Report: Fraud Is Common At Chicago Public Schools

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Families that lie to get their children into Chicago's elite selective-enrollment schools seldom face serious consequences, leaving parents to assume there is "little to be lost by committing fraud to get into these highly competitive schools," the district's inspector general says in an annual report released Monday.

Inspector General Nicholas Schuler's office found numerous instances of suburban families using fake addresses to get their children into the city's best high schools. And families in the city were found to have provided false addresses to give their kids a leg up in an admissions process that takes into consideration a student's socioeconomic background.

While admissions fraud is nothing new in Chicago Public Schools, Schuler said not enough is being done to stop it. He recommended students with false admission records be kicked out of school and their families be required to reimburse CPS for tuition. Because of a lack of clear policies, students guilty of admissions fraud were able to quickly re-enroll at the same school or transfer to another attractive CPS school, the report says. District officials sometimes allow students with fraudulent admissions to stay in schools and graduate.

CPS lacks "a robust (school) Board policy that establishes lasting and meaningful penalties for selective enrollment fraud," Schuler writes. "The policy deficiencies mean that students whose families have lied about where they live to improperly land a seat in a selective-enrollment school may have little to fear in terms of disenrollment and monetary fines."

In addition to selective-enrollment fraud, Schuler's first report as inspector general runs through a long list of ethical and criminal wrongdoing over the year ending in June.

Government schools as a racketeering enterprise.