Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rangel takes U.N.O. into the lucrative charter business

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Rangel takes U.N.O. into the lucrative charter business:

Rangel takes U.N.O. into the lucrative charter business

by Mike Klonsky

Juan Rangel

Sunday's NYT has a Chicago News Coop story, "A Lifetime of Close Ties and Growing Influence," about U.N.O. which has become the mayor's front group in the Mexican community. The machine boss is Juan Rangel, who successfully took U.N.O. into the charter school operating business.

While the city's neighborhood schools are being strangled by budget cuts, Rangel's ties with the mayor and his political clout in Springfield has charter operator U.N.O. sitting pretty. According to the Times:

The group, which ran a single charter school until 2005, now has 11