A Billion Dollars?

And the graduation rate is still around 50%? What exactly are we paying for?

• The grim 2011 budget forecast takes into account a skyrocketing pension obligation next year and contractual raises for teachers that together increase costs by about $450 million over this year, district officials said.

  The dire prognosis comes in the middle of an already tough budget year that started with a half-billion-dollar deficit. To balance this year's budget, the district trimmed millions in programs, laid off 536 employees and mandated six furlough days for nonunion staff.

The entire city budget is how much? $6 billion. And the CPS is about to run a deficit of almost a billion dollars? Something is seriously amiss with the school management.