Sarah Karp, deputy editor of Catalyst, the invaluable magazine that covers education without fear or favor in Chicago, recently took a close look at the Chicago Public Education Fund. What she discovered is alarming.

 

She begins by looking at the federal investigation of the $20.5 million no-bid contract to a for-profit organization called SUPES to train leaders in the school system. Former CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett resigned because of the investigation, because she had some prior involvement with SUPES.

 

The relationship between the district and SUPES began when the Chicago Public Education Fund gave SUPES a contract for $380,000 to train network chiefs and their deputies. CPEF is not a target of the FBI investigation. Karp writes that the “larger question…isn’t about SUPES. It’s about the role of a privately financed foundation that is deeply entwined with a public school system.” As Karp writes, “No one outside The Fund’s staff and board of directors know how it decide which programs to support, what the results have been and how or whether the results are communicated to CPS.”

 

“It is worth noting that The Fund’s board is made up of some of the richest, most powerful people in Chicago—people with strong and definite opinions about the direction of CPS and including some of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s staunch supporters and campaign donors. “It would be difficult to assemble a board that screams 1 percent louder than (The Fund)—from the schools its members attended to jobs held to marriages made,” as Chicago Magazine’s Carol Felsenthal wrote in a column.

 

Gov. Bruce Rauner is a former board president. Current board members are billionaire Kenneth Griffin, Penny Pritzker and Susan Crown of the Crown family.

 

The only way to make sure that the voices of the well-connected don’t drown out the voices of parents and the general public is to have complete transparency in decision-making about public schools. The public has the right to know the costs and the results of initiatives taking place in our schools, with our children, teachers and principals.”

 

In recent years, The Fund has paid consultants to search for high-level positions in CPS. One consultant was paid $100,000 to find a Chief Financial Officer, who stayed only two years.

 

“In 2011, The Fund paid a consultant $100,000 to search for a chief financial officer; the man hired, Peter Rogers, only stayed for about two years. In 2012, The Fund paid three consulting companies — McKinsey & Company, Parthenon Group and Global Strategy Group — to do planning and marketing work for CPS.

 

The $1.5 million paid to Parthenon and McKinsey is particularly interesting. Parthenon helped CPS write the 2013 Request for Proposals for new schools.

 

McKinsey got the largest cut and was paid to provide data analytics and management support for the district’s 10-year master facilities plan—which was criticized for lacking detail—and to design the structure and duties for a new Office of Strategic Management, which analyzes trends, establishes school attendance areas and does long-term capital planning.

 

Todd Babbitz of McKinsey was hired to run the new office that McKinsey proposed; Babbitz “spearheaded the mass school closings in 2013.” Parents and community members complained bitterly about the school closings. But their voices were never heard. The CPS board, appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, listened to the consultants hired by the Chicago Public Education Fund.”

 

This is NOT democracy at work.