Academy for Science and Design

“Merrimack charter school wrongly denied nearly 70 students lottery access.” Nashua Telegraph (NH), 08/24/2011

Nearly 70 students were wrongly denied their right to enter an admissions lottery for the Academy for Science and Design charter school this year, the school acknowledged in a letter sent to parents this week.

The school chalked up the error to “inadvertent human error,” though e-mails provided by parents whose children were rejected show they were told if their children didn’t score 70 percent on a math placement exam, they were not eligible to attend the school. Using placement test scores to deny students would be a violation of the school’s charter and possibly state law...

[Thomas Frischknecht, chairman of the school’s board of trustees] said the issue came to the board’s attention last week when parent Janet Sukkar attended the meeting with her family and told the board her son had been denied admission because of his math placement test score. She provided correspondence to corroborate her claim, according to meeting minutes.

Sukkar declined comment Tuesday. She and other parents have provided e-mails they received from the school to The Telegraph, which clearly indicate their children were not admitted to the school because of their performance on the math placement test.

Mary Mattingly, director of admissions at the school, wrote in an April 5 e-mail that students who did not score 70 percent or above on the placement “will unfortunately be declined.”...

Mattingly is no longer the admissions director, Frischknecht said. There has been a reorganization at the school which was, in part, response to the admissions issue, but Frischknecht would not say whether Mattingly was part of that...

“This lack of communication and the confusion or frustration it may have caused is something we regret and wish to apologize for,” the school wrote in its letter, co-signed by Frischknecht and David Chauvette, director of the school. Chauvette did not return a phone call Tuesday...

Frischknecht said the placement exam was intended to be used as a guide for the school and the parents. If students don’t score high enough, parents were supposed to be able to choose to enter the lottery, knowing their child may not be able to handle the advanced curriculum, he said.

“The problem is that did not happen for those students,” Frischknecht said...

The issue raises questions about the state Department of Education’s ability to oversee the charter schools it is authorizing, the number of which is expected to climb significantly...

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Academic Leadership Charter School

“Bronx Charter School Disciplined Over Admissions Methods.” New York Times, 7/20/11

A South Bronx charter school has been put on probation for what city education officials called “serious violations” of state law mandating random admissions, including possibly testing or interviewing applicants before their enrollment.

The school, Academic Leadership Charter School, opened in 2009 and is the first New York City charter to be disciplined for violating the rules for random admissions.

The violations go to the crux of the debate over charters, which are publicly financed but independently operated. Random admissions is a key tenet in most states, but critics have long contended that the schools surreptitiously weed out students who are unlikely to do well on standardized tests or are more difficult to educate.

In a letter sent to Academic Leadership’s board on Tuesday, the executive director of the city’s charter school office, Recy Dunn, accused the school of twice violating state admissions laws, and described a school in chaos from “a pattern of failed operational oversight by school leadership.”

Besides the admissions problems, the city found that two former staff members may have stolen from the school. The Department of Labor is also investigating Academic Leadership’s hiring practices, and the school is being audited by the city for unpaid food bills.

At most city charter schools, students are selected at public meetings where applicants’ names are picked from a box. But city officials found that at Academic Leadership, which has about 200 children in kindergarten through second grade, hundreds of applicants were left out of this year’s drawing. The lottery was supervised not by an impartial observer, but by a member of the parent association, the letter said. And while students who applied after the lottery should have been added to the waiting list, scores of them were not, it said...

...Interviews with five former employees and seven parents who applied to the school, along with documents they provided, point to a system of inappropriately testing students or reviewing their previous school files, with those who did not meet the standards of the principal, Norma Figueroa-Hurwitz, being shut out...

Santasha Malone, who applied to several charter schools for her kindergarten-bound son in early 2010, said she was told in February that her son was on Academic Leadership’s waiting list — though the lottery was not until April — and that she and her son were invited for an interview.

“They were basically the only school who had an interview before the lottery,” Ms. Malone, 32, said. After a teacher took her son to a classroom and asked him to name different objects around the room, they never heard from the school again.

While parents were being told they were on a waiting list, the school paid more than $16,000 its first year for marketing campaigns to drum up applications. After some students left and others were expelled, Dr. Figueroa-Hurwitz raised concerns about losing financing for underenrollment in a report to the board...

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Young Scholars of Western Pennsylvania Charter School

RESIDENTS CONCERNED OVER CHARTER SCHOOL'S MAILINGS- SEVERAL READERS ARE REPORTING A POTENTIAL BIAS IN YOUNG SCHOLARS' APPLICATIONS PROCESS; April 13, 2011; Baldwin-Whitehall Patch (Pittsburg, PA) 

…Young Scholars is accepting admissions applications on its website from all eligible parents and is listing open house sessions. [See important note below]

However, several readers have sent the Baldwin-Whitehall Patch news tips claiming that mailings from Young Scholars to their homes over the past few weeks may show a bias toward potential applicants. Readers are claiming that they have received mailings inviting them to apply for their children to enroll at Young Scholars even though some of their neighbors with eligible children have not received them.

The concern is if Young Scholars is targeting specific students given that receiving an invitation to apply to the school through the mail is a more direct method of communication than a posted application on the school's website…

Young Scholars will open this coming fall in Baldwin Township with plans to enroll 20 students per grade level in kindergarten through fifth grade (120 total students)…

Christina Gruber, a Baldwin Borough resident with a daughter entering third grade in 2011-12, said that she has received application materials from Young Scholars through the mail but that some other residents on her street that also have eligible children have not…

Despite Gruber and Winowich's claim that some eligible Baldwin-Whitehall residents have not received Young Scholars' mailings, some readers from outside of Baldwin-Whitehall have informed the B-W Patch that they have…

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NOTE: This school is connected to Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania. See: Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School: Evidence of affiliation with the Gulen Movement 

Also:

• U.S. charter-school network with Turkish link draws federal attention, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 20, 2011
• WikiLeaks files detail U.S. unease over Turks and charter schools, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4, 2011

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Twin Cities Academy High School

CHARTERS ASK FOR TOO MUCH INFO; SOME CHARTER SCHOOLS SEEK MORE DATA THAN THEY SHOULD ON PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS. OFFICIALS SEE NO SIGN IT IS USED TO DENY ADMISSION; July 10, 2007; Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) 

A St. Paul mom's concern about the application process for her son to apply to a charter school may force many more Minnesota charters to change their student application processes.

The schools are asking for more information than state law allows, according to the Minnesota Department of Education. The information - such as whether students are receiving special education services or their ethnicity - could be used to deny admission.

A perusal of charter school websites by the Star Tribune quickly found a dozen schools asking for details about prospective students that go too far. Officials were quick to point out they have no evidence that schools used this information to deny admission.

Because of the complaint Linda Winsor filed after her son's failed efforts to enroll at Twin Cities Academy High School in St. Paul, the state will review charter school applications…

Winsor's son - who will be in the 11th grade this fall - did not gain entry to Twin Cities Academy High School after its school board decided in May to accept only ninth-grade applicants for 2007-08. But Winsor complained to the state, questioning why the application asked for information such as special education needs and copies of transcripts. The school later also asked students to submit a written essay.

None of that is allowed. And state officials told Twin Cities Academy on May 23 to change its application.

State law prohibits screening, allowing charters to limit enrollment only if they have limited space. Then, schools must institute a lottery.

"The founders of the law did not want screening," said Chas Anderson, deputy state education commissioner. Anderson said schools can collect that information - after they've accepted a student for enrollment.

"Obviously, if you enroll a student, you want to get their educational records from the prior school," she said. "That's important information to have, but it should never be part of the admissions process."…

The only information charter schools should ask for on their applications, Anderson said, is name, age and contact information…

But in a letter to Wynne, the state Education Department said its interpretation of state law prohibits asking for more than name, grade and contact information…

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KIPP Ujima Academy (Baltimore, MD)

KIPP CHARTER SCHOOLS' FUTURE IN BALTIMORE IS IN LIMBO / KIPP will leavedistrict June 30 if no agreement is reached over pay for teachers; March 2, 2011; Baltimore Sun (MD) 

…The school says it will close June 30 if it cannot reach a long-term deal with the Baltimore Teachers Union over pay or garner enough support for legislation in Annapolis that would allow teachers to set their own working conditions.

KIPP's model requires a longer-than-typical 9 1/2-hour school day, which has caused tensions with the union, in order to achieve its results: some of the highest test scores in the state and a 100 percent college-acceptance rate…

Unlike many of its counterparts around the nation, Baltimore's KIPP schools are bound by the teachers union contract regarding pay, which has earned the state criticism for having a restrictive charter school law. Therefore, KIPP has had to compensate teachers for the extended days — a demand that the school says is costing an additional $400,000 to $500,000 a year.

KIPP is also negotiating with the school system in hopes of getting a long-term lease for the building Ujima now occupies. It is willing to take on debt to fix up the building, which is in poor condition, but only if it can get a long-term agreement….

Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, said the union is willing to negotiate with KIPP, as it does with several charter schools in Baltimore that want to implement individual models that may conflict with the union's contract.

"What we have is the most innovative contract in the country — and we're expecting student achievement to rise in all of our schools, and I would hope KIPP is going to be a part of that," English said. "But, at the same token — I think it's unfair to expect teachers to work a 91/2-hour day and not pay them for that time."

The school put the district on notice last winter that it would leave Baltimore if a long-term agreement could not be reached. KIPP had threatened to pull out of the district last year when the school and the union were at odds over the union's contract. The two parties then agreed that KIPP teachers would receive 20.5 percent more in pay — making them among the highest-paid teachers in the district. That agreement ends June 30…

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KIPP UJIMA TO DISCONTINUE PLACEMENT TESTS: CHARTER'S PRACTICE COULD DETER FAMILIES, ALONSO SAYS; April 5, 2011; Baltimore Sun (MD) 

One of the most sought-after public charter schools in Baltimore has stopped administering an entrance placement exam after city schools CEO Andrés Alonso expressed concern that the practice — the only one of its kind in the city — could discourage some applicants.

The test at Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Ujima Academy in Northwest Baltimore, Alonso said, could deter families of lower-performing students from seeking enrollment.

Since 2003, a year after opening in Baltimore, the school has used a diagnostic exam to determine whether students seeking to enter sixth grade were performing at comparable reading and math levels as KIPP Ujima's fifth-grade classes. If potential sixth-graders did not pass the test, they could enroll, but would have to repeat fifth grade.

Alonso said he became aware of the test last year and asked the school to stop administering it after reading a description of it. Until it agreed to stop the practice, KIPP Ujima's website said the test was a way to determine whether a "student has the skills necessary to succeed" at the school…

KIPP Ujima agreed to stop administering the placement test that would have been given early this year, realizing that it could be misinterpreted as a way of attracting only high-performing students, said Jason Botel, executive director of KIPP Baltimore. The school primarily serves students who are below grade level and are from low-income neighborhoods…

The school used to advertise that sixth-grade students who passed the test would be accepted, while those who did not would be entered into a lottery to vie to repeat the fifth grade…

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Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology

VIOLATIONS OF FEDERAL LAW PUSH STATE TO MONITOR GWINNETT SCHOOLS CHARTER LOTTERY, DISCRIMINATION ALLEGED AT GWINNETT SCHOOL; February 15, 2011; Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA) 

For the second time in four years the state is investigating the enrollment process of the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology after complaints the elite charter school illegally screened applicants.

The complaints stem from the charter school's 2011-12 application, which appeared on the Gwinnett County public school's website for weeks as parents rushed to enroll. The application asked for math grades, test scores, gifted education and disability status, English language comprehension -- all so a student could gain entry into a public charter school that by law must have open enrollment.

The application also said the school would not provide services for those with disabilities or offer English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes.

“Public schools have to provide those services,” said Louis Erste, state charter school division director. “ That is why you can’t put that on your forms. You would be breaking the law if you used the information to exclude the students.”…

Erste said he has no evidence Gwinnett intended to screen students. But in a document obtained through open records, the AJC found associate state superintendent Garry McGiboney admonished GSMST in late January for its application: “Our initial review indicates your current application does not comply with state or federal law or ... your charter contract."…

Tony Roberts, CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, is not so certain. He visited the campus a few years ago when it was under its inaugural administration. Roberts said he was asked for advice on weeding out applicants who couldn't handle the rigor…

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