Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Want free cash? "Tutor" some children with Hollywood Hendon

All one hears about these days is that the State of Illinois doesn't have a pot to piss in money-wise. My future retirement is regularly plundered to make ends meet, various programs go unfunded and the state struggles to meet its obligations to honest providers of services. It turns out though, according to a lengthy expose in the Tribune, that money appears to fall off trees if you want to tutor needy children after school, particularly if you are a buddy of Rickey "Hollywood" (as he likes to be known) Hendon. A noble idea perhaps, if it is actually carried out. Tens of thousands of dollars have been handed out by the State Board of Education without apparently any attempt to establish accountability. Qualifications to receive money: some association with Hollywood. It is not even necessary to be able to spell or construct a grammatical sentence, let alone have a real plan.

Needless to say, the aforementioned Hendon has no shame about stealing taxpayers' money from across the state and handing it out to his cronies. It's Chicago: if not him then someone else.

It's all very different from the days I obtained a Technology Challenge Grant from the state and I had to account for every penny that they gave me. It did not seem that important, however, to have obtained any concrete results from the money, provided it had been spent according to what the budget had ordained.

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