Friday, March 29, 2013

State investigating $98 million grant for UNO charter schools - Chicago Sun-Times

State investigating $98 million grant for UNO charter schools - Chicago Sun-Times:


State investigating $98 million grant for UNO charter schools

BY DAN MIHALOPOULOS Staff Reporter dmihalopoulos@suntimes.com March 29, 2013 4:28PM
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Juan Rangel CEO United Neighborhood Organization. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times file photo
Juan Rangel, CEO of the United Neighborhood Organization. | Brian Jackson~Sun-Times file photo
Updated: March 29, 2013 4:48PM
 

Gov. Pat Quinn’s executive inspector general has opened an investigation into the politically influential United Neighborhood Organization’s use of a $98 million grant from Springfield for new charter schools, after a report in the Chicago Sun-Times that UNO gave millions of dollars in contracts for the schools to companies with ties to the organization’s top officials.
In a letter dated Feb. 14, Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza’s office asked the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to turn over all records regarding the grant, state officials disclosed Friday.
Meza also sent a similar request to Juan Rangel, UNO’s chief executive officer, sources said.
Meza’s office said it has opened “an official investigation” into the UNO grant, according to a copy of the one-page letter that the Quinn administration released Friday in response to a request made under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
The inspector general asked to be given copies of UNO’s state grant contracts and “any and all corresponding documentation,” including anything involving subcontractors, by Feb. 28.
Meza could not be reached Friday. A Quinn spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
UNO spokesman Ray Quintanilla said, “UNO recognizes the need to update and improve its internal procurement process to match our rapid growth within the last few years. We have said we can do better, which is why former Judge Wayne Andersen is conducting an independent analysis of UNO’s current policies which will outline a comprehensive set of policies that will modernize 
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Michelle Rhee, a private school parent?

Michelle Rhee, a private school parent?:


Michelle Rhee, a private school parent?

Posted by Valerie Strauss on March 29, 2013 at 5:13 pm









The outspoken Michelle Rhee appears to be uncomfortable talking about where her children go to school in Nashville. Public or private? And why does it matter?
Her reluctance is detailed in this Los Angeles Times piece by Michael Mishak headlined, “Michelle Rhee, ‘a public school parent?’ ” Mishak reports that Erin Shaw, a spokesman for Rhee’s StudentsFirst anti-union organization, told the Times, “She is a public school parent.” Based on  that, the paper reported in an earlier story that her daughters attend public school in Nashville, where their father, Kevin Huffman, works as state commissioner of education. Rhee’s husband is Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
But the American Federation of Teachers, one of the two biggest teachers unions in the country — both of which Rhee has made special targets of her education activism — challenged the public-school claim, Mishak writes, saying that one of Rhee’s daughters goes to a private school in Nashville. And education historian and activist Diane Ravitch wrote on her blog that a daughter of Rhee’s attends Harpeth Hall, an elite girls school for grades 
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Read Dallas ISD school board candidates’ responses to Dallas Kids First questionnaire | Education Blog

Read Dallas ISD school board candidates’ responses to Dallas Kids First questionnaire | Education Blog:


Read Dallas ISD school board candidates’ responses to Dallas Kids First questionnaire

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Dallas Kids First’s roughly 1,000 members used the candidates’ responses to help pick the group’s endorsements. (The group’s members who contributed more than $200 to the political action committee weren’t allowed to participate in the endorsements.) And unlike the scorecards, Dallas Kids First didn’t post the candidates’ answers on its website.
But here they are:
Dallas ISD District 4
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Educators set to march on Washington for DREAMer students | NewsTacoNewsTaco

Educators set to march on Washington for DREAMer students | NewsTacoNewsTaco:


Educators set to march on Washington for DREAMer students

by NewsTaco
DREAM march California


education votesBy Félix Pérez, EducationVotes
It has been more than 15 years since he was in her classroom, but choral music teacher Jill Denny still lights up when describing Jose.
“I just think Jose is a fantastic role model for our students. He is the ideal kid. He comes in and says, ‘I’m dying to learn things. Let me learn,’ ” reminisced Denny, who teaches at California’s Mountain View High School.
“It’s my job to take kids where they’re at, make them safe, extend another home for them here and move them forward,” said Denny.
Educators from across the country who believe as Denny does — that students should be made to feel welcome and safe regardless of where they were born — will put their beliefs and advocacy for DREAMer students on full display next month in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol.
They will be joined by tens of thousands of students, faith leaders and concerned citizens on April 10. They will seek to seize on and propel the growing national momentum for commonsense immigration reform so that Congress fixes our broken immigration system and the millions of students like Jose are not held back from 
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