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It seems the corruption that dominates our local politics extends to the area school system. The Chicago Public Schools Office of Inspector General dealt with over 1,000 complaints of fraud and waste between July 2007 and July 2008, an issue symbolized by the Cappuccino Machine Debacle. A CPS manager ordered 30 cappuccino machines, at a total cost of $67,000, for a work-school program.
But five months after the machines were purchased, 22 remained unopened, one disappeared and three were being used at two schools—though not in the culinary arts program for which they were intended, the district's inspector general said Tuesday.The end result is that CPS wound up shelling out $12,000 more than they needed, not to mention the fact that this raises the question, "Why the hell do the schools need expensive cappuccino machines anyway?" Our math isn't the best, but that works out to $2,233.33 per machine. For cappuccino. Good to know things at our public schools are so well in order that officials can essentially just start wiping their asses with $100 bills.Officials in a department dealing with work-school programs allegedly separated the purchases to make them appear they came from 21 different schools and were under $10,000.
By doing so, the purchases did not have to be competitively bid or win school board approval, said Jim Sullivan, the district's inspector general.
In total, the inspector general's office investigated 1,012 cases and according to the Trib, "940 cases were closed with many resulting in recommendations for termination and some for criminal prosecution." Another major case involved staff members at Rachel Carson Elementary School who falsified records and used clout to get family children into the school in spite of the school's attendance boundaries. In addition, 69 children who lived outside the boundary for the school and were completely honest about their addresses were also admitted. As a result, around three dozen students who lived within the boundary had to be bused to other schools at a cost of around $252,000.
If there's a bright side for anyone in all of this, at least Blago knows where to send his resume once he gets removed from office.
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Cappuccino machines for a 'cultural arts program'.
What does this mean? I'm serious...I don't know what this means. Why do you need cappuccino machines for a cultural arts program?
It just never ends, does it?
Reminds me of the panhandlers that ask you to spare some change so they can get a coffee.
Coffee isn't necessary, I'm not giving you any damn money for coffee. If you want to attract the bleeding heart suckers, you say you're hungry and ask for food. We all know you're not going to buy either coffee OR food with it, so at least beg for something useful.
I was with a friend once and we saw a pan handler with a sign that said "I'm not going to lie, I just want money for a beer" and my friend, not one to ever give money
to beggars said "Now THAT I'll give him money for".
The utter shame of it is that there are a good number of really excellent teachers, admins, librarians, coaches and staff working in CPS who are just as gob-smacked by this bullshit as anyone else. More so because while they scamble to get funds to, y'know, educate kids, some prick whose cousin knows a guy is getting 70k worth of lattes.
Can you make lattes with cappuccino makers? Wait, I don't care.
The additional utter shame is that they didn't even ASK for the damn machines!
"Hey, let's waste money just for the fuck of it!"
I take this as a sign that CPS has finally accepted its place. They've decided that instead of teaching hard stuff like math or reading, they'll train their students for the Starbucks jobs most of them are doomed to hold for having been educated in Chicago.
I went to Catholic school in the 90's in Chicago. There are people my age (later 20's) who went to public schools in my neighborhood who lack even a basic understanding of American history, science and math. The guy I worked with who thought Abraham Lincoln started the revolutionary war? The girl I dated who did not know how many planets there were in the solar system? The woman at my old job who did math on her fingers, and did it wrong? All CPS grads from that era.
They have improved, but shit like this? Not helping.
Ingrid, the machines were supposedly for culinary arts, not cultural arts. Which makes a little more sense. And who wouldn't want a city full of well-trained baristas?
Ah...I read that as 'cultural' not 'culinary'...I haven't had coffee in 3 days, I'm giving up my coffee addiction, and so far I've had a headache for 3 days so I'm not functioning properly.
Thanks for clearing that up. :)
Ingrid, in this circumstance, I find your excuse hilariously ironic. :-)
Ingrid, I think you should fall off that wagon and head directly to your nearest CPS and demand a cappuccino.
I hope we can file this in our "collective" memory banks for the public castigating of misdeeds for the next inner city kid posted on Chicagoist. What does it do to them to spend 12 years in a school system designed to be a spigot of corruption for high level to lower level machine flunkies as opposed to educating at risk you?
...But they can make cappuccino and that's all that matters!
Opps at-risk-youth :-)
p.s I once herad Daley say "don't blame me, its da yuts on the street with killings"
"Are there no prisons?!? Are there no Cappuccino machines?!?"
I'd like to know who the machines were bought from and how much that company/owner/board member has donated to Daley's Machine.
Dare I mention that the man that oversaw this is now one of Obama's cabinet members?
I graduated from CPS in the 1990s, and none of my high school's science labs were operational or stocked. We never did any lab work, not even in AP Chemistry. I would like to believe that all CPS science labs were updated and fully stocked before these cappuccino machines were bought. But I'm sure they weren't.
I graduated in the late70s/early 80s and they didn't work then either. We had bunsen burner gas feeding tubes, etc. and NEVER used any of that. All we had was a baby in a jar sitting on a shelf and frogs once a year.
you can make lattes on a cappuccino machine. at least if it was a real cappuccino machine, and not one of those big vending machines that dispenses what i call "fakeaccinos"... because whether the milk is steamed or foamed is up to the maker.
i got an espresso/cappuccino maker for christmas. wanna know how much it cost? $40!
i'd also like to know in what universe does culinary arts involve training students to make lattes...
Albany,
I worked with a girl who had 'heard' of Napoleon but couldn't say anything about who he was or what he did.
Made some damn good ice cream.
my friends resautant just bought 2 top of the line industrial grade cappuccino machines and they were 'only' $1,200 each....so how does a public school buy 30 $2,233.00 machines......that is SO CRIMINAL!!!!!!!!!
The school's machines must be really special if they are a grand more then the best one on the market......
I have attended private school my whole life, and our culinary arts program was AMAZING (I am now attending CIA for my degree), but we didn't have anything like a $2,200 cappiccuno maker....... POOR RICH KIDS!!!!!!!!!
but... but... i thought chicago public schools were suffering because those mean old charter schools stole all the "good" students! it couldn't possibly be because CPS is run by a bunch of crooks!