In Chicago Obama Aide Had VIP List For Schools

Chicago Schools Chief, Now an Obama Aide, Had V.I.P. List for Top Choices - NYTimes.com

When Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, his office kept a log of nearly 40 pages listing the local politicians and business people and others who sought help getting children into the city’s most selective public schools.

According to an article Tuesday in The Chicago Tribune, which first obtained and reported on the confidential log, those who sought such help included 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, the State House speaker, the state attorney general, the former White House social secretary and a former United States senator.

According to The Chicago Tribune, about three-quarters of those in the log had political connections. The log noted “AD” as the person requesting help for 10 students, and as a co-requester about 40 times, according to The Tribune. Mr. Duncan’s mother and wife also appeared to have requested help for students.

Admission to top Chicago schools has long been a competitive and murky process, with longstanding rumors of abuse. Mr. Duncan created a formal appeals process in 2008, and when he left to join the Obama administration, his successor, Ron Huberman, created a system to stop the gaming of the system.

The existence of the list surfaced amid a federal investigation, according to The Tribune. A spokesman for the Department of Education said Tuesday that the investigation stemmed from a case involving a school principal after Mr. Duncan left.

In July, Mr. Huberman announced an internal investigation of the city’s 52 application-based elementary and high schools. The president of the Chicago school board, Michael Scott, who had been subpoenaed in the federal investigation, committed suicide in November.

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Some comments:

1. Arne Duncan was an odious appointment from the outset.

2. As CEO of Chicago's Public Schools the former pro hoopster oversaw the WAVE OF VIOLENCE that has submerged Windy City's school system for years.

3. More than A HUNDRED AND FIFTY Chicago public school kids have been KILLED by other Chicago public school kids in the years since Mr Duncan took over, and MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED have been SHOT in just 2007 and 2008 alone.

4. RENAISSANCE 2010 is the root cause, the 00's version of busing, it appears, some pie-headed conception about requiring Big Shoulders inner city youths to attend high schools on the other side of The Loop, or something, forcing thousands of young Bloods and Crips to transgress enemy turf every morning and afternoon just to get to and from Homeroom.

Chicago Teen Deaths, Violence Tied To School Reform Plan?

5. Placing Mr Duncan atop the Dept of Education is almost as laughable as selecting Kevin Jennings, choreographer of Fistgates 1 and 2, as "Safe Schools Czar."

6. LOL!

7. So today we discover in addition that Mr Duncan, as superintendent of Handgun High, was all along compiling a secret VIP list of insiders and influentials whose THEIR KIDS get to attend institutions more concerned with college prep than COFFIN distribution.

8. The well heeled whelps of the hoity toits like Carol Mosely Braun.

9. Oprah, presumably, if she had any.

10. And Jerry Springer!

11. LOL!

12. Meanwhile, the ELITEST and LOBBYIST LOVING president from Chicago DENIES those DC schoolies who were lucky enough to ESCAPE the worst and most expensive public schools on the planet, forcing all back into the confines of the corrupt and incompetent.

New students unlikely to get D.C. school vouchers - washingtonpost.com

13. One set of rules for us, a better deal for the makers of rules, an old game.

14. From Chicago all the way to DC.

The Prof

The Prof said:

3. More than A HUNDRED AND FIFTY Chicago public school kids have been KILLED by other Chicago public school kids in the years since Mr Duncan took over, and MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED have been SHOT in just 2007 and 2008 alone.

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Can you please give me a reference to that insane number, funny couldn't find it in any of the articles.

Chicago Teen Deaths, Violence Tied To School Reform Plan?

Before the 2006 school year, an average of 10-15 public school students were fatally shot each year. That soared to 24 deadly shootings in the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year.

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81 deaths the last 3 years (not counting 09-10, the killings continue, you know...)

more than a dozen per year before that

501 shootings in 07/08 and 08/09

arne was supt from june of 01 to january of 09

don't be so lazy, this is old material

That certainly doesn't look good, which is a shame. Duncan is one of the bright spots in Obama's cabinet and has done some pretty good stuff on the federal level.

The Prof said:

Chicago Schools Chief, Now an Obama Aide, Had V.I.P. List for Top Choices - NYTimes.com

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Prof, I'm begging you man, you make some decent points every now and then.
Just your formatting has got to change, I want to read what you write but I can't because of the formatting and LOL's.

Come on now, you can do it.

just like this:

it turns out that the very people who WROTE all this crap in harry reid's LOCKED CLOSET in december EXEMPTED themselves from the EXCHANGES they're ENFORCING on everyone else, ie, you and me

just as if they were the seiu

Health bill may exempt top Hill staffers - Erika Lovley and Patrick O'Connor - POLITICO.com

it's so very much like the old soviet union...

party members, the kamenevs and zinovievs---while they're working so hard on behalf of all the industrious ivans and their little ivanovichs---being PARTY MEMBERS, and all, the elites enjoyed every possible advantage

like a 1000 square foot flat in moscow---ALL TO YOURSELF

a rust-and-worse stained bathroom you only have to share with TWO other families

and use of the boro's beat up old bolshoi-mobile every...

well, it turns out you NEVER get to use the car

but, any way you slice it, in the ussr of comrade stalin---that's LUXURY

it's a lot like that

better stuff for the insiders, the actual members, y'know, of the party

The Prof said:

Chicago Teen Deaths, Violence Tied To School Reform Plan?



81 deaths the last 3 years (not counting 09-10, the killings continue, you know...)

more than a dozen per year before that

501 shootings in 07/08 and 08/09

arne was supt from june of 01 to january of 09

don't be so lazy, this is old material

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Are you sure these numbers are accurate? That's a pretty damn insane number.

And just to get a discrepency out the way, by using the term "shootings" that doesnt mean fatalities?

shootings are shootings, killings are killings

the numbers are tragically real

huffpo is not the only source

i encourage you, sincerely---google, wave of violence chicago public schools

you'll see the truth you seek

i'm sorry, it's a very sad story

cnn clued me in to it about a year ago, cnn still talks periodically about this "wave of violence"

arne duncan should never have been promoted to ed secty

his selection is nothing short of bizarre

ie, chicago

kevin jennings is just as weird, he's from new york/new england, tho

yes, it's unbelievable

500 shootings in 2 years comes to about 1.5 per school day somewhere in the presumably huge chicago system

we have 181 school days a year, here in CA

here, when there's a shooting involving a student, an entire district will routinely shut down

i mean, they'll bring in the counselors, to all the schools

the 6th graders and the jr hi's

they'll do assemblies, ribbons, speakers...

when there's a school-related shooting anywhere here in the east bay, yes, entire school districts stop everything they're doing and ADDRESS it

i just can't imagine what a district must be going thru that has a shooting every day

they certainly can't stop and talk about it anymore

they must kinda downplay it, try to keep a lid on it

while at the same time working at the classroom and community level to teach and reach and come up with some kinda solutions

(get rid of renaissance 2010 is the obvious first step)

(arne invented it)

bizarre, tragic, chicago

i'm sincerely sorry