ASPIRA, Inc. of Illinois

“ASPIRA charter school CEO fired.” Chicago Sun-Times (IL), 3/28/2012
The controversial president of ASPIRA charter schools was fired late Monday evening during a stormy board meeting that included a chorus of community protests about ASPIRA’s management...

[ASPIRA CEO Jose Rodriguez] is no stranger to controversy...More recently, under Rodriguez’s leadership, ASPIRA schools were investigated in 2008 for strip-searching high school girls and altering grades.

But in the end, according to sources, it was the test scores of ASPIRA students that led to Rodriguez’s dismissal. ASPIRA students have underperformed Chicago Public Schools averages for at least the last six years, according Illinois Report Card data...

...ASPIRA operates three high schools and one middle school.

Samantha Kipp, an ASPIRA teacher and council president of the Chicago Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, presented a litany of complaints to the board, including a lack of resources such as textbooks and computers and administrators showing disrespect to teachers in front of students...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

ITS A PERSONAL ISSUE BETWEEN HIM AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE ASPIRA BOARD

Anonymous said...

Sonia, is that you?

Anonymous said...

It does seem like it got personal, in the end. However, Rodriguez was a nightmare. He stacked the schools with lousy principals and VPs who were incompetent but would never question him. He put students way below his own agenda.

Anonymous said...

My child attended Mirta Ramirez Charter HS (1 yr only) when it was still in that factory bldg on Western and both Jose Rodriguez and Sonia Sanchez were terrible administrators. Now if they could get just get rid of her that would be a definite improvement. The school bldg was closed by the Fire Dept for code violations that they didn't want to fix in order to get space for "free" from CPS. School did move to Moos Elementary to share space even though the families at Moos didn't want Aspira to move in. I'm sure they're still there - it's free after all. It was sad to see good kids attend such a horrible school such as Mirta Ramirez.

Anonymous said...

Isn't there a conflict of interest when Aspria's director of governmental relationships is the former chief of staff of a state senator? A senator that channels money to Aspria?

Anonymous said...

How interesting that our State Senator has made voting decisions that are more pro-charter school and less supportive of unions. How interesting that our State Senator's friend and former chief of staff is now on the staff of Aspira. I guess this is how it rolls in Illinois. Who is looking out for the best interest of our children?

Anonymous said...

The Aspira Charter Schools Administrators at the network level fail to have students best interests at heart and worry more so about their own political agendas and pocketbooks. They have lower test scores because there is a high teacher and building level administrator turnover. Anyone who attempts to fight for the students finds themselves subject to attacks and termination. The funds going to the organization are those of the taxpayer; yet there is no accountability for the way which they are spent. The organization is plagued with corruption and problems.