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...