Chicago Schools Superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett has taken a leave of absence while federal investigators review a $20.5 million contract for principal training with an organization that previously employed Byrd-Bennett. The investigation goes well beyond the superintendent. It is interesting that news of the investigation was not released until after the mayoral runoff election.
Chicago Board of Education Vice President Jesse Ruiz, an attorney and former chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, was appointed interim CEO. Ruiz and school board President David Vitale were among officials that voted 6-0 in 2013 to approve a contract to the SUPES Academy training organization that is at the heart the federal inquiry.
Vitale said at a news conference Friday that the board knew Byrd-Bennett worked as a “mentor-coach” for the academy before the district hired her, and it saw no conflict when approving the contract without opening it up to competition.
“Many of us have prior lives and issues that we engaged with organizations with which we no longer have any relationship with that still might provide quality service to the Chicago Public Schools,” Vitale said.
Federal subpoenas of district employees made available Friday show the wide-ranging scope of the probe. Investigators want materials pertaining to the SUPES Academy and related entities, including the PROACT Search and Synesi Associates firms, which also have won CPS business.
Authorities also are demanding district records related to the Chicago Public Education Fund, a philanthropic group that over the years has counted among its board members Gov. Bruce Rauner, billionaire investor Ken Griffin, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Vitale and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s chief of staff for education. The group has provided funding for SUPES Academy.
Among CPS employees called to appear before a grand jury is James Bebley, the school board’s general counsel. Also receiving grand jury subpoenas were Byrd-Bennett’s chief of staff, Sherry Ulery, and Rosemary Herpel, a district employee who worked with Byrd-Bennett during her earlier leadership stints in Cleveland and Detroit.
The Chicago Teachers Union issued a statement saying that the problems in the school system went deeper than just this one contract. CTU Vice-President Jesse Sharkey said:
“What Barbara is being singled out for is sadly just one incident among widespread practices by the mayor’s Board of Education appointees, and the turmoil caused by yet another top-down leadership scandal is a grave concern for all of us as the district faces a crippling financial deficit. As I said yesterday, there is a culture of conflict of interest that is severely disruptive to the lives of both educators and the parents and students they serve, and it does nothing but create a climate of pervasive mistrust.
“Barbara will be most remembered as the person who was brought in to sell the mayor’s school closing plan. While it is our understanding that she is taking a leave of absence due to her potential inability to lead the district during the investigation into her connection to SUPES, she is not the only individual who may be at fault for any wrongdoing. Board president David Vitale was the architect of a financial deal that has cost the district hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one has asked for him to take a leave of absence. Board member Deborah Quazzo has received millions in profits from her private investments in companies with CPS contracts, and no one has asked for her to take a leave of absence either.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why does it take so long to weed out the crooks and the liars? And even then, we never really manage to take out the root before the weeds begin, once again, to choke off healthy growth.
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Right. And it’s one crappy weeding job too. As in Atlanta, the roots of these weeds are white and rarely see any light.
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I love it…I absolutely love it. And I recall when she was hired in Cleveland, I foolishly thought she was going to be good for the place…and theeeeeeeeeen…she wanted to be called a CEO. That was about the time I cringed and threw my hands up in the air. I am so tired of this garbage. WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS????
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Burn and churn is a feature, not a bug, amongst the top levels of the enforcers of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement.
The practical effect is that the damage done by rheephorm policies is laid at the feet of “those that are no longer with us”—as in, former LAUSD Supt. John Deasy and his chief accomplice in the iPad and MISIS fiascos. Thus the pedagogically predictable disasters are disconnected—e.g., in the MSM—from the current crop of smash-and-grab artists.
It’s a constant process of reinventing the name given to old policies, putting new faces on bottles that hold the rancid wine of CCSS and VAM and defunding public schools, etc., and paying no attention to the fact that when it comes to the policies and management practices that produced the “old” disasters—
It’s the same old same old.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
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Maybe we need to apply the RICO law to the dirty deals a lot of the superintendents and BOE’s around the country are engaged in. Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. All with financial malfeasance, conflicts of interest, no bid contracts, placements of Broad academy deformers at the helm of school boards across the country. This pattern is disturbing and destructive to public education and public unions. It’s hard not to make a case for organized, illegal practices being done at our public school districts with our public funds.
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nope, just use it to jail teachers & administrators who cheat, but not anyone who scams the system for major financial gain…
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Definitely use RICO to prosecute members of ALEC. You can’t have a more coordinated effort to divert public tax dollars than those crooks through the common laws they feed to state legislatures.
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Shows us how CORRUPT Chicago is.
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Nice job Chicago in re-electing a corporate putz like Rahm.
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It was the chickens voting for Colonel Sanders who put Rahm over the top. Had a large faction of the African American misleadearship not blindly, foolishly supported him he would be out. Imagine if you will what must have been going on between the ears of Bobby Rush to make him endorse the plutocracy. Same for Luis Gutierrez. Bruce Dixon did a good analysis of how the community was sold a bill of goods on the Black Agenda Report.
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Jon Lubar,
Here is the link to the article that explains Rahm’s victory: http://www.blackagendareport.com/black-misleaders-re-elect-rahm
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I think it was in a youtube video that I saw last year where Glen Ford, from the Black Agenda Report, talked about how ministers in the black community have been bought off in order to persuade their congregations to vote for certain candidates.
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I’ve subbed in Chicago and have seen some terrible conditions. All of this happens while desperately needed money goes to feed corrupt ‘leaders’.
Children in Chicago have schools that are falling apart, desks that are too small and books that are falling apart and outdated. How many ‘leaders’ are committed to helping children vs. enlarging their wallets?
Some teachers’ ‘parking lots’ are filled with broken glass, weeds and lumpy dirt that nobody should call a parking lot.
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And the most accessible parking space in the lot is typically the principal’s spot and you can often tell that just by looking at the car that’s parked there, because it’s the most expensive one in the lot. For example, I have worked at schools where principals had a Jaguar, a Hummer and a Lexus. In contrast, a number of teachers drive beaters.
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Wish that the relationship between former NY State Commissioner David Steiner and Pearson would be put before a grand jury. Steiner accepted very expensive overseas travel from the Pearson Foundation right before he signed a $32M contract for crappy tests with the company. He was quietly allowed to resign–and an agreement was reached with the Pearson Foundation to quit bribing key decision makers…but nothing happened to Steiner. With Atlanta teachers now behind bars because the gave into the pressure placed upon them it is also time that criminals like Steiner and the person responsible for bribing him go to jail!
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Just FYI for all here, the principals who endured he “professional development ” of the Supes Academy described it as the biggest waste of their time they had ever endured. Carpet baggers and high priced snake oil in tiny bottles. And on top of this we are expected to trust Vitale that they are all so professional on the appointed board that there would never be an actual conflict of interest rather than just the strong but “coincidental” ones? Put all that aside, I’ve got he deed to the Brooklyn bridge right here in my pocket for sale cheap.
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And here is Scami Anderson doing similar in Newark: http://www.bobbraunsledger.com/look-out-rutgers-and-seton-hall-camis-relay-gse-is-out-to-eat-your-lunch/
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Before Barbara Byrd Bennett worked in Chicago, she worked in Detroit. Here is an account of her actions there:
BBB did the same thing when she was Robert Bobb’s #2 at Detroit Public Schools. She and Bobb did a book and curriculum purchase for over $40 million with Houghton-Mifflin. There was no needs assessment or internal process to justify this no-bid contract. It was BBB and Bobb, in that order. Before working for Bobb, she was the “Superintendent-in-Residence” at Houghton-Mifflin. She also hired at least 10 colleagues, friends and a family member from Cleveland at DPS. They all had huge contracts (107K to over 200K), did not work full time and one may have had a no-work contract. Most contracts were not made public.For more background on BBB’s Cleveland-Detroit romp, see the report Robert Bobb and The Failure of Public Act 72, PP12-14 and p25.
It’s about time she’s finally (we hope) being held accountable for her disgraceful actions in helping to destroy public education in both cities.
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“It is interesting that news of the investigation was not released until after the mayoral runoff election.”
There should be an investigation into that, too. Perhaps it’s not related but, boy Rahm Emanuel is one lucky politician.
Nice timing.
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“Federal corruption investigators looking into a $20.5 million no-bid contract at Chicago Public Schools also have asked for any records related to an elite nonprofit education group that has long been at the center of city school reform efforts — the first indication that the public relations problem could extend beyond Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration.
The Chicago Public Education Fund is closely aligned with the education initiatives of both Emanuel and Gov. Bruce Rauner, who once chaired the nonprofit, as well as some of the city’s most prominent power brokers and philanthropists.”
I will be shocked if there is ever a real investigation into an “elite ed reform group” because they are SO politically connected in both the Republican and Democratic Party, DC and business, but maybe there will be.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-rahm-emanuel-chicago-public-schools-met-0419-20150419-story.html?utm_content=buffer291ad&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#page=1
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Too: in the last issue of “IN These Times” further analysis of the Rahm, Garcia race had some very interesting comments. I recommend it.
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I hate to admit it, but I know Jesse Ruiz personally, or, at least, I knew him about 8 years ago – we worked at the same law firm (he’s still there, actually). Charming guy – just like I imagine GWB was – the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer, er, coffee with. I am coming to believe that being “nice” – at least, a certain kind of “nice” – is worse than being openly evil.
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He and Karen Lewis attend the same temple.
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