To: Adam Collins
From: David Kidwell
Date: Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017 at 4:55 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
Adam, here are my questions for the Mayor. I am happy to discuss them at his convenience. My
deadline is tomorrow.
1) Were you aware in 2015 when you praised Cheryl Hyman and Kennedy-King College for
winning the Aspen Institute’s Rising Star Award that the metrics used to win the award
were based largely on students from the French Pastry School who had not been counted
before?
2) When did you become aware of it and under what circumstances?
3) Will you order your staff to refund of the $100,000 prize, given the fact that the primary
basis for the award - the tripling of the graduation rates - was based on a change in the
way statistics were counted to include the French Pastry School?
4) Did you at any time prior to Kennedy-King winning the award have any contact with
anyone affiliated, or representing the interests of, the Aspen Institute in which this award
or the $1 million excellence award was discussed or contemplated? This includes board
members of the Aspen Institute. Please detail any such discussions or communications.
5) You have routinely cited improved graduation rates and completion statistics at City
Colleges of Chicago under your tenure to demonstrate the success of reforms you ordered.
What is your reaction to the fact that many of those gains were due to loosened
curriculum requirements, retroactively awarded and automatically conferred diplomas, and
as demonstrated by the French Pastry School inclusion changes in the way statistics are
counted?

To: David Kidwell
From: Collins, Adam
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 7:27 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
Will you take written responses from a spokesperson?

To: Adam Collins
From: David Kidwell
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 7:30 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
I will take a response attributable to the mayor.

To: David Kidwell
From: Collins, Adam
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 7:34 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
So you will not accept or include in your story a response attributable to me or anyone on our
press team?

To: Adam Collins
From: David Kidwell
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 7:41 p.m.

 Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
It depends on what it says, Adam. We are not going to let the mayor take cover behind his press
office. If you write something without speaking to the mayor, then you do not have factual
answers. If you speak to the mayor to get factual answers, then you have no reason not to
attribute those factual answers to the actual elected official.

To: David Kidwell
From: Collins, Adam
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 7:53 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
That’s not really an answer. Yes or no will you accept answers from a spokesperson on his behalf?

To: Adam Collins
From: David Kidwell
Date: Dec 7, 2017 at 8:01 p.m.
Re: FRENCH PASTRY SCHOOL
That is my answer. These are questions that you cannot answer adequately without speaking to
the mayor. If you try to answer them without speaking to the mayor, we will weigh the value of a
response from someone who is not elected, who has no accountability to voters, and who has no
actual knowledge of the facts with which only the mayor is equipped.

To: David Kidwell
From: Collins, Adam
7:47 PM Friday, Dec. 8, 2017
Re: Responses to your questions
Evening Dave,
All of this is attributable to me as a spokesperson for the mayor.
Your questions don’t make sense and your inferences in them are preposterous.
Your logic would have people believe that in 2010 the previous administration made an
administrative change at a small school within one of the city college campuses so that a
different mayor could crow about it five years later during his re-election campaign. That’s not
only false, it’s absurd.
Even if your assumptions were correct, which they’re not, it still doesn’t account for the broad
academic improvements at City Colleges.
The elitism underpinning your recent coverage of City Colleges is a shocking example of those
who look down their nose at the thousands of people who graduated from City Colleges having
earned a degree and earned a ticket to the middle class.