Chicago’s School Corruption Scandals Won’t End With the Latest Lockup, but Here’s Why I Don’t Feel Hopeless.
Another perpetrator might be going to jail, but that’s just the beginning of what needs to be done to counter the systemic educational oppression of Chicago’s youth. When I heard that Barbara Byrd-Bennett had been indicted for corruption, I felt numb. Byrd-Bennett, former Chicago Public Schools CEO, is a product of the controversial Broad Superintendents Academy and arrived in Chicago after executing programs of disinvestment in public education in Cleveland and Detroit.
I certainly wanted to see her pay for selling crony contracts to enrich herself at the expense of Chicago’s public school students—90% of color, the vast majority low-income.
I felt transported back to a day last fall when I heard that my former principal was stepping down over a financial scandal that had robbed the school of nearly a million dollars. This was the principal who had used a lack of funds as an excuse to fire me for helping student whistle-blowers, and who destroyed our Law Education Program for Students of High Needs. This was the principal who had dismantled our Restorative Justice program—nationally recognized for its empowerment of students. She was removed for misconduct.
In both of these cases of corruption, I didn’t feel righteous, vindicated, or thankful when the wrongdoing came to light. I just felt sad. I knew that the programs weren’t coming back, and whatever changes came out of it, my students still had a harder journey than they deserved.
While Byrd-Bennett was negotiating her casino windfalls with SUPES academy CEO Gary Solomon (who had been fired for sexual contact with his students and using racial slurs against African Americans), she was using the financial hardship caused by her corruption to
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