“State board of education votes to revoke Abramson's charter.” The Times-Picayune, 8/3/2011
The state board of education voted to revoke its contract with Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans on Wednesday, a step that could mean new management for the school and a potential legal battle with the nonprofit group that has run the campus until now.
The Pelican Educational Foundation, which founded the charter school in 2007, lost its right to operate the school by a vote of six to one at the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, or BESE...
...BESE decided to vote with the recommendation of acting State Superintendent Ollie Tyler, who told the board that early findings of a state investigation launched last month showed "a threat to the safety, health and welfare of students at Abramson."
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The exhibits from the preliminary investigation are @ http://www.louisianaschools.net/lde/uploads/18613.pdf
Sample excerpt from Exhibit 5, pg. 45 of pdf
False College Admittances:
"Near the end of the year many students who had not previously been accepted into any college began announcing they had been accepted into North American College. Surprisingly, students who were failing their English and Math classes and who would not graduate from Abramson on time were still being accepted to North American College. The principal used these acceptances as proof that Abramson was successful. The school that accepted these seniors who did not graduate from high school, North American College, is where Mr. Dokmen will be working this fall."
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"Records show glaring faults at school with ties to Turkish charter network.” Times-Picayune (LA) 7/15/2011
Inci Akpinar, the vice president of a company called Atlas Texas Construction & Trading, sat down with an official from the Louisiana Department of Education a little more than a year ago and made him an offer.
..."I have twenty-five thousand dollars to fix this problem: twenty thousand for you and five for me."
At the time, Dunbar was investigating numerous complaints against Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in eastern New Orleans...
Dunbar -- having declined to take money from Akpinar -- recommended more than a year ago that the state board of education yank Abramson's charter...
But after questioning by the The Times-Picayune, acting State Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler late Friday wrote to the state board asking it to prevent the school from opening in the fall, citing problems discovered during the original investigation and a new information about an incident between two young students that was possibly sexual in nature...
That an executive from Atlas Texas, a Houston-based contractor, would speak on the school's behalf points to the somewhat opaque connections that link Abramson with other schools and businesses founded by Turkish expatriates. Atlas has won numerous contracts in the past from a Texas-based school operator called the Cosmos Foundation...
Similar allegations have cropped up in other states where the Cosmos Foundation operates. The group runs a charter network called the Harmony Schools in Texas, where they've encountered unfounded accusations that they somehow promote Islamic extremism, largely because of an interest by some of the group's leaders in the movement begun by a Turkish religious scholar named Fethullah Gulen.
Both Cosmos and Pelican have disavowed any official religious links, though Abramson teachers on a school-sponsored trip to Turkey received pamphlets on the Gulen movement...
In an email dated Feb. 2, 2010, and signed by [four teachers] to head of the state's charter office: "Though we are fully aware of the significant amount of autonomy given to charter schools, we are now concerned that this autonomy is being abused to the point that students are being forced to engage in unethical acts."
They also reported a "general feeling of fear" among the school's staff because of what appeared to be retaliation against teachers, parents and students who had spoken up about the school's practices in the past...
But the state investigation appeared to back up much of what the teachers had written in their note...
...several students confirmed they had done little or none of the work that went into their science projects...
...[students] described practice on items that were very close to the items on the test."...
The state audit also turned up a significant lack of resources for special-needs students...
There were also complaints from teachers and students about the difficulty of communicating with some of the foreign staff...
Still, Dunbar, the state's academic advisor for charter schools, described a series of bizarre encounters as he and others carried out the audit that suggest a network of associations at Abramson extending beyond Louisiana...
Dunbar concluded in the same memo that the state board of education should revoke school's the charter...
Ultimately, the state decided to renew Abramson's charter for one year, contingent on the school carrying out a detailed corrective action plan...
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“Abramson Charter in eastern New Orleans shut down amid TP investigation into startlingmisconduct.” Times-Picayune (LA) 7/15/2011
The state's sudden shutdown of Abramson Science and Technology Charter School over revelations of a potential bribery attempt and other incidents came in part because of inquiries made by The Times-Picayune over the past few weeks.
Penny Dastugue, president of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, wrote to the head of the nonprofit that runs Abramson on Friday evening to say the board will close the school until the state can complete an investigation. The move came just a few hours after acting State Superintendent Ollie Tyler contacted board members to recommend that they shutter the school in eastern New Orleans while the state looks into the allegations...
Both incidents have come to light as a result of interviews and public information requests made by newspaper.
Several board members expressed alarm on Friday that information about the state's audit last year did not come before BESE ahead of a vote the board took last summer to renew Abramson's charter. The state education department recommended that BESE give the school a one-year renewal with a "corrective action plan" to address deficiencies in special education services. But the board had not seen [a] memo about the offer of money. And they hadn't seen records that provide accounts of classrooms going unstaffed for weeks at a time and potential cheating in science fair competitions...
[BESE member Louella Givens] and Linda Johnson, a BESE member from Plaquemine, also traveled to Turkey this spring at the invitation of the Pelican Foundation before the full findings of the state audit came to light.
Tevfik Eski, Pelican's CEO, denied inviting BESE members on the trip. But a copy of the invitation obtained by The Times-Picayune shows that it was signed by Eski...
Johnson said that she paid for her own flight but that some of her hotel expenses were picked up by the Texas Turkish American Chamber of Commerce...
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
- Details about active and attempted Gulen charter schools in Louisiana.
- News story about Harmony Public Schools, AKA Harmony Science Academy schools / CosmosFoundation.
- Information about Gulen charter schools’ H1B visa applications.
5 comments:
Finally some light is being shed on the injustices preformed by this instituition. This is just the beginning. The state turned a blind eye to what has and still is going on, even at Kenilworth Science and Technology. The officials at the school control with the staff with fear. The state department refuses to acknowledge what is going on within the charter system as a whole. How can we move Louisiana forward with critical issues such as these being avoided.
I agree...it is about time the fear that is being used to run these schools is brought to light...if they do not like you bringing out the truth, they get rid of you! There is and was a lot of under the table practices taking place at Abramson. In addition, the poor facilities that were not kept up with made it worse. For instance, children were not allowed to have toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms...teachers had to provide it. When it was questioned, school officials claimed they would clog the toilets if toilet paper was left in the restrooms. Many trailers had broken doors that a student or adult could get cut on, and these doors went unrepaired. In one particular meeting with the principal and teachers, Dokmen stated that we needed to do whatever it took to make the kids pass the state tests, even if we had to give extra time and "help" along the way. Turkish people who were supposed to be teaching did not even carry teaching licenses. Let alone, they were paid as teachers. Furthermore, Dokmen was claiming he was a teacher to get his student loans forgiven, yet he really was a principal...oh the truths are starting to come to light...if only the state knew more. I think all the teachers who have worked there need to be interviewed under this investigation.
If you have been fired there should be some reason for that. Don't blame others.
Hey Anonymous;
That is ALWAYS your excuse for failure isn't it? It's the teacher you fired when you replaced them with one of your flakey brethren. These American teachers that you fire and file EEOC cases against you always win because you settle out of court.
None of you are man enough to assume responsibility or be accountable for your actions. This is why you will NOT WIN in America and your schools are all going to crumble in the USA.
Face it, WE DON'T WANT YOU. Gulen is a 5th grade educated loser and most of your teachers (if they do show up for class) can barely speak English well enough and are only interested in teaching Turkish language and dancing the Kolbasti.
You are done!!!
Get your exit visas ready, or start picking out your orange jumpsuits.
ithink dats so syupid for the bese bored to do dats one of the reasons y so many students leaving u cant learn there u cant be functioned the students make your ignorant side come out hmmm ima student dats y im leaving i feel so disrespected at dis school dats y when i leave ill never say i went here its the worst school in the world who wants to go here there were more accomplishments with pelican y u gave us rsd i think dat is the most retarded thing for someone to do to a school and im not even in highschool talking to you like dis i wanna learn and i dont care what no one say i dont feel like im learning at all craoe this stinky old school im gone
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