Feds Hit An Illinois Charter School Chain With A Big Fine

[discocrisco01]

Source: WBEZ

A politically connected charter school chain based in the Chicago area has agreed to pay $4.5 million to end a long-running federal corruption investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Concept Schools Inc. — which has four publicly-financed campuses in Chicago and dozens of other charter schools in the Midwest — allegedly engaged in a bid-rigging scheme to steer federally funded technology contracts to insiders.

The costly, civil settlement with the government comes more than six years after federal agents raided the charter operator’s northwest suburban offices and other sites connected to Concept in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

Read more: https://www.wbez.org/stories/feds-hit-illinois-charter-school-chain-with-big-fine/174f577b-3976-43eb-bd97-85f97cde0ed1

[MyOwnPeace]

1. Uh-oh!

Betsy must have been out on the yacht that day - no way she would have allowed that to happen!

[mopinko]

2. read the whole article.

there is nothing in there that cps doesnt do.
i live around the corner from cmsa. it is one of the top schools in the country.
and it does something important that the cps schools dont do- it's building is open most every weekend for the community. and the cmsa families are encouraged to do good works. the building is open for those good works.
they distribute food, clothing, etc.

they teach the right way. they have one of the best robotics teams in the country. their kids are there late, learning what THEY want to learn.
their kids travel. in the beginning they went to turkey, but have since taken kids all over the world.

this school is open to all. i believe they use a lottery system.
if they had been open earlier, i would have sent my own kids there.

this is a charter done right FOR THE KIDS.
it took some doing to get a union contract for teachers, but they have one now. teachers are there for kids in a way that cps teachers.just.plain.arent.

this is not a criminal case. they were assessed a fine.

i had kids in every part of the cps system. it sucks for half the kids.
sorry, if you dont have kids in a system like chicago's, dont bother w the talking points here.
it is unaccountable, and it destroys a lot of kids.

and if you dont think this kind of skimming goes on in the rest of the system, you probably still believe in the tooth fairy.