Landlords for 2 proposed Chicago charter schools have ties to Emanuel

[marmar]

(Sun Times) Two people with ties to Mayor Rahm Emanuel could be among those to benefit from new, publicly financed charter schools up for approval next week by Chicago Public Schools officials.

A South Side minister allied with the mayor and a real estate broker who is an Emanuel friend could end up as landlords for new schools, collecting rent paid for by taxpayers.

The Chicago Board of Education is set to vote next week on 22 proposed schools being sought by nine charter operators. Those that are approved would come back before the school board in May for final approval.

One of two schools that Des Plaines-based Concept Schools chain hopes to open next school year — at 8522 S. Lafayette Ave. in Chatham — would be the first tenant in a building owned by an arm of the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church. .............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.suntimes.com/24960566-761/landlords-for-2-proposed-chicago-charter-schools-have-ties-to-emanuel.html

[Scuba]

1. No one could have predicted that.

[madfloridian]

2. And then there's Juan Rangel and UNO..another Rahm buddy.

BTW that last paragraph in your article blew my mind. The goal of 100 college bound is ludicrous.

Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said, “The mayor has confidence that [schools CEO] Barbara Byrd-Bennett and the board share a sole priority when it comes to our schools: meeting the goal of providing a high-quality education so our students are 100 percent college-ready and 100 percent college-bound.”

They can not possibly believe that will happen.

Then there's the now out of favor Juan Rangel...a co-chairman of Rahm's mayoral campaign and owner of charter schools UNO.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/24218312-418/unos-juan-rangel-a-tale-of-clout-won-then-lost.html

Though, as a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization, UNO is not supposed to get involved in politics, Rangel eagerly offered his personal endorsement to candidates for office. And he urged UNO’s contractors to make campaign contributions to the group’s benefactors.

....In 1996, Rangel succeeded Danny Solis as UNO’s chief executive, when Daley named Solis to fill a vacancy on the City Council. Two years later, UNO opened the first charter school in what’s now a network of 16 UNO schools with 7,587 students. In the year ending in June 2012, the UNO schools got more than $48.5 million in local, state and federal taxpayer funding, most of it from Chicago Public Schools, records show.

Rangel retreated from public view after the Chicago Sun-Times reported in February that UNO had spent $8.5 million from the state grant to hire companies owned by brothers of top Rangel aide Miguel d’Escoto.

48 and a half million to UNO from public schools there. And you wonder why teachers went on strike there.