Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: UNO charter debacle hurts parents. Shows charters aren't 'public' after all.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: UNO charter debacle hurts parents. Shows charters aren't 'public' after all.:

UNO charter debacle hurts parents. Shows charters aren't 'public' after all.

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The latest UNO scandal represents a potential disaster for the thousands of mainly Latino students and parents enrolled in Chicago charter schools. It should also put an end to claims that privately-run charters are truly "public schools"

For those who haven't been following, there's been a split between the scandal-plagued United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and the charter school chain it founded. Now UNO is threatening to force closure of six of those charters, potentially leaving parents and teachers scrambling to find a new school for thousands of children come next fall.

UNO claims that the separately incorporated UNO Charter School Network owes them $3 million in management fees. The schools are said to be withholding payments to UNO because of lack of transparency about how the millions are being spent and also because UNO is currently the target of ongoing federal investigations.

Mike Madigan

UNO is threatening to sell all four school buildings it owns-- buildings that are home to six schools-- unless the charter network pays up. UNO CEO Rick Cerda says that conflicts between his group and the charter chain “raise a question as to whether the UCSN schools will continue to operate as they do today.”

It's hard to know how much of this is bluff or what UNO would be able to do with those empty buildings. But CPS has plenty of space to house those six schools now that it is sitting on dozens of empty school buildings of its own.

Imagine the power this clout-heavy, private group has over neighborhood parents, teachers, and Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: UNO charter debacle hurts parents. Shows charters aren't 'public' after all.: