Brown: Byrd-Bennett should save the apology, tell the truth about CPS corruption

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Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett apologized to students, parents and educators in a statement to the media as she exited federal court Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015. | Ashlee Rezin/For the Sun-Times

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Barbara Byrd-Bennett never wavered Tuesday during a plea hearing that lasted maybe 45 minutes, her voice firm and strong, her posture erect as she stood before U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang and answered all his questions, including the big one: How do you plead?

“Guilty,” the former Chicago Public Schools CEO said, no doubt calling on her experience as an educator to keep her poise at the front of the class, even as she was being publicly shamed.

It wasn’t until afterward, down in the lobby of the Dirksen Federal Building, that the woman they call B3 showed the slightest crack in her steady exterior.

She’d prepared a written apology, but chose to wing it in front of the cameras. Her voice caught midway, and she had to clear her throat to finish this last sentence:

“They deserved much more, much more than I gave them,” Byrd-Bennett said.

The “they” to which Byrd-Bennett was referring were the children of the Chicago Public Schools, their families and teachers.

OPINION

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Indeed, the children especially deserved so much more from Byrd-Bennett than to sabotage the very institution that it is their one best hope of success.

But she should have included all the “people of Chicago” in her apology, as she did in her prepared text, the damage so severe that it extends far beyond the school system.

Even the schools are crooked in Chicago.

That’s the message of the Byrd-Bennett indictment, and while it hardly comes as a surprise to those who live here, it’s devastating to realize that the corruption can so easily reach to the very top of the school system.

Byrd-Bennett: Top educator now high-profile felon

No sooner had Byrd-Bennett been indicted than I started getting emails from those arguing that her blatant theft proves there is no need to put additional money into Chicago’s schools, no reason to hit taxpayers for more.

It doesn’t prove that, but it sure doesn’t help those trying to make the case to properly fund the schools.

As she did in the courtroom Tuesday, Byrd-Bennett typically exudes a certain aura of competence.

This might come as news to you who have never been around her and now judge her in the light of the amazingly foolish email chains that provided proof of her guilt.

It’s an I-know-what-I’m-doing persona, which I remember noticing for the first time on the day Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced her three years ago as Jean-Claude Brizard’s replacement and much later on a private tour of a West Side school with her.

That self-satisfied attitude probably helped sucker Emanuel into selecting her for the position, his second stab and his second major blunder at picking a schools CEO, in case you’ve forgotten how we had to pay Brizard more than a year’s pay just to get lost.

Even as she was being selected, we now know, Byrd-Bennett was already making plans to use her new position to feather her own nest.

The big question is whether these were the only corrupt deals in which she had a hand.

That seems unlikely considering the degree of venality displayed in this particular instance, although crooked public officials can be funny that way, drawing the line on when and where it’s acceptable to steal in ways you might never expect.

Byrd-Bennett’s unusually rapid guilty plea, along with her promise of cooperation, certainly suggest she might have something more to offer federal prosecutors than saving taxpayers the expense of a trial and rolling over on the businessmen who are her co-defendants.

Other than the U.S. attorney’s usual pronouncement that “the investigation continues,” there really hasn’t been any indication yet that Byrd-Bennett has opened the door to other avenues of corruption in either Chicago Public Schools or the other school districts across the country where she worked.

Much more than an apology, Byrd-Bennett owes it to the city she betrayed so badly to divulge everything she knows about this corrupt educational system.

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