Profiteer Spotlight: Mark F. Furlong!

Mark Furlong, part of Rahm's latest batch of appointees to the Board of Ed, is a profiteer nonpareil.  LEAP Innovations, a company Furlong was affiliated with, has received a contract extension from the Board for their $ervices. WCT thinks it's time to shine a spotlight on this deft kick-back artist:

1st Notable Profiteer Achievement: Receiving an $18.1M golden parachute payout despite the company he was CEO of, Marshall & Ilsley (M & I), not repaying a $1.7B TARP loan; receipt of bonus was contingent upon loan repayment while he was CEO. Chaaaaa-ching!

2nd Notable Profiteer Achievement: Orchestrating a cheap deal in which M & I, along with its debt, was taken over by BMO Harris. As part of the buyout, the TARP loan was paid by BMO Harris before the deal closed, thus ensuring bonus payout to its executives. Chaaaaa-ching!

3rd Notable Profiteer Achievement: Being offered an executive position by BMO Harris complete with a $6M "transition completion payment" for staying on one year after the 2011 buyout. You guessed it, he stayed. Furlong also collected a $600,000 salary, incentives of up to $800,000 a year, and equity awards of up to $1.1M. Chaaaaa-ching! 

All Chicago politicians rail against, "kicking the can down the road," but Furlong's actions while head of M & I are the very definition of that. Not only did BMO Harris repay a loan that wasn't theirs, but rewarded Furlong's delay with a lucrative deal. The collateral damage left M & I shareholders filing suit for the undervaluing of M & I's stock at the time of sale. 

This is who Rahm Emanuel wants to be a financial steward of our schools?

CPS parents, students, and teachers: you're about to get Furlonged, but good.

CPS Board of Ed = Bernie Madoff

Can someone please explain how those who raided the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund are any different than Bernie Madoff?

• The pension fund was close to 100% funded in 2000.
• Between 1995-2005 and 2011-2013 CPS collected more than $2 billion in pension revenue from CTU members and paid none of that money into the pension fund
• The School Board itself sanctioned the pension holidays, periods during which the district was exempt from putting teachers' pension money into the pension fund
• The district does not account for where the pension money was spent; instead, new CEO Claypool lies and refers vaguely to the teacher pension system as "unfair"
• Daley and Rahm's banking buddies are making big $$ from CPS's lucrative pension debt

To add insult to injury, Rahm + Rauner's media machine continues to paint teachers as greedy pigs by distorting the truth about pensions and publishing a useless reporter's desire for a Chicago Katrina.

The biggest insult, however, is Claypool's insistence that CTU members contribute 7% more of our salary into the pension fund.  So we're supposed to reimburse ourselves for the money that the district stole?  No thanks!  Although CPS thinks we're idiots, we're not.  

Ed Reform's BFF: U.S. Murder Rates

Ed reformers love to bang the gong of U.S. educational crisis:

But if we compare international educational performance with international murder rates, the day-ta is strikingly similar:  

Even a student with below-average PISA scores could probably conclude that nations with higher rates of crime produce students who perform lower on standardized tests.  

We at WCT have to conclude that U.S. murder rates are the BFF of ed reform philathro-capitalists and all who $wallow their bullshit. For if U.S. murder rates were on a par with Japan or Finland, profiteers who conceal their financial ambition and improve their public image via ed reform efforts would have to find another venue.

Next thing you know, ed reformers will be pinning the blame for American crime on failing schools, bad teachers, and greedy unions.  Oh wait...

Ed Reform Truth Deniers

Campbell Brown offers us a simpering smile and feeble "inspiring stories," such as her recent lame tweet about students who lined up to get a janitor's autograph before he left their school for greener pastures.

Nevertheless, her non-profit (wink-wink), The Seventy Four, seeks to undermine the foundations of American public education through the usual means; charter profiteering, vilification of labor unions, teacher-bashing, and reliance on the old hoary failing schools myth.  Like all philanthro-venture-investment-capitalist ed reformers, Campbell Brown and her ilk remain silent on the unpleasant and politically tricky truths that shape the lives of many inner-city students.

For example, 10 people are dead and 35 are wounded after the usual violence in Chicago last weekend.  In fact, 1495 people have been shot in Chicago this year to date. Think this might affect student performance?

Gary Solomon: B3's Babysitter

It's amazing what happens when reporters are able to investigate stories instead of reviewing Bruce Rauner's talking points for inclusion in any and all editorials. Such is the case with the excellent investigations the Sun-Times continues into the ceaseless connections between City Hall and its contractors. In this week's installment, readers  learn about Gary Solomon: SUPES CEO and B3 "conduit." 

Solomon's emails to Beth Swanson, Emanuel's then-deputy chief of staff for education issues were so frequent that Swanson described him in an interview Friday as, "Barbara Byrd-Bennett's conduit--an extension of her team who pushed for her hiring."

Conduit seems like a polite word for someone who, according to the article, complained on B3's behalf that she was kept out after midnight by high-ranking CPS officials (waah!), lobbied the Mayor's office for her "Wish List" (all charters please!), and negotiated how exactly how many days B3 could be counted on to be physically present in the district (zero!) though she would be serving as the CEO. Aside from k being a "serial networker who emailed constantly," Solomon served as nanny-in-chief for Triple B.

Solomon's judgement is questionable--and kickback likely steep--for him to proclaim Bennett would "nail" the top post in CPS. She nailed it, right out of the district and into a Federal investigation as a result of SUPES. Chicago taxpayers and anyone employed by CPS is still getting nailed thanks to the $20.5M contract Bennett and Solomon are now infamous for.

CPS officials, when asked about the glaring conflicts, answered with variations on the theme of huh?

CPS Waste, Exhibit D: Tim Cawley and AUSL

In response to a reader's suggestion, we've turned our attention to big league cornholer Tim Cawley, Chief Administrative Officer for CPS and former leader of AUSL turnaround schools.

• CPS Salary: $215,000.000
• Community of Residence: Winnetka
• Value of Winnetka home: $2,650,000.000
• Reason why he lives outside of Chicago: papal dispensation residency waiver
• Reason why he can afford $2 mil home: Aramark kick-backs
• Amount that Cawley's botched Aramark deal cost CPS: $7 million
• Cawley's previous ed experience: AUSL (Academy for Urban School Leadership) Managing Director; AUSL is a "non-profit [wink wink] that partners with CPS to turn around chronically-failing schools."
• Amount of $$ funneled into AUSL by Chicago Public Education Fund while Cawley has been employed by CPS: $1,080,000.00 
• Per diem fees charged by AUSL for staff members' time: $1000 - $3000 based on staff member senority

Current Donors Choose begging pleas posted by teachers AUSL Turnaround Schools (A-D only) that Tim Cawley has tran$formed:

AUSL Turnaround School:  Curtis School of Excellence

• $479: double-wide teaching easel with magnetic upper and lower-case letters

AUSL Turnaround School: Dvorak School of Excellence

• $395: pencils, filler paper, dry erase markers
• $670: document camera
• $275: desktop computer
• $334: iPad Mini

AUSL Turnaround School: Deneen School of Excellence

• $528: math games library, dry erase markers
• $469: dictionaries and thesauri

Tim Cawley's answer to the question, "What are you passionate about personally?": "Helping those less fortunate."

If you weren't schooled about Tim Cawley prior to reading, it should now be clear that his excellence lays in his duplicity.

Rahm's Pension Wizardry

As Bozo Show fans from way back, WCT immediately thought of Wizzo the Wizard when we read about Rahm Emanuel's latest pension follies. Wizzo did card tricks, magic tricks, and used sleights of hand to entertain thousands of children. He would do all of this while saying do-di-do-di-do and waving his fingers right before the big payoff. Rahm Emanuel, just a day after funding the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund, directed the city's new CFO to ask for $500M of the $634M back. Now you have it, now you don't. Magic! 

Maybe Rahm and Chicago's CFO Carole Brown were looking at spreadsheets saying, "do-di-do-di-do," as they hit upon the idea to ask for 78% of the pension payment back. Brown called the request a, "big ask." We'd call it another accounting scam, but okay. Brown's wizardry continued as she used words like "cash-flow relief" and "assumed actuarial return." You can almost see her waving her fingers and saying "do-di-do-di-do" to Charles Burbridge, the CTPF's executive director, as she explained the details of her big ask.

In the fine print of Rahm's pension proposals, he suggests combining CTPF with the state's pension fund for more equity. The writers at International Business Times detected a sleight of hand with this change, too: 

What the mayor did not say is that the initiative could end up shifting billions into a fund whose portfolio is run, in part, by Grosvenor Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, two firms whose executives have together given over $4 million to the mayor's campaigns and affiliated PACs. That includes over $2.7 million from Grosvenor CEO Michael Sacks and his wife, Cari. Sacks has been called Emanuel’s “fixer” and “go-to guy;” he was appointed by Emanuel to serve as vice chairman of World Business Chicago, an economic development group that Emanuel chairs.

The IB Times also notes that, "In fiscal year 2014, Grovesnor collected over $3.2M in fees from the state's Teachers Retirement System, and Madison Dearborn Partners over $370,000." Cha-ching!

Today's 3 part trick is as follows: 1) Take back 78% of a payment you just made, 2) Suggest combining pension funds under the guise of equity, and 3) Make sure to further enrich hedge fund pals and campaign donors in the process. Yes, and don't forget to go full-tilt Wizzo and finish with a flourish and the signature, "do-di-do-di-do" so we know when the trick's over.

Whiners, Swine and ... Beggars

The public's perception of CPS teachers is that we're whiners, pigs and greedy thugs, thanks to the media's effective manipulation and the complexity of our district's financial problems.  However, we at WCT would like the public to know that we are also beggars.

Donors Choose is an online charity where American public and charter teachers can post "classroom project requests," and if they're lucky, their project will be funded.  Funding donations are completely tax-deductible. If you're imagining that teachers are hoping to take students to France or to purchase top-of-the-line microscopes, you're wrong.

Some current requests posted on Donors Choose:

• $264 for ink cartridge replacements, Lindblom Math Science Academy
• $354 for calculators, Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy
• $309 for a carpet, Dawes Elementary School
• $356 for a nurse's office refrigerator, Dawes Elementary School
• $1,230 for projector and screen, Gage Park High School
• $269 for pencils, mechanical sharpener and caddies, James Otis Elementary School

Meanwhile, Heather Y. Anichini, President and CEO of the Chicago Public Education Fund, makes $292,833.00 per year overseeing the Fund's funneling of cash to the usual racketeers, kick-back artists, cronies, and ed reform profiteers.  They claim that their "inve$tment portfolio has improved outcomes for the children they serve."  Right.

Reminder: Its All About the Children.

Although ed reformers haven't yet figured out how to revise the lifeless language that their brand of orthodoxy requires, they have mastered one integral part of their message:  It's All About the Children.

Let's have a look at the yearly salaries of some well-known charter operators in their $ervice of children:

• NYC Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz:  $567,000.00
• Washington D.C. Friendship Charters CEO Donald Hense: $356,478.00
• New Orleans Lusher Charters CEO Kathy Reidlinger: $316,306.00
• Detroit Cornerstone Schools CEO Clark Durant: $450,000.000

As a basis of comparison, nurses in Chicago Public Schools make, on average,  $49,000.00 per year, or 24 dollars per hour, which is 9 more dollars per hour than the 15 dollar per hour minimum wage that many fast-food workers are currently advocating for.

In Chicago, the most politically corrupt city in the U.S., it easier for charter operators to keep their profits private.  In fact, reporters at the Chicago Reader sent FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) requests to 34 of the biggest Chicago charter operators.  Unlike Trib reporters, Reader reporters were curious about Chicago charter salary and payroll information.  Not surprisingly, the Reader's request for information yielded zero results.

This is very reassuring to all Chicago ed profiteers, including One Chance Illinois, the Chicago Public Education Fund, and uber-profiteer Ken Griffin.  Because, as we know, their efforts are All About the Children.

Where did the money go?

With the usual poisonous comments about CPS teachers (pigs, whiners, swine) being posted in response to the CTU's announcement that contract negotiations have stalled, we turn our attention to one of the essential questions:  Where did the money go?

Background info:

• The teachers' pension fund was close to 100% funded in 2000
• Between 1995-2005, CPS collected more than $ 2 billion in tax revenue from CPS teachers, counselors and paraprofessionals (and paid none of that revenue into the pension fund)
• At the request of the School Board, CPS has been twice granted "pension holidays," periods of time during which CPS does not have to put any money into the pension fund
• Pension Holiday #1: 1995-2005
• Pension Holiday #2: 2011-2013
• Currently, Illinois has the worst unfunded pension liability in the U.S., at $85 billion
• Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts were established under Mayor Washington in 1986
• TIF $$ comes from property taxes within each district that are diverted from government units, including public schools, for public and private inve$tment in community improvement projects
• Chicago's TIF program was greatly expanded during Mayor Daley's term

On 6/30, a $634 million pension payment is due from the city to the pension fund. The city's cry: BROKE!  Which brings us back to the question:

Where did the money go?

• Block 37 Development:  Over $50 million; paid from diverted TIF funds; still largely unoccupied
• Block 37 Underground Loop Train Station: $213.3 million; paid from diverted TIF funds; designed to connect Midway to O'Hare but currently non-functional
• Millennium Park: Over $280 million paid from diverted TIF funds
• Central Loop Public Improvement Projects: $365.5 million in TIF funds spent in 2008, with no obligation for Mayor Daley to account for the recipients 

Where else did the money go?

Cronies, kick-back artists, charter profiteers, Aramark big wigs, vendors, University of Chicago thought partners, number-crunchers, CPS Talent Office staff, CPS Network chiefs, and David Vitale and Deb Quazzo's banker buddies

CPS Waste: The Talent Office Pt. 2

Recent reporting by the Trib refers to CPS's financial crisis as "appalling."  We find much that is appalling in CPS, including the Newspeak renaming of the Human Resources office as the "Talent Office."

More appalling facts:

• Number of employees at CPS's Talent Office:  206
• Combined salaries of all Talent Office employees:  14, 436, 239.00  
• Notable Broad Resident Profiteer currently at CPS Talent Office:  Traci Thibodeaux
• Ms. Thibodeaux's prior corporate experience:  Sales Finance Manager at Frito Lay
• Frito Lay's former blunder:  Olestra fat substitute
• Unpleasant Olestra side effect:  anal oil leakage

Clearly, Ms. Thibodeaux's Frito Lay experience will assist her and her ilk in their continued cornholing of CPS teachers and students.

CPS Waste, Exhibit A: The Talent Office

While the media's solution to everything CPS revolves around: 1) declaring bankruptcy or 2) massive layoffs of the teaching and support staff in schools, we humbly suggest all reporters examine the CPS Talent Office (Newspeak for HR) for some possible places to save money.

According to their own website they have no accomplishments to date.

For a department that doesn't hide their uselessness, they are certainly well staffed. 

We took a "deep dive into the data," as our Thought Partners are wont to say and discovered the following:

• 4 Broad Center residents on staff at $95,000 each. The Broad Center bills itself as tran$formative by pushing for charter expansion and merit pay. Broadies actively perpetuate the notion that urban school systems can only succeed by removing the teaching staff and replacing them with disruptive leaders from outside the education field.

• An Orwellian Education Pioneer Analyst fellow apparently on staff to explore the uncharted territory of data as a profiteering mechanism. The Education Pioneers have investors from the plutocrat hall-of-fame including: the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Broad Foundation and a donor from Chicago named Anonymous (Bruce Rauner or Ken Griffin is that you?)

• Numerous Talent Generalists, Talent Specialists, and Executive Directors who collect 6-figure salaries.

• Managers of managers of managers who oversee the up-and-coming profiteers earning close to 6 figures.

Potential candidates report months long waits for returned calls, convoluted steps in the hiring process, and no answers to questions.  Clearly, the Talent Office is hard at work ignoring qualified candidates and soliciting those who only see teaching as a stepping stone on the way to something better. This tidily continues the urban district-as-failure myth (No qualified candidates, better privatize!) whilst lining the pockets of numerous profiteers.

Swine! Thugs! Greedy Pigs! 3rd World Educators! Boss Hogg's Minions!

Following Tuesday's rally, the CPS School Board, ed reform profiteers, kick-back artists, hedge fund managers, and David Vitale's banking buddies breathe a sigh of relief as online comments posted to the Chicago Tribune demonstrate that Rahm's media machine is fully operational.

New Name, Same Profiteers: One Chance Illinois

When we last left Illinois' choiceist reformers--Myles Mendoza (plutocrat), Angela Schiavitti (socialite), and fellow profiteers Kevin Chavous (parental choice crusader), Jack Buck (instigator, professional powerhouse, and positive change agent)--they were busy at Choice4kids.org peddling tran$formation, innovation, and the sorry state of traditional public schools.

In 2015, Choice4kids re-focu$ed and re-branded as One Chance Illinois-- a vast army of elitist guilt--amping up the public school desperation. Their mission trumpets, "There are no do-overs...we must do everything we can to ensure Illinois's children get the education they need and deserve." No shit. Every parent, teacher, and citizen-with-a-pulse agrees: education is a big deal. And yet. Bruce Rauner is merrily defunding public education while ed-reformers have the luxury of an ever-expanding contingent of converts who believe that choice, a non-unionized workforce and a robust array of unproven initiatives that are financially self-enriching will save the day. Cha-ching!

Behold: One Chance Illinois. An army of plutocrats who influence policy enough to make failed education initiatives like vouchers sexy all over again when re-branded as "access." 

Let's take a look at where a few One Chance Board members live and the charter/"access" choices that those communities offer:

Jack Buck, Winnetka:  Winnetka charter/"access" choices = 0

Bob Huffman, Northbrook: Northbrook charter/"access" schools = 0

Bob Birdsell, Wilmette: Wilmette charter/"access" schools = 0

Angela Schiavitti, Hinsdale: Hinsdale charter/"access" schools = 0

Conclusion:  Public education with a unionized teaching staff is good for the students of Winnetka, Northbrook, Wilmette and Hinsdale.  But not for students of Chicago.

Further conclusion:  Winnetka, Northbrook, Wilmette and Hinsdale offer limited opportunities for educational tran$formation.  But Chicago?  Cha-ching!

Further, further conclusion: When your local government shutters schools and intentionally creates edu-chaos, of course "access" and groups like One Chance seem like the saviors du jour.

Be Noble

How gallant

It must be wonderful to be Bruce Rauner. Only he could tell us where he gets his vim and vigor, but it must have something to do with his estimated $1B net worth. Oh, and simultaneously profiting from the public school system whilst bankrupting it.

This humble lover of fairs and corn dogs should thank public school teachers and their pension funds for part of his success. As he bragged, "I've invested teachers' pension money, I've done very well...I've taken that money and the No. 1 place I've donated that--millions of dollars..." Readers, guess where that No. 1 place is! If you've guessed alleviating poverty, funding vaccine preventable diseases in the Third World, or creating the first fair with an exclusive focus on corn dogs, guess again. He's donated every last penny to charter proliferation. Finally! A cause the masses can rally around!

Chicago Public Schools has also done their share of donating to the Noble Street network of charter schools, of which Rauner is a part. According to openthebooks.com, in 2014 Noble Street received $69,857,041.00 in funding; however, their banner year in profiteering was 2013 when they raked in $80,732,016.00. Since 2010, Noble Street has received about $277,000,000.00 from CPS coffers.

Rauner's day must run something like this: 1) ensure net worth still intact, 2) reflect on job well done lining own pockets off backs of teachers, and 3) enrich charter cronies with money that could otherwise better existing schools.

Spotlight on Cornholer Extraordinaire: Ken Griffin!

Move over minor cornholers -- WCT's spotlight is on Ken Griffin!

Board of Directors: Chicago Public Education Fund

$ervices provided to CPS by CPEF:  SUPES Academy, REACH, TFA recruitment, University of Chicago Consortium on School Leadership, publication of BBB's strategic action plans, and a vast array of additional tran$formation programs

Gains produced by CPEF programs: pockets of profiteers lined; data manipulated; resumes padded

Major donor: Republican Governors Association

Major donor: Rahm Emmanuel mayoral campaign

Wealth class: Billionaire; Illinois' wealthiest man

Profession: Hedge Funder; founder and CEO of Citadel (global investment firm)

Monthly salary after taxes: $68,000,000

Average Chicago Teacher Pension Fund retiree monthly benefit:  $3,500

Description of Illinois pension benefits: "generous"

Description of CPS:  "criminal"

Wife's opinion of Chicago: "unsophisticated"

Preferred method of wife intimidation:  bedpost

Included in (now) ex-wife's monthly alimony claims: $160,000 for vacation accommodations, $6,000 for groceries, $7,200 for dining, $2,000 for stationary

Percentage of CPS students living in poverty: 83%

Readers, turn to your copy of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and let's examine if the future is indeed here.  Corporations driving public policy? Check. Loathsome and hypocritical elites insulated from the nuisances of middle-class life, working-class life and poverty? Check. Corporate elites believing that the illusion of democracy is still worth maintaining? Check.  

Auction-Rate Education

Nothing will ruin a perfectly fine day away from school faster than another phone call from your delusional principal reading the Chicago Tribune's exacting, hair-raising reporting of David Vitale's investment follies on behalf of CPS. To use Common Core parlance, Vitale and the Board's investment in auction-rate bonds and interest-rate swaps could be described as robustly complex. You see, reader, auction-rate bonds are bonds that go to the lowest bidder and whose interest rates are regularly reset. This practice has been so successful the SEC issued a Cease and Desist order to stop such *innovation* and a basic Wikipedia search notes these markets have largely been frozen since 2008. No matter, nothing like using an untested, risky means of finance to needlessly expand the district.

Unfortunately for tax-payers and public school students, such robust complexity may end up costing the district $100,000,000 more than necessary upon repayment. One can safely assume the Board's, "unanimously approved contracts...that didn't even specify exact costs," will benefit Wall Street grifters and not any students. 

If terms like auction-rate bonds and interest-rate swaps don't readily roll off your tongue, the Tribune describes such deals variously as: exotic, unconventional, flavor of the day, and risky. If these articles were not so finance-laden one would think you were reading about CPS education policy. 

Using another refrain that could be a blanket statement for most CPS decisions, Jackson Potter of the CTU puts it best when he says, "It did not have to be this way." 

Do That Crazy Charter Dance! [Update]

Tuesday's Tribune op-ed page picks up where Sunday's left off: the sweet, sweet sounds of the School Choice Rag. Get your dancing shoes out, today's steps are: admonishment, half-truths, and rhetoric! We hope you can keep up, readers!

Step 1: The editorial board criticizes Toni Preckwinkle for daring to speak out against what she sees as the transfer of public resources into private hands. The Trib tut-tuts , "...it's astonishing to see her [Preckwinkle] launch a pre-emptive strike on a Chicago school board that faces some hard decisions for the future of Chicago's children." 

Funny, but it's the Tribune who's launched a pre-emptive strike on city teachers by featuring a litany of guest editorials by non-educators BBB, Rahm Emanuel, and local profiteer Myles Mendoza. While they proclaim choice, excellence, and high standards, they are unwilling to invest in the resources we currently have.

Step 2: Deeming charter schools with questionable motives as "excellent." WCT wonders if the writer of this editorial bothered to Google, "Concept charter school" and learn anything about this organization. Dan Mihalopoulous over at the Sun-Times thoroughly dismantled Concept in December, citing trips by elected officials to Turkey as well as raising questions about the school's ties to the exiled Islamic cleric Fetullah Gulen.

Intrinsic Charter also gets the editorial nod thanks to their promise to staff "master teachers" as well as, "teachers who deeply understand what students need to know and be able to do...". We work in a building with many teachers like this. Unfortunately due to the consistent underfunding of neighborhood schools and shifting administrative mandates, their livelihoods are left to the whims of the me-first leadership from the Board of Ed.

What's left out of this unabashed endorsement of charters is the recent data analysis by Illinois Raise Your Hand which shows 11,000 empty seats in charters. Whoops!

Step 3: A form of the word innovate is used three times in this editorial. This appealing but vague term is apparently the only solution to the "staggering need" for new schools; the students who "languish" on waiting lists; and finally the "huge need" for quality schools. The students we see who have staggering needs, who languish, who are hugely in need don't need another choice, but they do need the schools they currently attend to be resourced at a functioning level.

When the Board of Education votes on the proposals tomorrow, they will undoubtedly add more confusing steps to this dance. They'll also likely add more money to the pockets of private charter operators and friends lining up to benefit from the crisis CPS has brought upon itself.

Update:

• B3 was absent from today's meeting. It must be in the SUPES handbook to be absent from important meetings. Our REACH evaluation would surely get dinged for missing "big days," does the BOE follow the Danielson model?

• The Board of Ed. approved seven charters today, the approved groups include Rauner-funded Noble Street, Concept, and Intrinsic. Mike Madigan and Bruce Rauner must be toasting somewhere. Cha-ching!

• Aldermans Arena, Fioretti, Wauguespack, and Sposato spoke in favor of neighborhood schools, while Alderman Howard Brookins said he welcomes Concept to his neighborhood. Might he also be welcoming a boatload of money?

• Boardmember Dr. Mahalia Hines said she was not aware that the Illinois State Charter Commission is able to overrule BOE approval, thus allowing denied charters to still open. It's helpful to know the rules before jumping into the game, Doc.

The School Choice Rag

It's a return to Ragtime for the latest musical craze sweeping our city: the School Choice Rag. The beat is a three-part harmony: 1. Stop funding public schools, 2. Declare them failing, and 3. Endorse choice at every turn!

The Tribune's op-ed "It's time for school choice in Illinois" cranks up the volume on school choice to a deafening level. Trendy as choice is, the op-ed loses its beat from the start:

• Leading with a 2010 quote from City Clerk Susana Mendoza about the lone educational choice parents have, "...to send their child to a poor, overcrowded, and failing school." Ms. Mendoza shows she's a choice fan from way back based on her not one, but two trips, to Turkey courtesy of Fetullah Gulen's Niagara Foundation (Cha-ching!). So inspiring must these trips have been that she visited the Gulen-centric Chicago Math & Science Academy to videotape a testimonial.

• Citing New Orleans as an education revolution of epic proportions. Yet, blogger Mercedes Schneider has found New Orleans and their change-making ways to be an education devolution of epic failure. Schneider specifically highlights a failed New Orleans school voucher program coupled with jug-headed John Arnold's misguided contributions as nothing more than a PR ploy.

• Touting Cleveland--and the entire Buckeye State--as savvy choice operators. Instead, Ohio has a rich charter operator (cha-ching!) whose schools continually rank below Ohio's urban districts. Also, an NPR report shows that Ohio perpetually has a number of unused vouchers. 

• The Editorial Board hedges its praise only in the slightest by the gentle criticism of vouchers stating, "[they] don't always perform miracles." Is Joan of Arc on the Board of Education or is that just BOE member Deborah Quazzo?

The Editorial Board states the obvious truths, "...luck should not determine who gets the opportunity for a better education. Wealth should not determine who gets a choice. ZIP codes should not determine who gets a choice."  

Yet, pricey ZIP codes win every time. No school voucher system will solve this:

• An $18 million dollar Lincoln School annex (ZIP Code: 60614, average home price: $461,000).

• The planned opening of GEMS World Academy, a Dubai-run school where tuition will run an astonishing $31,000 - $37,000. (ZIP Code: 60601, average home price: $386,000)

• Bruce Rauner's clout nonsense to get his daughter into Walter Payton College Prep. (Rauner has too many zip codes list, but know he owns homes that range from a New York penthouse to a Livingston, Montana ranch.)

The Tribune throws its full support behind a questionably effective program that knowingly defunds neighborhood schools and destabilizes neighborhoods along with the way.

If a mainstream media outlet in Chicago wanted to be truly bold, it would begin a discussion about poverty in our city and why what we're currently doing to solve the problem doesn't work. Along with this might be the realization that until poverty is addressed, successful changes will be few and far between. But nobody wants to sing that song, instead they want to keep doing that old School Choice Rag.

Plutocrat Spotlight: John Arnold!

Overview:

• According to Forbes, Arnold is one of America's 400 richest people, with a net worth of 2.8 billion. Currently, he dabbles in philanthro-capitalism.

Employment background:

• Trader at Enron; hedge-fund manager

Enron work environment, according to The Smartest Guys in the Room:

Traders cackling about raising energy prices on "Grandma Millie" and jamming electricity rates "right up her ass for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."

Arnold's work persona, according to The Smartest Guys in the Room:

Bragging about his minions manipulating energy prices, praising them for "learning how to use the Enron bat to push around the markets," comments which later earned Arnold visits from federal investigators, who let him get away with claiming he didn't mean what he said. 

Physical description, according to Rolling Stone:

He's a lipess, eager little jerk with the jug-eared face of a Division III women's basketball coach, exactly what you'd expect a former Enron commodities trader to look like.

Further information, according to Rolling Stone:

As Enron was imploding, Arnold played a footnote role, helping himself to an $8 million bonus while the company's pension fund was vaporizing. He and other executives were later rebuked by a bankruptcy judge for looting their own company.  Public funds nationwide, reportedly, lost more than $1.5 billion thanks to their investments in Enron.  In 2002, Arnold started a hedge-fund and over the course of the next few years, made roughly a $3 billion fortune as the world's most successful natural-gas trader.

Current devilry:

• After suffering losses in 2010, Arnold left hedge-funding to begin philanthro-capitalizing, creating the John and Laura Arnold Foundation, an organization dedicated to reducing public workers' pensions and blaming inner-city teachers for "bad schools."

Quote from Arnold's blog:

The essence of our democracy [is] vigorous public discourse and debate in every forum.  In fact, Laura and I are among the largest financial supporters of organizations dedicated to safeguarding First Amendment Rights.

So to sum things up, John Arnold is a plutocrat who nevertheless believes that the illusion of American democracy is still worth maintaining.

He's one to keep our eyes on, readers.