spur local economic development. During this time period, TIF advocates and opponents alike have attempted to understand TIF’s impact on taxing jurisdictions that overlap TIF district boundaries. Interested parties have raised important […]