About 30 percent of requests came from them
By Azam Ahmed, Stacy St. Clair and Jodi S. Cohen, Tribune reporters
Chicago aldermen dominate a secret list of people who lobbied Chicago Public Schools for students applying to the most selective schools, making about 30 percent of all requests on logs examined by the Tribune.
While many outcomes are not clear, alderman-backed applications were denied at least 34 percent of the time, a slightly lower rate than for all applicants, who were denied about 40 percent of the time.
The Tribune revealed earlier this week that former CPS chiefArne Duncan, who is now U.S. education secretary, ordered his office to track admissions requests over several years. The lists, used mostly in appeals cases, are dominated by requests from politicians and influential business people but also show inquiries from parents who were not politically connected.
Ald. Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, intervened in at least two cases involving his relatives in 2006. In one instance, the logs state he lobbied on behalf of a distant relative who, by her parents' own description, was "highly intelligent but has lacked motivation until now". The student's request to transfer to Morgan Park High School was granted without "assistance" from the CPS central office, the logs note.
Burnett also intervened on behalf of another distant relative that year who was accepted in a classical school.
The alderman said his staff routinely writes letters for people seeking help with schools, but it never promises admission.
"People in Chicago think we aldermen can do anything," Burnett said. "When we tell them there's no guarantee their kid will get in, they think we're lying".
In logs from 2006 and 2008 examined by the Tribune, there is no evidence that principals were forced to admit unqualified students. Indeed, many students were rejected even after Duncan's office intervened.
In 2006, the logs indicate then-Ald. Isaac Carothers asked Duncan's office to consider an admissions request involving a political worker in a West Side group once led by Carothers. The political worker, a city employee, wanted his child transferred from Fenger Academy High School to Morgan Park.
The child's father had contributed nearly $5,000 to the ward organization in the five years before the request, including a $375 donation about two weeks before Carothers intervened on the case, according to state records.
The logs do not indicate what happened with the request, but the student's father told the Tribune that he never asked for Carothers' help. He said the student eventually transferred from Fenger to Percy Julian High School, where he graduated.
Carothers, who recently pleaded guilty to corruption charges, declined comment through his attorney.
Other alderman defended their involvement in admissions cases, saying that they were helping minority or hardship applicants — two factors that principals could consider when admitting 5 percent of the student body.
Ald. Patrick O'Connor, 40th, wrote a letter on behalf of a Jones College Preparatory applicant who did not live in his ward and whose score was significantly below the average, according to the logs.
Records show O'Connor sent his request through then-School Board President Michael Scott. The student was admitted to Jones.
O'Connor said he didn't know the student or her family, so he assumes someone else asked him to intervene, as he occasionally did.
"None of these letters said: ‘Put her in this school,'" O'Connor said.
The student has a close relative who works for Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, records show. The relative, however, told the Tribune that she never asked a politician for help with the application. Burke's office did not respond to requests for comment.
In 2008, Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, asked Duncan's office to reconsider an admissions case involving the relative of one of President Barack Obama's campaign advisers. The student's application to a prestigious public prep school was rejected, and the family said it was because he had missed too much school after falling ill with mononucleosis.
CPS previously factored attendance into students' application score, but stopped doing so this year.
The student's family did not live in 49th Ward, but the alderman said their families are old friends.
"He did the responsible thing and stayed home as his doctor ordered," Moore said. "If he hadn't been sick he would have been admitted without a problem".
The student was admitted after Moore said he made three or four calls to Duncan's office.
Most aldermen said they didn't have political or personal ties to the students they supported and only wanted to give a child a chance at a better education.
Ald. Tom Tunney, 44th, said that in 2008 he tried unsuccessfully to help the doorman of a condominium building in his ward get his daughter into Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy.
The man, who does not live in the 44th Ward, was one of Tunney's employees in the early 1980s.
"He asked me for help. … He had said to his daughter, ‘If you get good grades, someday you will be able to go to Gwendolyn Brooks.' She got good grades and didn't get in," Tunney said. "I know the family. They are very poor. They have never been supporters of mine or anything like that. I was trying to help an impoverished kid".
Tribune reporter Todd Lighty contributed to this report
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