Noble -- The Billionaire's Charter School Network

Former Exelon CEO John Rowe at his Rowe-Clark Math & Science Academy. 

It was 2006 and Mr. Manderschied was president of the Noble Network of Charter Schools. He met with Mr. Rauner, then chairman of Chicago private-equity firm GTCR LLC, in a living room-like suite at the firm's Sears Tower office. But he was nervous because he had never asked anyone for such a large sum. After an hour's discussion, Mr. Rauner agreed to the $1 million donation that would make his name the first one emblazoned on a Noble school. -- Crain's

While parents and Bronzeville community activists had to go on an 18-day hunger strike to win an open enrollment high school at Dyett, all charter hustler Mike Milkie had to do was walk into billionaire Bruce Rauner's office with his well-connected pal Manderschied and ask him for a million bucks to open another in his chain of privately-run charter schools. Then it's over to CPS to win easy approval for another charter school to compete with underfunded neighborhood schools for area students.

Already the state's biggest charter network, Noble expects to teach 15% of Chicago public high school students by 2017.

How they call them public schools, I will never know.

The Noble Network of Charter Schools founded by Milkie, a former Chicago high school teacher, looks more like an ego-boosting tax haven for local billionaires than it does public, neighborhood charter schools. For a meager $1M "investment", billionaires like Gov. Bruce Rauner, Sec. of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Allan Muchin (founding partner of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP), former Exelon CEO John Rowe and former ComEd CEO and CPS school board president Frank Clark, had schools named after themselves.

According to Crain's: 

Mr. Rauner, a Republican from Winnetka, has backed a number of charter schools, including the UNO Charter School Network now dogged by questions of cronyism. But he has given the most to Noble, just over $3.5 million.

It was a nice boost for Rauner, who while locked in a tight race for governor,had hundreds of students moving around the city, wearing required school uniforms with polo shirts, jackets, sweats, and sports team jerseys bearing his name.

Now CEO of the Noble Network, Milkie says he understands how to talk to business executives.

“Their dollars are a great investment in terms of return,” he says, citing low administrative costs and the “tremendous impact on students' lives.” He provides dashboards of data to document progress on everything from student testing to detentions to teacher bonuses.

“Businesspeople like to measure things,” says retired Exelon Corp. Chairman and CEO John Rowe, who estimates he's given $4.5 million to Noble and for college scholarships to its graduates since 2007.

In its latest capital campaign, Noble has raised more than half the $50 million it's targeting for expansion. That includes $15 million last year from Glenview-based Illinois Tool Works Inc.'s foundation for the ITW David Speer Academy for a school built across the street from Prosser High School. ITW has already been contacting Prosser freshman and their families to recruit them away from Prosser.

But lately, Milke and his wealthy patrons have run into trouble when they tried to expand into more upscale north-side white communities. Parents rose up in opposition and local pols responded by putting the kibosh on Noble's expansion plans.

Big money talks, but doesn't always win.

CPS is "broke" but money keeps flowing to Chicago tech consultants

LEAP CEO Phyllis Lockett chats with Gov. Rauner, venture capitalist Howard Tullman, and French Ambassador Gerard Araud.

Chicago is having trouble meeting next month's teachers payroll but that doesn't mean there aren't big profits to be made and consulting contracts to be handed out to company's with CPS ties.

THE LATEST...The Gates Foundation just awarded $5 million more to Phyllis Lockett's tech consulting group, Leap Innovations. I know, $5 million is a small piece of change for the world's richest man. But don't worry about Leap. They are getting plenty more from CPS contracts and from the likes of The Chicago Public Education Fund, Northern Trust, and the Joyce Foundation.

Leap is another of those education tech start-ups bellying up to the CPS trough. This one is run by Lockett, the former President and CEO of New Schools for Chicago, the group running charter school expansion is the city. While in the employ of CPS, Lockett was mainly a pitch woman for ed-tech companies.

Even though Leap just got started a year ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is already crediting the company with Chicago's miraculous school turnaround.

“In 1987, then Secretary of Education Bill Bennett called Chicago’s public schools the worst in the nation,” said Rahm. “Today, I am proud to say we are leading the country in education innovation. Thanks in large part to LEAP Innovations.”

But the last we saw of Lockett, she was standing with a group of so-called  “Democrats and Independents for Rauner”.

Sitting on Leap's board as you might have guessed, some of Chicago's richest and most powerful of the LaSalle St. crowd including, Michael Alter, president of the Alter Group; Leo Melamed, chairman emeritus of CME Group; John Rowe, chairman emeritus of Exelon; and Timothy Schwertfeger, chairman emeritus of Nuveen Investments.

Former LEAP Board Chair Mark Furlong, retired CEO of BMO Harris Bank was just appointed by the mayor to sit on the school board. And so it goes.

A year ago, when LEAP was started, Melamed, whose CME Group runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, noted that it only took his organization 4 minutes to commit the $1 million to support LEAP.

Lockett claims Leap will "analyze education software and pair it with the needs of educators". Translation -- LEAP will be a conduit for tech companies competing for public school business.

According the Crain's:

 “The grant will go toward Leap advising other cities to replicate and scale our model and will allow us to serve more schools in the Chicago area.” The organization operates in 15 Chicago schools, and Locket hopes to see that grow to 100 schools in the next five years.

Note to all you grant writers: replicate and scale are the magic words to Bill Gates' ears. Oh, did I mention, 21st Century learning?

Chicago's version of 'choice'

Excelon CEO John Rowe, former COMED CEO Frank Clark, Senator Dick Durbin, and  Senate Pres. John J. Cullerton, celebrate the grand opening of Excelon Gymnasium on the campus of Rowe-Clark charter school. 

A CPS-promoted school fair featuring "some of Chicago's great public school options, including charter schools," advertised almost no traditional schools -- but still found space for dozens of charter schools with the district's lowest ranking. -- Gapers Block

To Rahm's crew at CPS. a "great" school is any school that bans the teachers union.

CPS announced Friday that  it plans to add four more privately-run charter schools to the nine non-union charters previously approved for the coming year, despite its plan to close more than 100 neighborhood, "underutilized" schools.

"It simply makes their argument, 'We have to close schools,' sound ridiculous," said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of Parents United for Responsible Education. "It would be one thing if charter schools were vast improvements, but what we know is they're not. Essentially (CPS) is cannibalizing the system to privatize it." -- Chicago Tribune

And why did they pick this corporate reformer to head Rahm's rump group that meets in secret to decide which schools will be closed? Frank Clark is the former chairman and CEO of ComEd who, along with John Rowe, CEO of ComEd’s parent Exelon Corp, operate a charter school named after them. Rowe is also the former chairman of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Isn't it obvious?

Exelon's John Rowe

John Rowe is not just CEO of Exelon, the nation's biggest generator of nuclear power, he also a major player in Chicago's  corporate-style school reform. He is the former chairman of the Commercial Club of Chicago.  Along with his wife, Jeanne, and son, William, he established the Rowe Family Charitable Trust. The Trust also co-founded the Rowe-Clark Math and Science Academy, a part of the Noble Street charter school chain, in Chicago’s West Humboldt Park neighborhood. The Rowes also serve as patrons of the Pope John Paul II parochial school on Chicago’s southwest side and the Rowe Elementary School. Rowe is also chairman of the Renaissance Schools Fund, a nonprofit organization formed to fund charter schools in the City of Chicago.

Rowe is currently trying to take control of Maryland's Constellation Energy and its subsidiary BG&E, an acquisition that would keep Exelon, best known here as the owner of ComEd, on top of a consolidating utility field, but probably cause massive layoffs within the newly consolidated company. The regional headquarters of our Midwest nuclear operation will likely remain in Illinois, as will the headquarters for ComEd.