Carefully folded inside a well-thumbed envelope and dated May 23, 2003, the handwritten note from the then head of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, gave her hope that she wouldn’t be raising her orphaned 9-year-old grandson Monte alone.
“I saw how strong you are,” Duncan wrote after meeting a proud and determined Garrett. “Your grandchildren are very, very lucky to have you in their lives. Please let me know if I can ever do anything to be helpful.”
A decade later, Garrett doesn’t want to sound bitter, but she wonders: “Is the letter worth the paper it’s written on?”
Though Duncan — now President Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education — helped set up a college scholarship fund for the 37 children who lost parents in the E2 nightclub stampede, CPS officials have yet to dole out a single dollar.
CPS says it’s been busy drawing up a protocol to determine who is eligible for a $3,000 grant, but Monte — now 19 and still waiting for his scholarship — was recently forced to drop out of his sophomore classes at South Carolina State University and return to Chicago because he could no longer afford tuition.
“They shouted loudly about how these kids were gonna have scholarship funds to go to college,” Garrett says of CPS’s response to the February 17, 2003 South Loop disaster that killed Monte’s mom and captured international headlines. “It’s been ten years! I’ve been calling them since May but they keep brushing me off.” ...
R&B superstar R. Kelly and Chicago Bulls guard Jalen Rose both made substantial donations, and a month after the tragedy, Duncan announced the creation of CPS’s own college scholarship fund.
“We could think of no better way of assisting these children than by offering them the opportunity to attend college,” Duncan said at the time, encouraging others “to give generously” to the fund.
Gee, another Obamaite who is just another fraudster and makes promises they cannot or will not honor.
Sounds like a perfect candidate for the Obama administration and a perfect Democrat.
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