The CPS scandal and the Marine takeover of Logan Square’s Ames Middle School.
I was always puzzled why Logan Square’s Alderman Roberto Maldonado and Mayor Rahm were so insistent on turning our neighborhood’s perfectly fine Ames Middle School into a city-wide military school back in 2014.
Yesterday my brother followed up on Sun-Times reporter Lauren FitzPatrick’s story about Gary Solomon, SUPES and Synesi Associates.
I won’t sum all that up. You can go read it yourselves. But this is all coming out of the $20 million no-bid contract that led to the resignation of CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and the federal investigation now in process.
Reading Mike’s post the first thing I thought of was what happened to our local neighborhood middle school.
The Reader’s Ben Joravsky wrote about Ames in February of 2014.
The looming debacle at Ames is a good example of those head-shaking maneuvers in which the mayor manages to create a problem where none exists.
In all fairness to Mayor Emanuel, the idea of turning Ames into a military academy wasn’t his—it was the brainchild of 26th Ward alderman Roberto Maldonado.
I’m not sure what exactly inspired the alderman, and he didn’t return my call to explain.
But according to a 2012 interview he gave to Mark Brown of the Sun-Times, he saw some kids flashing gang signs in the hallway at Ames one day a few years back. And he essentially said, that’s it—I’m turning this into a military school!
Technically, he proposed to move an existing high school—the Marine Math and Science Academy—from its current location on the west side to Ames, at The CPS scandal and the Marine takeover of Logan Square’s Ames Middle School. | Fred Klonsky: