Stop the Looting

Last May, in the aftermath of the bombing in Manchester, I wrote an impassioned post asserting that the West in general needed to do more to protect its most precious resource—its children (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2017/05/our-children.html). 

But closer to home, we need to do more to protect them not only from violence but from the looters and parasites that are draining our educational institutions. 

Once again, Rahm Emanuel failed the children in the Chicago Public School system when his latest chief, Forrest Claypool, was forced to resign in the wake of an ethics scandal.   Claypool evidently repeatedly lied to an internal investigator and was engaged in a “full blown cover up.”

Emanuel supported Claypool to the end, “He can walk out with his head held high,” Emanual chirped.  No he can't.

Former Obama chief of staff David Axelrod likewise rushed to his defense in this tweet,

               “My friend Forrest Claypool, who resigned today as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools,  is one of the finest public servants I have known.  He’s led remarkable turnarounds at the city’s schools (see below) & before that at the CTA & parks.  Proud of him!”

Proud of him???? Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?  If you can’t be transparent, if you can’t tell the truth, if you can’t provide disclosure, you can’t lead a public organization.  One wonders if Mr. Axelrod would gush with such generous praise if the transgressor worked for a corporation and lied to the attorney general or the IRS.

Emanuel’s last pick to run CPS, Barbara Byrd Bennett is serving a 4 ½ year sentence for scheming to collect kickbacks on contracts that she steered to a consulting firm where she had worked.

Meanwhile the kids suffer under a system designed more to keep the patronage army happy than to educate Chicago’s youth.  If you can’t get integrity right at the top, you can only imagine what goes on underneath.

CPS may be the worst, but certainly not the only instance of larceny in education.

The next level doesn’t fare much better.

Northern Illinois University paid outgoing president Doug Baker a $600,000 severance package last summer in the midst of his own ethics entanglement as Baker ignored university policies in hiring outside consultants. 

In 2016, the Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage fired president Robert Breuder, when it discovered a $95 million “slush fund” and “ waste, fraud and abuse” at the community college.  The slush fund was used primarily to fund Breuder’s (and other administrator’s lifestyles) – one article called it “boozing and shooting.”  As with CPS and NIU, Breuder flagrantly violated specific policies.  But evidently, Breuder’s misconduct was only the most recent at Illinois’s second largest public college. 

Finally, there is Chicago State University, which serves primarily African American students paid Thomas Calhoun a $600,000 severance package after only 9 months on the job.  The combination of Illinois’s budget problems and scandal and lack of oversight leaves CSU on the brink of closing.   CSU’S struggles are particularly troublesome.  It serves primarily older (average age 31), black, and female (CSU is 70% female) struggling to get ahead.  It’s sports teams are struggling.  Last year, the women’s basketball team was written up in the New York Times for its losing streak—at times only having 6 players (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/sports/as-chicago-state-struggles-on-court-perception-is-biggest-foe.html).  Chicago State has long been plagued by mismanagement, scandal and poor board oversight.  At one time, the financial management at CSU was so bad that the school failed to get tuition bills out.  A school that should be a premier HBCU analogue in the north is a cesspool of mismanagement and corruption. 

The issues in education are numerous and complex.  In the minority community, they involve issues of poverty, violence and family structure.  Just before Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker passed away, Becker and Posner had a robust debate on the level of resources that should be devoted to education.

But in Illinois, a good starting point would be to simply stop the looting.  At CPS and at some of our public institutions, the lack of oversight and accountability has been egregious, and it has been most egregious at the places that matter most to students from poor backgrounds. 

CPS, NIU, College of DuPage and certainly Chicago State serve students that have limited resources and serve a disproportionate number of minority students, as well as first generation college students.  These places are being run by and for the administrators and not the students.  Further, the scandals with NIU and CPS not only have financial ramifications but are modeling unacceptable behavior.  Emanuel and Axelrod do a double disservice to our young people by praising, supporting and excusing this disgraceful behavior.  Imagine a board of directors that said, “Yes, I know the CEO lied to the auditors, but didn’t he provide wonderful returns to the shareholders?”  It’s simply appalling that both Emanuel and Axelrod would heap praise on Claypool.

The ethical and oversight problems in education in Illinois are so endemic, it’s hard not to despair for these kids.