Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General.
That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general’s 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted.
In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators split the order among 21 vocational schools to avoid competitive bidding required for purchases over $10,000. As a result CPS paid about $12,000 too much, according to Inspector General James Sullivan. “We were able to find the same machines cheaper online,” he said.
“We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn’t even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn’t know how to use the machines and weren’t prepared to implement them into the curriculum,” Sullivan said.
Does that include baristas? If so, then it’s a good deal.
#61, I stand corrected. I see where the miscommunication is
Try this instead
“Chicago School District” Corruption
My apologies.
#61 – LibLos
>>What part of
>>
>>“blah blah blah, blah blah blahdy blah”
>>
>>don’t you understand?
Sorry, LibLos. I guess I didn’t click on that link, as I didn’t read that text, and you didn’t provide a link. Where was it, AnalCystLimbaugh dot com? LoofahPadOReilly dot com? AnnTwoDollarWhoreCoulter dot com? That’s certainly not the concensus view on Arne Duncan, even among the wingnuts.
In any case, you’re drifting, rudderless, from the actual topic at hand: “Why did the Chicago Public Schools buy $67K worth of coffee makers, who was responsible for the purchase, and who profited from the sale?”. We can take it as a given that the audit process worked flawlessly, as the supposedly “scandalous” purchase was identified in a timely manner, and corrective actions were taken.
You’d like to turn this into a free-range fishing expedition to libel Obama, Duncan, and anyone else belonging to the Democratic Party.
#63 – LibLos
>>Try this instead
>>“Chicago School District” Corruption
I tried that, and I didn’t come upu with the quote you cited.
In fact, I came up with a lot of irrelevant stuff. Not surprising (even if the Chicago Public School system IS corrupt), as the “district” search term is meaningless. It gives a lot of hits on topics related to individual school districts within the CPS system.
Maybe next year for Christmas, you can ask Santa for “The Google For Dummies”; you seem to have a difficult time developing a search strategy.
Poison,
>>What part of
>>
>>“blah blah blah, blah blah blahdy blah”
>>
>>don’t you understand?
You know, if you take your fingers out of your ears and stop screaming “blah,blah,blah,blah,blah” you might actually learn something.
Arny’s policies haven’t worked. Indeed, they’ve made things worse. Anybody who can read would have no trouble
We can take it as a given that the audit process worked flawlessly, as the supposedly “scandalous” purchase was identified in a timely manner, and corrective actions were taken.
Yeah, it’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
You’d like to turn this into a free-range fishing expedition to libel Obama, Duncan, and anyone else belonging to the Democratic Party.
Democrats, republicans, it makes no difference to me (think outside the square). To you, however, democrats can do no wrong so I don’t know why you bother to even keep up on current events. You don’t believe anything remotely critical of the cult.
>>Try this instead
>>“Chicago School District” Corruption
I tried that, and I didn’t come upu with the quote you cited.
I’ll narrow it down for you. Google the following.
“Operation Safe Passage” Chicago
The police are having to escort the kids to school. This is from Chicago’s own website.
#65 – LiLos
>>The police are having to escort the kids to
>>school. This is from Chicago’s own website.
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the SCHOOL SYSTEM. Big cities have slums. Slums are dangerous places. Children live in slums, and they have to get to school.
Christ, now you want Arne Duncan to not only fix everything that’s wrong with the Chicago Public School system, now he has to CLEAN UP THE WHOLE CITY???
>>Yeah, it’s always easier to ask forgiveness
>>than permission.
True. It is. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand here, though. Any large organization will have individuals who do things they’re not supposed to do. In poorly-run organizations, these naughty behaviors continue unabated. In the Chicago Public Schools, they’re detected with laser-like accuracy, and dealt with as soon as they are discovered.
What were you bitching about again?
>>Democrats, republicans, it makes no
>>difference to me
Makes no difference to me either. In fact, I’m not even a registered Democrat. I take things on a case by case basis.
And in this case, you took a half-baked story about a bunch of coffee machines that were bought (nobody seems to know why, or who, if anyone, gained from the purchase). Then you tried to link it to “inadequate” performance on the part of Arne Duncan, and by association, to Barack Obama. Then you wandered outside the educational system, and started berating Duncan because there are bad neighborhoods in the city of Chicago.
Jesus. Did you take the pill that makes you larger? Or the one that makes you small?
If you want to do a service for this thread with your new-found skills using The Google, why not see if you can figure out what the story is with the coffe-makers. Did anyone profit from this “crime”? Why were the machines bought in the first place? Competitive bidding or not, requisitions for items that are outside the purview of the organization doing the purchasing are generally not approved. I have a feeling that there’s a story behind this story, and there’s an explanation that isn’t likely to sell copies of the Sun-Times to the undereducated shot-and-beer unemployed guys that make up a significant proportion of their readership.
#65 – LiLos
>>The police are having to escort the kids to
>>school. This is from Chicago’s own website.
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the SCHOOL SYSTEM. Big cities have slums. Slums are dangerous places. Children live in slums, and they have to get to school.
Did you even read the whole article? It is a problem with the schools.
However, if it isn’t a problem with the schools, what is it a problem with? The community?
#67 – LibLos
>>Did you even read the whole article?
Which article? You didn’t post a link. You said, and I quote “Google the following: Google the following. “Operation Safe Passage” Chicago“. Which I did. I read the first article that came up on The Google, which talked about snipers in abandoned buildings keeping kids home from school, gang members on the streets, and parent patrols, church volunteers, and residents who supplement police patrols. Nothing about failure of the schools (unless you think that as part of Arne Duncan’s responsibility for eradicating all crimee within city limits, dangerous neighborhoods are a school failure).
Then I read the second article (same issues addressed), and the NYT article that was linked to in it (also same issues addressed).
>>However, if it isn’t a problem with the
>>schools, what is it a problem with? The
>>community?
Well, um…uh… yeah. At least that’s my OPINION. If there are dangerous communities that children cannot pass through to get to school, what else would it be a problem with?
#68, And whose community was it? Who was the community organizer? (trick question 🙂
unless you think that as part of Arne Duncan’s responsibility for eradicating all crimee within city limits, dangerous neighborhoods are a school failure
In a way, I do think he should be involved. The last three districts I’ve lived in the superintendent was heavily involved in the community. But I digress.
The simple fact of the matter is that when he took over, things weren’t as bad in that area as they are now. I blame him for letting his district go to shit. If he had shown any kind of leadership, they kids would not have to worry about being shot down in the streets by other kids. The man has had $10,000/student/year. My district runs on 2/3 of that. Where the hell is the money going?
His policies have resulted in increased corruption. Just because more people were caught each year doesn’t mean corruption is going down. If more people are shot on the street and then subsequently sent to prison, do you credit the police with capture or wonder why more people are being shot? It’s their JOB to catch them. I personally wonder why more people are being shot. I would think you would wonder why they have so many more people getting in caught each year? Yes, they should be fired, but why is the corruption so rampant?
These are the points I’m trying to make. You keep referring to 67k (and seem to think it’s ok), but I am looking at the whole picture. The 67k just got better press than everything else.
This guy is now the SE. Is he going to do the same thing to every other district in the country that he did to Chicago?
#69 – LibLos
>>In a way, I do think he should be involved.
So do I. I’ll bet so does he. In fact, I’ll bet he is. I’m “involved” in my community; I volunteer at the local soup kitchen. Of course, I don’t live in a squalid, crime-ridden ghetto, with gang-member snipers in abandoned buildings shooting children as they walk to school. And if I did, nobody would expect me to eradicate all crime within the city limits.
>>The simple fact of the matter is that when
>>he took over, things weren’t as bad in that
>>area as they are now. I blame him for
>>letting his district go to shit.
He did? Perhaps with your new-found facility with The Google, you could post a link showing that Arne Duncan’s stewardship of the Chicago Public School system has caused it to “go to shit”.
And what’s with this “district” thing you keep talking about? Duncan is the head of the entire public school system for the city of Chicago. A school district is the geographic area served by a particular school.
>>And whose community was it? Who was the
>>community organizer?
Oh, you slyboots! You little dickens!! You rascal! Gawrsh, you suckered me right into that, didn’t you, you smooth operator!!
Of course! It was President-Elect Obama, trying to keep a base of workers in the area of the Altgeld Gardens housing project and the surrounding neighborhood of Roseland to prevent further deterioration of the neighborhood, back in 1985, that’s the reason Arne Duncan’s “district” has “gone to shit” since 2001. Oh man! How could I be snookered into voting for the guy??
>>His policies have resulted in increased
>>corruption.
Which policies? What corruption? Go, Googlemeister, go! Post those links!!
>>You keep referring to 67k (and seem to think
>>it’s ok)
I do? Where did I say that? I said that the way the story was written, pandering to the scandal-philic readership of the Sun-Times, doesn’t provide enough information to draw any inferences at all as to what happened. I also said that the $67K was 0.0001% of the CPS budget, and then I went on to say that the purchase of these mysterious coffeemakers had nothing to do with Duncan. Hey, the thread is ABOUT the coffeemakers. Excuse me if I want to know a little bit more about the situation before jumping to conclusions.
>>Is he going to do the same thing to every
>>other district in the country that he did to
>>Chicago?
You still haven’t clarified exactly what he did “do” to Chicago, and the Chicago public schools in particular. He didn’t stamp out crime all over the city, I’ll grant you that. Some low-level functionary purchased some coffeemakers, that we dont’ know the purpose of, don’t know who profited from, and really are in the dark concerning; I’ll grant you that too.
But as to Arne Duncan having done a shitty job during his tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public School system …. well. You’re going to have to offer up some evidence of that. And something a little meatier than unatribbuted quotes from AnalCystLimbaugh dot com.
Poison,
>>The simple fact of the matter is that when
>>he took over, things weren’t as bad in that
>>area as they are now. I blame him for
>>letting his district go to shit.
He did?
Yes.
AFA finding your links, as I’ve stated before, that is not going to convince you. Your stock answer to any link ever showing any kind of criticism has always been the lack of reporting capability. Attacking the source of the information seems to be the method all Obamabots use.
So, live in your world of rose-colored glasses, rainbow stew, and altruistic hedonism. If you refuse to see the truth, no amount of proof is going to convince you.
#71 = LibLos
>>He did?
>>
>>Yes.
Seems to me that even YOU are running out of steam to keep your absurd teakettle tempest about Duncan afloat.
And as to your continued unwillingness to provide links to back up your allegations, heh heh. I guess the bad habits of your heart-throb and mentor “tempt must be rubbing off on you.
You make a good Three Stooges, you, ‘tempt, and Paddy-RAMBO. All three of you, unwilling (or more likely, unable) to provide proof for your ditzy allegations.
pwned.
#72, Seems to me that even YOU are running out of steam to keep your absurd teakettle tempest about Duncan afloat.
Actually, I’ve made my point. I’ve read the news stories on the web. I’ve pointed out how to find them. It’s not my fault you don’t know how to work a browser.
And as to your continued unwillingness to provide links to back up your allegations
Back at you. You got anything to prove he has improved things?
#73 – LibLos
>>Actually, I’ve made my point. I’ve read the
>>news stories on the web. I’ve pointed out
>>how to find them. It’s not my fault you
>>don’t know how to work a browser.
Aw, you big meanie! You know where all these sites are, but you’re not going to tell me? You’re going to let me dangle, just because I’m not as good with The Google as you are? Darn it!
On the other hand, maybe you’re full of shit, and just like ‘temptie and Paddy-RAMBO, you have nothing but hot air to back up your claims. Hmmmm.
>>Back at you. You got anything to prove he
>>has improved things?
I never said he had improved things, so I don’t need to provide backup for an assertion that I may not even agree with. I really don’t give a shit about Duncan, or his links to Obama, or any of the other stuff you keep rambling on about.
I simply want to know more about this “scandal”. So far, it’s been covered by the tabloid newspaper Sun-Times, and some news services picked up on it for entertainment value.
Nobody (and certainly not YOU, who seems to be so outraged by this profligate waste of taxpayer money) appears interested in why the coffeemakers were purchased and who benefited from the purchase. All that is self-evident in most scandals, like Dumbya’s appointee’s $250,000 bathroom makeover.
Here, it’s a total mystery. Great fodder for the ignorant and uniformed to bash the Chicago Public School system, but useless for drawing any conclusions.
If you have any additional light to shed on the “scandal”, feel free to offer it up.
#74, I never said he had improved things
Of course, not. That would be lying.
#75 – LibLos
>>I never said he had improved things
>>
>>Of course, not. That would be lying.
Christ, are you a lawyer or something? I never said he improved things, I never said he made things worse, I never said he caused things to remain the same.
I’m not TALKING about Duncan’s performance as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, and neither should you. That’s not what this thread is about. It’s about the mysterious $67K worth of coffemakers.
And you jump greedily on the conclusion spoon-fed to you by the Sun-Times, that this is symptomatic of some vast cabal of corruption within the CPS system, people who are ordering expensive coffeemakers in order to … to …. well, I guess they were …. damn! I can’t think of why anyone would do that.
And neither can you, otherwise you wouldn’t be beating around the bush here, trying to send me off on wild goose chases with The Google, looking up nonsense on gang activity and community activism in Chicago.
LibLos, you are BUSTED. Just take your defeat with grace and fortitude, won’t you?
#76, It’s about the mysterious $67K worth of coffemakers.
And the incoming Secretary of Education’s policies that allowed that to happen.
#77 – LibLos
>>And the incoming Secretary of Education’s
>>policies that allowed that to happen.
Allowed WHAT to happen? Allowed a low-level functionary to make some kind of mistake? You still haven’t explained the underlying “scandal” (if in fact it IS a scandal), yet you seek to taint the CPS, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, and the entire city of Chicago with culpability in this mystery “scandal”.
If you have any information from your myriad searches with The Google explaining who, if anyone, was to benefit from the purchase of this merchandise, let’s see it, and we can raise the issue from a titilating bit of gossip in a scandalmongering tabloid, into being a full-fledged scandal.
In the alternative, STFU.
#78, Poison,
>>And the incoming Secretary of Education’s
>>policies that allowed that to happen.
Allowed WHAT to happen?
Are you dense? What the article states.
Poison,
Look, this has been fun. It’s always fun to watch you sputter and squirm whenever the Obamessiah is criticized but there is a Buffy rerun I want to watch.
Have a good evening.
#79 – #80 – Liberty Loser
Kind of a weak effort to deny the obvious, Loser – That you don’t have a leg to stand on, and this whole charade was yet another pitiful attempt by you to discredit Obama and anyone associated with him.
Good thing for us red-blooded American boys who love our country, it came to naught.
For Obama, at least. For you, it revealed what a jibbering, nonesense-spounting dunderhead you are, painting yourself into corner after corner with your own silly words.
Liberty Loser – O
Move along, folks. Nothing to see here. Just another ‘tempt or Paddy-RAMBO in training.