Byrd-Bennett sentencing just tip of iceberg for CPS woes

Mayor Emanuel and Barbara Byrd-Bennett

In the end, she got what was coming to her, say her critics; after all she betrayed the trust that was given to her by the city’s mayor, but when Barbara Byrd-Bennett received her sentence of 4 and ½ years in prison on Friday for agreeing to take a bribe from a suburban education outfit, in exchange for $23 million in no-bid contracts to the SUPES training academy, it also spoke volumes about the long standing reputation of Chicago as being a corrupt city, but also about Chicago Public Schools, how decisions are made, and especially how Mayor Rahm Emanuel has become ensnared in the web of money, intrigue and incompetence that hold the nation’s third largest school system hostage.

“Byrd-Bennett was promised hundreds of thousands of dollars as a "signing bonus" once she left her duties at CPS and rejoined SUPES as a consultant, her plea deal said. The bonus was to be concealed in trust accounts set up in the names [of] her twin grandsons — with the cash available to her once she left CPS,” reported the Chicago Tribune.

The majority of the 400,000 students in CPS are Black or Latino, with the perception that the schools are inferior, and many white parents, especially of means, send their children to private, or parochial Catholic schools. While perception maybe one-tenth of the law, it holds more sway in a city noted for its long history of racial segregation.

Bennett’s deal simply added another layer to the perception of ineffectiveness, and corruption, that has many parents, and mayoral critics, throwing up their hands. The schools also face a budget deficit that cut help for special needs students, and removed most of the extracurricular instruction, and music.

When she entered the arena of bribes, she heralded a training class, for principals, by SUPES as Chicago Public Schools faced a debt of $1 billion, when it was approved in 2013; and there had been a great deal of complaints by some that the instruction provided by SUPES was inadequate, to say the least, and that the lack of true knowledge by the trainers was a source of contention among many educators.

Past History
Besides the financial hole, the relationship with CPS and SUPES had been long-standing, and had produced, before she was hired (to replace outgoing Jean-Claude Brizard), Byrd-Bennett worked “as a paid coach for SUPES while collecting a $21,500-a month paycheck from CPS as a contract education adviser to Brizard.”  

This spurred an investigation by the CPS inspector general based on revelations by Catalyst Chicago an independent “news organization that serves as a watchdog and resource for school improvement in Chicago,” according to its website.

The contract was the highest no-bid contract in the district’s recent history and much of the objections stemmed from the enormity of the contract, and should have sent alarm bells ringing up and down the corridors of City Hall.

Wendy Katten, president of the parents group, Raise Your Hand, said, “We went to the board and asked them to end this contract and redirect the money to schools. It shouldn’t have to lead to a federal investigation to get action.”

Expanding on her original statements, Katten also told FOX TV Chicago at the time, that “A $20 million no-bid contract … is a questionable use of funds at a time when our students have 94 less art positions, 58 less [physical education] positions, and 54 less music positions for the fall, and CEO Byrd-Bennett is in the press discussing online courses for these programs,” she says. “We have to ask where the priorities of this district are right now.”

Warning Signs

There were also earlier warning signs: As I noted, at the time, Bennett was “No stranger to controversy, or investigation, when she led the Cleveland school district she was accused of using private donations for lavish hotel accommodations, and “fancy restaurants,” but a probe revealed no wrongdoing, but investigators urged the district to keep a tighter rein on spending, and as the Chicago Tribune reported, there was a silver lining to that cloud, when “she was credited with straightening out finances, improving test scores and raising the high school graduation rate.”

Her performance in Chicago was mixed at best, with some saying, at least she had previous educational experience, and, as we have seen on the national level, that is not a prerequisite for a cabinet level position.

Elected School Board?

If oversight has been lacking, much of the criticism has been against Emanuel and his handpicked school board, and one that many say could be cured by an elected school board. Last November at a meeting held by State Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) to support legislative action for it, apparent at the meeting was a growing sense of anger and frustration at a school board, and a system that many feel does a disservice to its students with draconian cuts, some schools that have lost $750,000 from its budget with a 20 percent staff reduction.

Present at that meeting was Kurt Hilgendorf, representing the Chicago Teachers Union who noted that in the recent advisory referendum in the last election, 37 wards voted for an elected school board, “more than for Rahm Emanuel [to remain in office].”

He also noted that Chicago’s appointed board had been in place since 1995, and that it “is bad for policymaking,” and “has limited participation for parents,” especially with “the rapid decline in neighborhood school enrollment,” which are being drained by the charter schools favored by the board.

Opinions do vary for an elected school board, and former Alderman Dick SImpson, now an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago,commented in 2012 for the Chicago Journal: “An elected school board would get the voice of citizens between the near dictatorial control of Mayor Emanuel and opposition by the Chicago Teacher's Union. We citizens pay for the school system and we parents depend upon the system to educate our children. We should have a voice separate from the mayor's that can provide a check and balance to both the mayor and the union.”

He also issued a cautionary note: “there are problems. First, if we held school board elections citywide rather than by district, we could end up with racial imbalance. Ninety percent of the students in the system are black and Hispanic but most of the elected board could be white. Second, with more than 600 schools to supervise, it is unclear how much any school board -- appointed or elected -- can do to really govern the system. Third, when we had elections of other local agencies like Model Cities, the political machine controlled the outcome in order to control the patronage jobs. The Democratic Party could control the outcome of school board elections as well.”

Noting that while an elected board is not a perfect panacea, especially for quick solutions for CPS indebtedness, Simpson concluded that, “on balance we need a positive start [towards change] and no solution, no financial solution, or representation problem can be solved easily.”

Naysayers do abound, and in an editorial last year for the Chicago Tribune, Peter Cunningham executive director of Education Post, a Chicago not-for-profit organization that supports education reform, and former assistant secretary for communications in the U.S. Department of Education, and spokesman for Chicago Public Schools, disagreed and said, “For the most part, elected school boards in large urban districts perpetuate the status quo. Examples abound, from the corrupt and ineffective pre-Katrina New Orleans school board to Los Angeles today, where paralyzing debates and acrimonious seven-figure school board elections are now the norm.”

WIth the Byrd-Bennett fiasco, many parents, legislators, and others want  tighter control over finances, and they think that it can be had with an elected board, yet Cunningham says just the opposite might happen: “Chicago mayors have directed billions of non education dollars to support schoolchildren. Without control, they may not.”

Financial Fiasco

Last year CPS faced a deficit of more than $1.1 billion, and according to their website, this year, they say, “due to a veto of the bill that moved toward more equitable pension funding for CPS, we have amended the online budget to reflect a reduction of $104 million in appropriation through furlough days and a freeze of non-personnel funds at schools.”

In the past, especially, under the Daley administration, pensions were either underfunded, or payments were not made at all, leading to a financial precipice.

They are referring to a veto by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner last year of $215 million that was needed towards mandated pension obligations, that many felt would never materialize, other than hoped for. This prompted a response by Chicago Teachers Union, President Karen Lewis, who said: “He was never going to give us any money,” she told The Chicago Tribune, “He’s a liar, he always has been . . . He is trying to starve CPS, that’s his goal.”

Lawsuit citing inequity

Emanuel, for his part, besides trying to wrangle money from the state has also who steadfastly tried to to help either end the funding formula that has given less money to Chicago schools, or to give it a benefice of cash.  He also sued the governor and the Illinois School Board of Education under “separate and unequal systems of funding for public education in Illinois,” on behalf of African American and Latino students, a move that was defeated on Friday, that the suit lacked a “sufficient argument under law.”.  This not only lost the $215 million that was needed but also any leverage for the pension payments, or to finish the school year, on time.

The current budget gap is $129 million.

Cook County Judge Franklin Valderrama “said he is sympathetic to the needs of a district like CPS that represents hundreds of thousands of poor and minority children, and termed the state's defense of the current situation "startlingly out of touch." However, he added CPS' lawsuit "is not the vehicle to challenge that reality,” reported Crain’s Chicago Business.

On the heels of Valderrama’s decision, Emanuel told reporters that students will be in class till June 20, the formal end of the school year.  What remains is how to pay for it. Suggestions have been made to use funds -- again -- from the tax-increment financing funds, as proposed by local alderman, Roderick Sawyer and George Cardenas.

Back to finances

Chicago Board of Education President Frank Clark says that he doesn’t know where the money will come from either, but said, “We’re going to find a way to fund this.”

Complicating financial matters further was the 2017 CPS budget which held some questionable line items, such as $17.3 million for new annexes and classrooms in a district whose lowered enrollment is forcing some schools to consolidate with others.

But, most lacking, at the time, according to Laurence Msall, of The Civic Federation,was a plan for capital expenditures, who “recommends that the District provide a plan detailing how it will balance revenues with expenditures in the event that revenue and/or labor contract savings are not realized in FY 2017 and that it continue to work with the State to secure equitable funding.” A goal that is further complicated by a Fitch rating CPS bonds to junk status, which results in more expensive borrowing as Emanuel has discovered.

With the partisan standoff, in Springfield, this is hope that springs eternal. As the Board of Education, sought to obtain $945 million in borrowing for capital projects, without any long-term capital improvement plan, the “the budget becomes self-defeating by accounting standards. But, spokesperson Emily Bittner insisted that “CPS’ revenues match expenditures, and expenditures are down $232 million from FY16.”

Despite the optimism it seems like a lose-lose situation, without even a Hail Mary pass from Springfield, the effect on students, and morale, is bound to be deleterious, as the clock ticks.