Excel Leadership Academy, f.k.a. Life Skills Center of Palm Beach

“Charter school has day in court today to fight closure by school board.” The Palm Beach Post, 5/13/2013

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“West Palm Beach charter school appeals closure decision.” The Palm Beach Post (FL), 3/27/2013

A West Palm Beach charter school that the Palm Beach School District is trying to close has appealed, arguing the school district has no right to shut its doors because the district didn’t do enough to help the school...

Imagine School of North Port

“Imagine School fight ends; principal to leave.” Herald-Tribune (FL), 5/9/2013

NORTH PORT - The agreement came at 1 a.m. Thursday for the two sides fighting for Imagine School at North Port after nearly 16 hours of talks...

It was an ending to the charter's contentious legal fight, which began in February when the North Port school tried to fire its parent company and become independent...

In February, Matthews and the local officials complained about paying hefty management fees with public tax dollars every year to the nonprofit company. The board voted to break off from Imagine Schools — one of the largest charter school companies in the nation — and run its own school, a move that the corporation viewed as a coup détat.

Imagine Academy of Careers Middle School

“Former St. Louis charter school instructor charged with raping student.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/5/2012

ST. LOUIS • Prosecutors have charged a former St. Louis charter school instructor with raping a student last month.

Ronald C. Wilkerson, 41, of the 1200 block of North Euclid Avenue, was charged Aug. 31 with two counts of forcible rape, one count of forcible sodomy, two counts of second-degree statutory rape, one count of statutory sodomy and two counts of witness tampering.

Authorities said Wilkerson, a former instructor at one of the Imagine charter schools, twice raped and sodomized a 14-year-old girl last month and threatened to hurt or kill her family if she told anyone about it...

Imagine Schools in St. Louis, Missouri (six-school shutdown)

“Shuttering of Imagine charter schools in St. Louis is daunting.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), 4/20/2012     

 As they move to close down a network of St. Louis charter schools over the next several weeks, state education officials face a task as monumental and complicated as dismantling an entire school district...

In fact, the decision this week by Missouri's Board of Education to shutter six Imagine charter schools in St. Louis will likely result in the largest charter school closure of its kind nationwide, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools...

Missouri Baptist University-authorized charter schools

“Missouri to Review Charter School Sponsor; Missouri Baptist University has Been urged to address the academic and management issues at the schools.” Kansas City infoZine (MO); 3/21/2012

The State Board of Education approved issuing a notice to Missouri Baptist University (MBU) that its authorization to sponsor charter schools will be reviewed in April...

MBU currently sponsors four charter schools in the St. Louis area with a total enrollment of nearly 4,200 students.

Academic performance at four of the six school buildings under MBU sponsorship ranks in the bottom five percent of all public schools in Missouri. Deficit spending and high administrative costs have raised concerns about the management and oversight of the schools...

MBU started sponsoring charter schools in the summer of 2006. Charters currently sponsored by the university are: Imagine Academy of Careers (grades K-12), Imagine Academy of Academic Success (grades K-8), Imagine Academy of Environmental Science and Math (grades K-8), and Carondelet Leadership Academy (grades K-6). Last December, the sponsor announced the Imagine Academy of Academic Success will close both its campuses at the end of the school year.

Imagine Charter School at Weston

“Piano Teacher Guilty of Molesting Students; David Layman taught at Imagine Charter Schoolin Weston.” NBC Miami (FL), 1/25/2011

A Broward piano teacher has been sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to molesting four of his young students.

David Layman, 38, took a plea deal that allowed him to avoid life in prison. He was initially charged with seven counts of molestation.

The piano teacher was arrested almost three years ago after several of his former students accused the man of rubbing their thighs and touching their privates during lessons.

Layman met most of his victims at the Imagine Charter School in Weston where he taught music. He also taught private lessons in the students' home, where much of the improper touching took place.

Imagine School in the Valle

“Battle Rages Between Charter School and Management Company.” KLAS-TV 8 News (NV) 6/30/11

LAS VEGAS -- With budget battles brewing over schools and how much should be spent on them, many parents are turning to charter schools as another option. A charter school is a school that is publicly-funded by the state, but run privately by its own governing board.

Often, those schools will get help from an Education Management Organization to handle things like book-keeping and setting the curriculum. But what happens when the school decides it doesn't need the management anymore?

The Imagine School in the Valle opened in 2008, using just a few rooms at a YMCA. They had help from an EMO called Imagine that took care of hiring and accounting, and even found the school a building in Centennial Hills.

Three years later, the school's enrollment is in the hundreds and they are looking to get rid of Imagine.

"Imagine has tried to usurp our authority on many occasions, but this is the board's charter school," said school treasurer Ann Barnes...

"Imagine Schools took the financial risk, the financial up-front risk to secure that building long-term. The board is not at risk for that long term lease," said Imagine Schools co-founder Eileen Bakke...

At this point, there is no agreement between the two sides. Imagine is looking for a new school board and new kids to pay the rent on the building. The board has two years to re-up with Imagine or get out -- an option Anne Barnes says is fine with her.

"I feel relieved. I don't have to worry about the blood battles. We've had some real tough negotiations with Imagine and I'm relieved we don't have to go through that in the future," she said.

The state Board of Education says the Valle board is completely within its rights to operate the school without the management company, but they really do need a building. The possibility exists if they can't find one in two years, the school may have to dissolve, and neither side wants that.

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“Disputed charter school can’t be barred.” Las Vegas Sun (NV) 5/1/08

Nevada Education Department officials do not want an out-of-state company opening a second charter school in the Las Vegas Valley this fall, but they can’t prevent it...

At issue is Imagine School in the Valle...

In the past few months, state education officials have become increasingly concerned about Imagine Schools’ management of the North Las Vegas campus, citing a lack of qualified teachers, poor student performance and shoddy bookkeeping.

Charter schools receive the same per-pupil state funding as traditional public campuses, and officials say there have been enough problems at 100 Academy to convince them that spending taxpayer money on another Imagine school is a bad idea.

But in October 2006, when 100 Academy was just a month old, the state Education Board approved sponsorship of Imagine School in the Valle. So far, no one’s found an escape hatch that would allow the state to cancel the sponsorship. Education officials say the situation highlights yet another problem with the way the charter school approval process works.

“There are so many holes in the system to be patched,” said State Board of Education member Cindy Reid, chairwoman of the charter schools subcommittee. “Right now, it seems we are locked into sponsorship, despite new information that’s come to us after the fact.”...

...Imagine Schools has applications pending to open two additional campuses in the Las Vegas Valley.

The Nevada Education Department is recommending rejection of both applications, citing “serious deficiencies,” including Imagine’s shaky track record both locally and in other states. The charter schools subcommittee meets today, with a full board vote set for Saturday.

In October, the Clark County School Board considered revoking 100 Academy’s charter, but backed off when Imagine Schools forgave $285,000 in debt the school owed for its management. School Board members said they weren’t pleased that 100 Academy was spending 25 percent of its per-pupil funding — $1.2 million — on rent. The landlord is School House Finance LLC, an affiliate of Imagine Schools. Board members also wanted 100 Academy’s principal to report to the governing body, rather than be an Imagine Schools employee...

Imagine College Preparatory High School

STUDENT IS AWARDED $145,000 IN ALLEGED ASSAULT AT ST. LOUIS CHARTER SCHOOL- SETTLEMENT INVOLVES ALLEGATIONS AGAINST OFF-DUTY CITY COP. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 29 May 2010 

A student who was allegedly assaulted by an off-duty St. Louis police officer at a charter school was awarded $145,000 as part of the terms of a settlement disclosed Friday.

The settlement reached earlier this week between Imagine Academy of Careers, at 3740 Marine Avenue, and Barbara Perry stems from an incident on Feb. 26, 2009. The plaintiffs alleged that Perry's son, J.N., who was a minor and not named in the suit, was assaulted at Imagine College Preparatory High School by an off-duty police officer, Eugene Page, who was in a relationship with his teacher, Genesa Smith…

The settlement states that the payment absolves Imagine Schools and employees of Imagine of any wrongdoing but leaves the door open to future litigation against Eugene Page and the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners…

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SUIT CLAIMS STUDENT, 15, WAS ASSAULTED AT IMAGINE CHARTER SCHOOL. STLtoday.com (St. Louis, MO) 21 Aug 2009 

ST. LOUIS -- A federal lawsuit filed Friday alleges that a 15-year-old student at Imagine College Preparatory High School was beaten by staff and a St. Louis police officer.

Named in the suit are Genesa Smith, a teacher; Eugene Page, a St. Louis police officer who the suit said is Smith’s boyfriend; Rodney Williams, a security guard; Tamara Thomas, the charter school’s principal at the time; and the school itself.

The suit, filed by the boy and his mother, Barbara Perry, alleges Page lifted the boy by his throat and slammed him repeatedly against a wall on Feb. 26. The suit states that Page told the boy he had been accused of threatening a teacher, and that the other three knew what was happening but did nothing. The boy, now 16, suffered injuries that caused blood in his urine, as well as blunt force trauma, according to the suit…

Imagine Prep High School

TEACHER AT IMAGINE PREP CHARTER IN ARIZONA FIRED FOR BUMPER STICKERS; February 2011; BlogforArizona.com

I've written a lot about Imagine charter schools in Arizona and across the country. Their CEO is an amazingly rich guy, also very conservative, also deeply Christian, who keeps a tight rein on the schools. Imagine Schools has been the subject of all kinds of negative press across the country (and almost no attention in Arizona) for slighting education, bankrupting individual schools by charging huge management fees and exorbitant rent on buildings, and on and on. The one thing you rarely hear about Imagine Schools is that they are superior educationally.

A Channel 12 Phoenix news story covers the firing of Tarah Ausburn, a high school English teacher at Imagine Prep high school in the Phoenix area (I think in Surprise) with nine years experience who was let go for the bumper stickers on her car…

Marietta Charter School

CHARTER SCHOOL FUTURE BLEAK; February 11, 2011; Marietta Daily Journal (GA)

ATLANTA - Thursday's non-action by the Georgia Board of Education likely means Marietta Charter School will close when its charter expires June 30.

Marietta Charter School officials had hoped the state board would overturn a Dec. 16 decision by the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, which denied the school's request for a new independent charter that would keep its doors open. But the state board on Thursday elected not to take any action…

Last summer, Superintendent Dr. Emily Lembeck recommended that the Marietta school board deny renewing the school's charter due to wide-ranging problems with enrollment, finances, student achievement and curriculum. The school, which opened in August 2006, is managed by Imagine Schools of Arlington, Va.

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MARIETTA CHARTER SCHOOL TO GO PRIVATE; April 14, 2011; Marietta Daily Journal (GA) 

MARIETTA — In an unusual move, leaders of Marietta Charter School have announced that the school will stay open next year as a tuition free private school, though under a different name.

The school, which has about 200 students in grades kindergarten through fifth, will be known as Wright Prep Academy as of July 1, principal Christy Tureta said.

The school is managed by Imagine Schools, Inc., a for-profit company based in Arlington, Va., and has operated under a charter from Marietta City Schools since 2006. Imagine Schools Inc. will pay the full, $1.7 million operating cost for the 2011-12 school year, Tureta said.

Last summer, the Marietta school board refused to renew the charter for five more years, based on Su-perintendent Dr. Emily Lembeck’s findings that the school had wide-ranging problems with enrollment, finances, student achievement and curriculum.

Appeals to the state board of education and the state charter schools commission were unsuccessful, and the school was to close as of June 30. But the doors will stay open, Tureta said…

Going private gives the school time to seek a new charter from the Georgia Charter Schools Commission for the 2012-13 school year, Tureta said…

Imagine Charter School at Firestone

SVVSD RENEWS IMAGINE’S CHARTER: SCHOOL BOARD STILL EXAMINING CHARTER SCHOOL POLICIES; January 13, 2011; Longmont Times-Call (CO) 

The St. Vrain Valley School District Board of Education on Wednesday renewed one charter school’s charter, then continued to grapple with how to handle applications for new charter schools.

Although the vote to renew Imagine Charter School at Firestone’s charter was unanimous, school board members raised concerns about its budget.

Only 32 percent of Imagine at Firestone’s revenue is spent on instruction, board vice president Rick Hammans said. The school’s 2010 audit showed $1.3 million of its $4.3 million revenue going to instruction.

The audit shows that Imagine at Firestone is paying its educational management provider — Imagine, Inc. — about 23.6 percent of its revenue, or $1 million, for the lease on its building and other equipment, and another 14.6 percent, or $625,000, for services.

Hammans urged Imagine at Firestone’s board of directors to make a “significant effort” to spend more money in the classrooms…

Renaissance Academy (Kansas City, MO)

IMAGINE SCHOOLS TO PAY $570,000 TO SETTLE EEOC PREGNANCY DISCRIMINATION LAWSUIT; March 18, 2010; U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission press release 

Imagine Schools, Inc., a nationwide operator of charter schools, will pay $570,000 to settle a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri (EEOC, et al. v. Imagine Schools, Inc., No. 4:08-cv-00731-SOW), charged that Imagine Schools discriminated when it chose not to retain two pregnant employees after closing its charter middle school in Kansas City, Mo., and opening a private middle and high school, Renaissance Academy, at the same location. The lawsuit claimed that the company did not rehire LuShonda Smith, an office manager, and Charity Brooks, an administrative assistant, to work at the new school because they were pregnant…

In addition to requiring $570,000 in back pay, emotional distress damages, and attorneys’ fees, the two-year consent decree, which must be approved by the court, requires the nationwide charter school company to disseminate a policy on pregnancy discrimination, provide management training on such discrimination, report internal discrimination complaints to the EEOC, and prominently post a notice regarding employee rights under federal anti-discrimination laws enforced by the agency…

According to the company web site, Imagine Schools, based in Arlington, Va., operates more than 70 charter schools in 12 states, including two schools in Kansas City, Mo., and five schools in St. Louis.

The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Further information about the Commission is available on its web site at www.eeoc.gov...

Imagine MASTer Academy

WELLS ST. IMAGINE PLACED ON PROBATION; BSU CITES ISSUES FROM JG REPORT, February 2, 2010, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN)

Ball State University has placed Imagine MASTer Academy on probation after a nearly three-month investigation into violations of state law and a lack of local control by the charter school’s board, officials announced Monday…

Ball State’s investigation was prompted by a series of stories in November by The Journal Gazette that detailed a lack of local control over the MASTer Academy and Imagine Schools on Broadway. The newspaper’s investigation found that the MASTer Academy board approved a series of measures outside public meetings that allowed the school to own and open two charter schools in Texas.

Indiana’s Public Access Counselor later determined the board violated state law by not voting in a public meeting…

•Board members were not aware or were not accurate in what the board’s role should be or how it should interact with Imagine Schools Inc., the for-profit company based in Alexandria, Va., that owns the schools.

•Several board members had not read the charter, bylaws or contract with Imagine Schools and didn’t know the length of their terms as board members.

•Several board members said they weren’t involved in the decision to share the board’s non-profit status with the Texas boards. Gabbert scolded Willis saying it was “unacceptable” for him to make the decision by himself without board members’ input and away from the public view.

•Board members were confused by the structure of the board meetings for the three schools; weren’t clear who the boards’ attorney is; and could not say whether the board had officers, with one member saying she “thought she was the secretary of the board but was not certain,” Gabbert wrote…

Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School

A $2 BILLION DECISION: THE CASE FOR REFORMING NEW YORK’S CHARTER SCHOOL LAW, April 2010, New York State United Teachers

The Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School’s founders have close financial ties to a non-profit, Urban Youth Alliance, whose board shares members with the charter school’s board. For several years, the Bronx Academy of Promise was managed by a for-profit management company, Imagine Schools, Inc., which charged the charter school $358,388 in management fees, about 12 percent of its total expenses. Imagine also loaned the school $1.44 million to begin its operations – at 12 percent interest. This financial arrangement was “on the table” – known to and approved by – the Board of Regents when it granted the school its charter. Records show that a lawsuit was filed over the school’s decision to terminate its relationship with Imagine Schools. The school has had difficulty recovering important financial records from its management company.

Imagine School at St. Petersburg

“Pinellas to close struggling charter school.” Tampa Bay Online / TampaTribune (FL), 2/12/2013

LARGO - After more than an hour of pleas from students, parents and teachers, the Pinellas County school board voted today to close Imagine School at St. Petersburg's charter elementary school, which a room full of students called "the best school on earth."

In fact, the school, which is at 1950 First Ave. N., is the lowest-performing elementary school in the county, based on Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores and student learning gains...

Board members voted in December to close the school by the end of the academic year but postponed their decision to meet with school officials and review new data that school principal Carolyn Wilson said shows students "are kicking butt."

But school officials argued that students simply aren't doing well enough to keep the school open...

Imagine's middle school will remain open, but at least some of its 300 or so elementary students will have to attend their zoned schools. That's because the school district's school-choice window has closed already...

Closing the school could jeopardize a lawsuit agreement from 2010, said Imagine's marketing and enrollment coordinator, Terrance Tomlin. The school district has spent 49 years settling a lawsuit that integrated Pinellas County Schools, and part of that settlement included a goal of creating 500 seats in charter schools serving predominantly black communities.

"If you close our school, you will be at a deficit of charter schools fostering an African-American community with no prospects of providing one in the near future," Tomlin told board members.

School officials plan to appeal the closing before the state Division of Administrative Hearings April 10. The state will provide the school board with a recommendation within 60 days...

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AS ST. PETERSBURG SCHOOL FOUNDERS, DISTRICTS QUESTION IMAGINE SCHOOLS' STATUS, May 9, 2010, St. Petersburg Times (FL) 

An F-rated St. Petersburg charter school stands on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and losing enrollment. And most of those debts — around $1 million in public tax dollars — are owed to the same private company that founded it.

Pinellas County district officials say they're battling with Virginia-based Imagine Schools, the nation's largest commercial charter operator, over the future of the Central Avenue school…

Pinellas officials are now joining districts across Florida — including Hillsborough and Pasco — in raising doubts about whether the company is running its schools as nonprofits, as required by state law…

"They owe a tremendous amount of money to their management company, and it looks to us hopeless that they'll ever pay it," said Pinellas School Board attorney James Robinson. "And they don't have enough students to generate the state funding they need."

Some parents said they were unaware of financial or governance problems at the school…

Parent Scott Benjamin saw and heard more in his role as chairman of the parent-teacher organization. He pulled his fourth-grade son out of the school last spring, after several experienced teachers were fired.

"The teachers told me about the budget cuts and the stress they were under to work after school, for what they described as no additional payments," he said…

"A board must show that it is not a front for a management company," the agency said in published guidelines.

But the Pinellas charter's board is chaired by Justin Matthews, who works for the company as a school principal in North Port.

"Who's he going to support, Imagine or the school?" Clark said…

Faced with challenges from several districts, Imagine sought a ruling from the state on its nonprofit status. On Jan. 5, the Department of Education told the company it would develop new rules on the issue and invite public comment…

That creates the potential for abuse, said Henry Levin, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University Teachers College.

"The problem is it doesn't prevent self-dealing," he [said. "As long as you allow them to set any salaries they want, to put anyone on the payroll that they want, to pay for services where there is some association with them or a relative, there's just no protection in this."…

But Gary Miron, an education professor at Western Michigan University, said more safeguards are needed. Around 80 percent of charter schools in Michigan are run by for-profit companies.

"We have these management companies that should be supporting schools as a vendor, and they're running them like private franchises," he said.

New Covenant Charter School

NOTE: These battles consume hours and hours of court time and legal costs, all at the public's expense.
JUDGE DENIES SCHOOL'S REQUEST; NEW COVENANT LOSES EFFORT TO STOP CLOSING, BUT SEEKS ANOTHER COURT DATE, July 1, 2010, Times Union (Albany, NY)

ALBANY -- A state judge has denied an injunction to keep New Covenant Charter School from closing on July 31.
Teachers and parents hoped to keep the Arbor Hill charter school open until at least Sept. 24 by requesting the injunction from Supreme Court Justice Joseph Teresi on Wednesday. The group filed suit against the State University of New York and the Board of Regents, which oversee charter schools.
After arguments in the judge's chambers, Teresi denied the request, said attorney Peter Henner, who represented the parents and teachers group...

The attorney said his group was considering "all possible options."

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SUIT FIGHTS CHARTER SCHOOL'S CLOSING; SUPPORTERS ARE SEEKING AN INJUNCTION TO KEEP NEW COVENANT OPEN, June 29, 2010, Times Union (Albany, NY)

ALBANY -- Teachers and parents from New Covenant Charter School filed a lawsuit Monday to try to prevent the school's closing.
The parties will be in state Supreme Court on Wednesday to discuss whether an injunction should be granted renewing the school's charter for another five years. The suit was filed against the board of trustees of the state University of New York and the Board of Regents, both of whom oversee charter schools.
"They held New Covenant to an impossible standard," said Peter Henner, the attorney who filed the lawsuit. "New Covenant has done better than the Albany school district. They've had a tremendous turnaround in the last three years."
The lawsuit is being brought by the New Covenant Charter School Education Faculty Association and its president, Vanessa Volino, a teacher, and four parents: Gloria Nelligan, Bobbi Hyler, Kelly Brady and Maria Sifontes...

Henner said the SUNY board of trustees did not consider the improvement the school had made.
"They are doing as well as could be expected," he said. "They didn't give us credit for the really neat things New Covenant has done."
Sixty-seven percent of students taking the English Language Arts exam passed the test, he said. While that was a higher percentage than in Albany's public schools, he said, SUNY's board did not consider it good enough to allow the school to have its charter renewed. The trustees had set a goal of 75 percent of students passing the exam...

For two years in a row, SUNY's Charter Schools Institute had recommended the school be closed because it had not met academic benchmarks and because of its financial troubles. The Institute had noted that New Covenant's expenses outstripped revenues by $1,700 per student...

Bondholders of the school building stand to lose about $16 million when New Covenant is shuttered if the property remains vacant. Henner declined to confirm or deny whether bondholders are funding the lawsuit.

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SUNY TRUSTEES VOTE TO CLOSE NEW COVENANT CHARTER SCHOOL (Albany), March 23, 2010, SUNY News

New York City - The State University of New York Board of Trustees voted today to close the New Covenant Charter School located in Albany, New York at the end of the current school year.
Today’s decision marks the conclusion of a lengthy review process that included months of analysis by SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute, a community meeting at New Covenant, and two public sessions of the SUNY Trustees’ Charter Schools Committee. New Covenant will continue to operate until the last scheduled day of school, on or about June 21, 2010.
New Covenant Charter School was the second charter school to open in New York State in the fall of 1999. The school has had a difficult history, including an initial charter renewal in 2004 wherein the school was ordered to eliminate instruction in grades 7 and 8 due to low performance; a vote by the school’s own board of trustees to close the school due to fiscal instability in 2007; and two consecutive non-renewal recommendations by SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute. The school currently serves just over 600 students, the large majority of whom are residents of the City School District of Albany...

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NEW COVENANT CHARTER SCHOOL LIKELY CLOSURE - "SYMBOLIC" INDEED, February 24, 2010, The Chalkboard (New York Charter School Association)

The Albany Times Union today reported (here) on yesterday's vote by the SUNY Charter Schools Committee to close New Covenant Charter School at school year's end. This is likely to be reaffirmed and made final by the full SUNY Board next month…
The persistent problems for New Covenant have been lessons learned for SUNY as an authorizer and for charter school operators throughout Albany and statewide. Though SUNY couldn't bring itself for years to hold New Covenant properly accountable for what can only be described as a blind spot, it has held other schools accountable. Back in 1999, the mistakes made in the approval and opening of New Covenant--that is, it opened too quickly and too large--were subequently [sic] corrected. After 2000, SUNY never again allowed for either mistake to be made with charter school proposals. In addition, for years, Edison Schools, Inc. managed New Covenant and several other charters in New York. Today, Edison manages only one school, Harriet Tubman in the Bronx, and has no prospects for more charters in New York any time soon.

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CHARTER SCHOOL'S SUCCESS MAY NOT BE ENOUGH; NEW COVENANT HASN'T MET ACADEMIC TERMS, THOUGH TEST SCORES ARE MUCH BETTER, December 18, 2009, Times Union

ALBANY -- Years of academic improvement may not be enough to save the New Covenant Charter School.
Despite rapidly rising test scores, the school has not met all the academic terms of its last-ditch reprieve, according to a preliminary report from the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute. That could result in the institute recommending to the SUNY Board of Trustees that the school be closed when they vote next month.
School officials this week pointed to a marked improvement in student scores on the state's standardized English and math exams since Victory Schools Inc. took over the troubled institution in 2006…
When the institute recommended the school's closure last year, it cited a poor financial outlook. The school also carries a tremendous debt load of about $16 million on its building and equipment and has a pending lawsuit from previous operator, Edison Schools, seeking almost $3 million in unpaid management fees…
New Covenant was one of the state's first three publicly funded, privately run charter schools. It consistently has failed to meet required benchmarks for state standardized tests and has struggled to keep students…

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CHARTER SCHOOL'S PROBLEMS YIELD CAUTIONARY TALE, August 18, 2000, New York Times

When Gov. George E. Pataki visited the newly opened New Covenant Charter School in Albany last September, he lavished it with praise, proclaiming it a model of the kind of educational change he intended when he pushed a charter school bill through the State Legislature nine months earlier.
In the months after Mr. Pataki's visit, however, New Covenant descended into apparent chaos. Its fourth-graders scored among the lowest in the state on standardized English tests; the for-profit company overseeing the school's academic program resigned; two principals came and went, as did one-fourth of the school's 500 students.
Aaron Dare, founder of the school and president of the local Urban League chapter, whom Mr. Pataki hailed during his visit as ''a visionary,'' quit the New Covenant board after two state inquiries accused him and the school of multiple violations of state education law, including misappropriation of tax dollars.
Now, with three weeks to go before the scheduled start of the new school year, state regulators have threatened to revoke the school's charter, and it is uncertain when, or even if, New Covenant will open again...
That such a spectacular failure could occur practically in Mr. Pataki's backyard, at a school in which he took a close interest, speaks of the difficulties -- in oversight, administration and academic achievement -- in starting a charter school.
Some critics contend, however, that New Covenant's failures were not simply bad luck but rather a direct result of an unnecessary rush last year by Mr. Pataki, a vocal champion of charter schools, and his political appointees to open new schools without time for adequate planning and training. New Covenant received its initial approval a mere three months before it opened...

Last week, the board asked state authorities to allow Edison Schools in Manhattan, the country's largest for-profit operator of public schools, to replace Advantage Schools, an education company based in Boston, as manager of New Covenant's academic programs in the coming year...

Steven F. Wilson, the chief executive of Advantage Schools, said inadequate facilities were among the primary problems with the school. ''We knew our program couldn't successfully operate'' in the portable classrooms, Mr. Wilson said. In its application, the school's sponsors, including Mr. Dare, said that a new, permanent site would be ready in mid-February of this year.
By then, however, the Urban League was having financial difficulties that were beginning to weigh on New Covenant's operations. The school leased its temporary space from a for-profit subsidiary of the Urban League known as the Commons, and last year, the Commons was also in financial trouble. It had made a $2 million loan to a financial company for which it was constructing an office building, but in December, that company collapsed and was unable to pay back the loan. At the same time, an Albany construction company that had performed work on the trailers being used by the school was demanding payment.
According to an inquiry conducted for the SUNY trustees by Richard J. Bartlett, a lawyer in Glens Falls, N.Y., $89,000 in state education money that was supposed to be paid to Advantage was instead forwarded to the Albany construction company by Mr. Dare in December, on behalf of the Commons. Mr. Bartlett said the act violated Mr. Dare's financial responsibilities to the school.
Mr. Bartlett wrote in his report that while Mr. Dare's actions did not ''rise to the level of criminal conduct,'' Mr. Dare should resign from the school's board. Mr. Dare said yesterday that his departure was not related to Mr. Bartlett's report...
Edison has pledged more than $3 million toward the construction of a $10 million building for the school...

Imagine Schools, Inc.

Imagine Schools is the nation's largest for-profit charter school management company operating 71 public charter schools, and enrolling more than 36,000 students nationwide. Imagine's Web site lists its schools operating in the following 14 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, DC.

The company was founded in 2004 by its current president Dennis Bakke and his wife, Eileen. Bakke is a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement. His wife was in a prayer group (which was also attended by Hillary Clinton) which was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"). "The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes." *

Imagine Schools, Inc. arrived in California in 2010: SECOND IMPERIAL VALLEY CHARTER SCHOOL SLATED TO OPEN THIS FALL, April 18, 2010, Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, CA)

2010

PUBLIC GOOD VS. PRIVATE PROFIT: IMAGINE SCHOOLS, INC., May, 12, 2010, Policy Matters Ohio: PRESS RELEASE AND FULL REPORT

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AS ST. PETERSBURG SCHOOL FOUNDERS, DISTRICTS QUESTION IMAGINE SCHOOLS' STATUS, May 9, 2010, St. Petersburg Times (FL)

An F-rated St. Petersburg charter school stands on the verge of collapse, mired in debt and losing enrollment. And most of those debts — around $1 million in public tax dollars — are owed to the same private company that founded it.

Pinellas County district officials say they're battling with Virginia-based Imagine Schools, the nation's largest commercial charter operator, over the future of the Central Avenue school.

The school was $963,572 in deficit last spring, according to auditors. It's paying $881,179 to lease a half-empty building from Imagine's real estate affiliate, plus thousands more for equipment, administration and fees, on income of just $2 million a year.

"It's a death spiral," said district charter supervisor Dot Clark.

Pinellas officials are now joining districts across Florida — including Hillsborough and Pasco — in raising doubts about whether the company is running its schools as nonprofits, as required by state law…

This year, enrollment has slipped from 376 to 320 in grades K-5 — a far cry from the 514 students Imagine was planning and budgeting for. And fewer students means less state money to pay contractual expenses.

Imagine and district officials have failed to agree on a plan to turn the situation around, and have asked the state to mediate. The district says the school needs 590 students next fall to remain viable; the company says 518 would be sufficient.

"They owe a tremendous amount of money to their management company, and it looks to us hopeless that they'll ever pay it," said Pinellas School Board attorney James Robinson. "And they don't have enough students to generate the state funding they need."

Parent Scott Benjamin saw and heard more in his role as chairman of the parent-teacher organization. He pulled his fourth-grade son out of the school last spring, after several experienced teachers were fired.

"The teachers told me about the budget cuts and the stress they were under to work after school, for what they described as no additional payments," he said…

According to the Internal Revenue Service, charters must be run by independent boards and negotiate contracts that benefit the school — not a management company or vendor.

"A board must show that it is not a front for a management company," the agency said in published guidelines.

But the Pinellas charter's board is chaired by Justin Matthews, who works for the company as a school principal in North Port…

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FOR SCHOOL COMPANY, ISSUES OF MONEY AND CONTROL, April 23, 2010, New York Times

…The arrangements, they say, allow Imagine to use public money with little oversight. “Under either charter law or traditional nonprofit law, there really is no way an entity should end up on both sides of business transactions,” said Marc Dean Millot, publisher of the report K-12 Leads and a former president of the National Charter Schools Alliance, a trade association, now defunct, for the charter school movement.

“Imagine works to dominate the board of the charter holder, and then it does a deal with the board it dominates — and that cannot be an arm’s length transaction,” he said.

Such concerns have thwarted efforts by Imagine to open a school in Florida, threaten to stall its push into Texas, and have ended its business with a school in Georgia and another in New York, as well as other states.

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WELLS ST. IMAGINE PLACED ON PROBATION: BSU CITES ISSUES FROM JG REPORT, February 2, 2010, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN)

Ball State University has placed Imagine MASTer Academy on probation after a nearly three-month investigation into violations of state law and a lack of local control by the charter school’s board, officials announced Monday.

The Imagine MASTer Academy board must take a number of corrective action steps this year, otherwise the school’s charter will be revoked, said John Jacobson, dean of Ball State’s Teachers College, which oversees the university’s charter school office…

2009

CHARTER SCHOOL COMPANY WITH PLANS FOR MCKINNEY IS CRITICIZED, July 4, 2009, The Dallas Morning News

A national charter school company that plans to open new schools in Texas, including one in McKinney, has run afoul of an education official in Nevada and two of its former principals, and they all pose the same question.

Does Imagine Schools Inc. force its charter schools to spend too much money on complex real estate deals and not enough money on teachers and academic programs?

Virginia-based Imagine Schools has emerged as one of the largest for-profit charter school management companies, running several dozen schools in 12 states. It plans to open Imagine International Academy of North Texas in McKinney next year.

Charter schools house their students in Texas in a variety of ways, according to the former Charter Resource Center of Texas, from renting space in a shopping center to doing complex property transactions such as Imagine's.

Typically, after an Imagine-managed charter school gets approval to open, Schoolhouse Finance, Imagine's real estate arm, purchases a campus and charges the school rent. After the school begins to pay that rent, Schoolhouse sells the campus to a real estate investment trust, which then leases it back to Schoolhouse.

The charter school eventually sends rent payments – in one case upward of 40 percent of the school's entire publicly funded budget – to two for-profit companies.

"The arrangement is very lucrative because it's a direct conduit to public funds. The school [property] is paid off with public funds," said Gary Horton, who oversees charter school funding for the Nevada Department of Education…

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The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN) printed a lengthy four-part series on Imagine Schools in late 2009.

EDUCATION INC. – PART I: PRIVATE COMPANY SKIRTS PUBLIC BOARDS IN RUNNING TAX-FUNDED CHARTER SCHOOLS: FOR-PROFIT MAKES DECISIONS FOR TAX-FUNDED IMAGINE, November 1, 2009

The local school board was about to spend almost $100,000 of taxpayer money on a busing service for students.

But there was no discussion of bids to ensure taxpayers got the best deal. There were no questions about cost, insurance or alternatives to this contract awarded to a southern Indiana trucking company.

Most importantly, there was no vote.

Despite spending millions of tax dollars a year, the board of this public school votes on almost nothing.

Not the $87,510 a year to operate school buses. Not $114,871 to run a lunch program. Not which teachers are hired or whether to hold summer school, or even whether to borrow more than $1 million for operations.

All those decisions and many more were made by a private company from Virginia, though Internal Revenue Service regulations say tax-exempt organizations such as this one must have independent, local control…

EDUCATION INC. -- PART II: IT'S 'OUR SCHOOL, NOT THEIRS': COMPANY'S BOSS GIVES LITTLE AUTHORITY TO CHARTER BOARDS, November 2, 2009

The president of Imagine Schools Inc. sent his employees a memo last fall outlining how he thinks his schools should operate.

In Dennis Bakke's opinion, it shouldn't be local people making decisions about how local tax dollars should be spent; it should be the Imagine executives employed by the for-profit educational management company based in Arlington, Va.

"In none of these cases did the board have a major role in 'starting' the school. They didn't write the charter. They didn't finance the start up of the school or the building. They didn't find the principal or any of the teachers and staff. They didn't design the curriculum. In some cases, they did help recruit students," Bakke wrote. "I do not mind them being grateful to us for starting the school (our school, not theirs), but the gratitude and the humility that goes with it, needs to extend to the operation of the school."

In fact, one Imagine executive said local school boards should be nothing but figureheads.

Paul Faber, an Imagine Schools Inc. regional executive director, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last week boards are needed only to hold the charter.

"Ultimately, do you really need a board to run a school?" he asked the newspaper. "No. You really don't."

The problem with local boards, Bakke opined in the memo, is that members sometimes think they should have the right to make decisions…

EDUCATION INC. – PART III: LOCAL BOARD SECRETLY STARTS TWO SCHOOL CORPORATIONS IN TEXAS, November 3, 2009

On Feb. 8, 2008, a curious thing happened.

According to Texas Secretary of State records, Imagine Schools of Central Texas Non-Profit LLC of Georgetown, Texas, was established. That in itself was no surprise, because Imagine charter schools have been popping up all over the country.

What was curious was who owns the corporation and its twin, Imagine Schools of North Texas Non-Profit LLC of McKinney, Texas. The sole member of both limited-liability companies is Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter Schools Inc.

And the Texas entities get their tax-exempt status because each is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Fort Wayne company.

Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter Schools Inc. is the non-profit corporation that runs Imagine MASTer Academy, a charter school at 2000 N. Wells St. in Fort Wayne. Imagine MASTer Academy is a public school whose $2.9 million cost to operate last year was paid for with state taxes.

So why does a Fort Wayne charter school own two charter school corporations in Texas? It’s a question most board members here could not or would not answer, even though in January 2008 they secretly signed documents creating and governing the schools there and, as recently as August, made drastic changes to one of their entities in Texas.

All of these actions were done in secret: According to board meeting minutes provided by the Imagine-Fort Wayne Charter School board, Fort Wayne members never publicly discussed or voted to create the Texas schools, amend the agreements that govern the relationship between the schools or appoint board members to their Southern franchise…

Asked about the Texas entities, most board members refused to speak about it. Some referred questions to Imagine Schools Inc., the for-profit management company based in Arlington, Va., hired by the charter schools to handle day-to-day operations. Others didn’t seem to know what they had signed.

"It sounds sneaky and sleazy," said Trent Stamp, who served as the founding president of non-profit watchdog Charity Navigator for seven years.

"Any time something doesn’t pass the basic smell test for a layperson, there’s a problem there."…
EDUCATION, INC. – COMPANY’S COMPLIANCE TO TAX POLICY IN QUESTION, November 1, 2009
The biggest question facing the Internal Revenue Service when it decides whether to grant tax-exempt status to a hopeful non-profit is who benefits from the non-profit’s operations, according to agency guidelines.

If benefits go to anyone or anything besides the organization’s charitable purpose, then it does not qualify as tax-exempt, the IRS says.

That becomes critical for charter schools in Indiana, because state law requires them to be tax-exempt. Lose your tax-exempt status, lose your school.

But drawing the line between public and private benefit gets especially tricky for charter schools, because most are run by educational management organizations – called EMOs in the industry – some of which are for-profit companies.

Officials at Imagine Schools Inc., in Arlington, Va., often claim they are non-profit, but Imagine Schools Inc. is, in fact, a for-profit company formed after Dennis Bakke and his wife bought another for-profit EMO, Chancellor Beacon Academies. Imagine is the EMO for two charter schools operating in Fort Wayne as well as for a third proposed to open next year.

In 2005, Bakke incorporated a separate company, Imagine Schools Non-Profit Inc. in Virginia, but that company has not yet been granted tax-exempt status by the IRS. Even if it had been granted, the charter schools’ contracts in Fort Wayne are with Imagine Schools Inc., the for-profit version of the company, not Imagine Schools Non-Profit.

Imagine MASTer Academy received $2.9 million in tax revenue for the 2007-2008 school year; it paid Imagine Schools Inc. $343,757 in management fees.

Bakke did not return several calls seeking comment…

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FEDS GAVE $11 MILLION TO IMAGINE SCHOOLS, November 4, 2009, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN)

Imagine charter schools in seven states and the District of Columbia have received more than $11 million from the federal stimulus program this year.

Including $971,950 sent to Imagine schools in Fort Wayne and $493,689 given to Imagine schools in Indianapolis, facilities throughout the country received a share of the stimulus money that was funneled through state education departments.

Distributed on a formula basis, schools received money to help prevent teacher layoffs, to pay for catch-up programs for low-income children and to underwrite the cost of education for children with special needs.

Imagine Schools is an Arlington, Va.-based company that is the subject of a Journal Gazette series that examined the company’s operating procedures. The series found that the parent company appears to make decisions about local charter school policies – including curriculum and hiring – instead of the boards of the charter schools.

In all, Imagine schools in Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Missouri, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia received $11.3 million, according to reporting filed on the government’s Web site that tracks stimulus money…

2008

BOARD LOOKS AT HANDLING OF $50,000: CHARTER SCHOOL APPLICANT'S USE OF FEDERAL MONEY UNDER SCRUTINY, December 7, 2008, Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)

A charter school applicant came under scrutiny Saturday as Nevada education officials questioned whether the school's administrators mishandled more than $50,000 in federal funds…

…The two applicants' relationship with its intended contractor, Imagine Schools of Arlington, Va., was a source of controversy at Saturday's meeting.

Arensdorf cited a letter from Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, who asked that the two applications not be approved unless they obtained a different contractor or until Imagine resolved financial and management issues surrounding the 100 Academy of Excellence, a charter school at 2341 Comstock Drive.

That charter school is operating under a financial deficit partly because of the rent it pays to Imagine Schools, whose subsidiary built and owns its $10 million building, state education officials have said.

Education officials also suspect that Imagine fired Hugh Wallace, the former principal of 100 Academy, because he was raising too many questions about the school's finances, according to a Department of Education e-mail that the Review-Journal obtained last month…

2006

CHARTER ED APPLICANT HAS BAGGAGE: DEBT, LOW SCORES HIGH TURNOVER CITED, March 7, 2006, San Diego Union-Tribune

One of the nation's largest education management companies, Imagine Schools Inc., which has asked the Oceanside Unified School District to approve its charter, inherited a host of academic and economic problems from a company it acquired, Chancellor Beacon Academies.

In recent years, numerous schools linked with one or both companies have been in debt, had dismal test scores, high staff and student turnover and inadequate teacher training…

…an annual survey of education management organizations by Arizona State University's Education Policy Studies Laboratory found that ties between 24 schools nationwide connected with Chancellor Beacon, and in many cases its predecessor, were severed between 2002 and 2005. That includes five schools in Massachusetts, four of which closed, and 11 in Michigan.

Since the study, more problems have arisen…

Central Missouri State University refused last year to renew its sponsorship of Imagine's Southwest Charter High School. The school had a deficit of more than $1 million, said Rick Sluder, dean of education and human services. Other problems included low test scores and high staff turnover. There were four school administrators in five years, he said…

In Florida, 12 Imagine charter schools had a combined debt of more than $8 million, according to the state's Auditor General Report released last September.

River's Edge Charter Academy, for example, finished the school year with a $2.3 million debt, said Vicki Muse, director of the Office for School Choice for Brevard Public Schools in Florida. The debt was from fees owed to the management company, Muse said. Imagine has forgiven that debt, she said, but the school has mounted more than $332,000 in additional debt this school year. Low test scores at River's Edge were also a concern, she said…

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STRUGGLING TO MAKE THE GRADE: COMPANY THAT WANTS TO OPEN CHARTER SCHOOL ON YWCA CAMPUS HAS HISTORY OF PROBLEMS, May 12, 2006, The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, IN)

A company that wants to open a charter school on the YWCA campus on Wells Street has a history of poor academic performance and financial problems in other states.

Ball State University, which grants approval for new charter schools, will decide by September whether Imagine Schools of Arlington, Va., can open the school as soon as fall 2007.

Last month, local philanthropist and businessman Don Willis agreed to buy the campus and plans to sell it to Imagine, one of the nation's largest education-management companies.

Since 2002, at least 35 schools have cut ties with Imagine or Chancellor Beacon Academies, which Imagine acquired in June 2004, because of problems ranging from high teacher and student turnover to low test scores, among other things….

Imagine operates 54 schools in 12 states outside Indiana, bringing in about $100 million a year. Dennis Bakke and his wife, Eileen, founded the company in 2004 after they bought out Chancellor Beacon, a Florida-based educational management company…

2005

TRUSTEES END CHARTER SCHOOL'S RUN; SUNY BOARD'S DECISION MEANS MORE THAN 500 PUPILS MUST FIND NEW SCHOOL, March 2, 2005, The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

Syracuse's first charter school has lost its authority to operate and will have to close at the end of this school year.

The State University of New York board of trustees voted Tuesday not to renew the charter of the Central New York Charter School for Math and Science, said Jeffrey Perez, a spokesman from the SUNY Charter Institute.

The institute, which oversees charter schools for SUNY, recommended the charter not be renewed because of the school's poor academic performance. The school is in its fifth year of operation and has about 536 pupils in grades kindergarten through six…

…Founders created the school to provide city pupils with an education rich in math and science and a better option than the traditional city schools. But scores have been low since the beginning.

…The school's demise will leave hundreds of families looking for a new school and about 55 employees looking for new jobs…

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CHARTER SCHOOL FIRM LOSES WORK ACROSS NATION, August 28, 2005, The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY)

The defunct Central New York Charter School for Math and Science is just one of more than two dozen schools across the country that broke ties with Imagine Schools Inc. and its predecessor.

Imagine lost the contracts over the last three years because of poor test scores and other problems that either forced the charter schools to close, or led school boards to decide against keeping Imagine as its management company…

In addition to poor academic performance, regulators who closed or criticized Imagine schools over the last few years cited high turnover rates among school officials, shaky financial management and a lack of involvement with the schools' academic programs. School boards that chose not to renew Imagine's contract frequently complained that the firm did not provide all the services outlined in its agreements…

The firm is clearly losing ground in New York state, where, in less than a year, it has dropped from managing three schools to one: the two-year-old Community Charter School in Buffalo.

This year, the state closed Imagine's Central New York Charter School for Math and Science, located in Syracuse, for poor academic performance.

Last December, Imagine lost its contract with the South Buffalo Charter School. South Buffalo's board decided not to renew its agreement with Imagine because it found the company was no longer providing the school with anything it couldn't do more efficiently itself, according to the board president…

Imagine was created last year through the purchase of the financially troubled Chancellor-Beacon Academies…

Recent failed partnerships involving Imagine or Chancellor-Beacon Academies include:

In Washington, D.C., the district's oldest charter school fired Chancellor-Beacon Academies in 2003 because the company hired a convicted felon to serve as the school's principal, according to reports published in The Washington Times. Edward Dixon had served five months in federal prison for bank fraud and was still on probation three years later when the firm hired him, the news reports said.

In Philadelphia, the city's school superintendent canceled all of Chancellor-Beacon's contracts in the city - a $15 million blow to the firm - saying it had failed to make substantial educational improvements in its five Philadelphia schools, according to articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer…

In Michigan, 13 schools have discontinued their association with the company or have closed since 2002, according to the annual surveys. That leaves the firm with five schools in that state.

In Massachusetts, all of Imagine's six schools have terminated contracts with the company, the survey shows. The most recent, at the multi-lingual Lowell Community Charter School, was canceled by the board just this June.

And in Missouri, where all charter schools must be sponsored by a university, two universities pulled their support from Imagine schools this year.

The University of Missouri-St. Louis ended its relationship with Imagine's Thurgood Marshall Academy this spring, according to Bob Samples, communications director for the university...

A former president of the school board was recently indicted for stealing $21,000 from the inner-city school by using a school debit card at a casino, Samples said.

"There were very bad test scores, constant turnover of teachers and constant turnover of principals," he said. "We dealt, in effect, with three different management teams over a five-year period."…

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DESPITE DEBT, SCHOOL FIRM AIMS TO OPEN MORE CHARTERS, October 17, 2005, Palm Beach Post (FL)

With its 12 Florida schools already combining for more than $8.3 million in debt, one of the largest charter school companies in the country is looking to open at least nine more in the state this year, including one each in Palm Beach and Martin counties.

"There are times when you need to push for development, and now is one of those times," said Rod Sasse, director of development for Imagine Schools Inc. "Some of our schools that have been with us for a while are going out on their own now. And we just have to continue our development stream."

In Florida, only two charter schools managed by Imagine Schools have gone "out on their own" in the past three years, according to state and local records.

The Central Florida town of Oakland took over Oakland Avenue Charter on Oct. 1 after the school received a D from the state this year. The North Tampa Alternative Charter was turned over to the school district in 2003 after several years of financial troubles.

Nationally, however, two dozen Imagine-managed schools have either shut down or cut ties with the company, according to an annual Arizona State University report. Just one other charter school company has lost more during that time…

Imagine officials said most of their debt was in place before their company took over the schools. Imagine bought the Miami-based Chancellor-Beacon in June 2004 and now oversees schools in nine states with about 20,000 students, including 6,500 in Florida.

But many of Imagine's regional directors in Florida remain from Chancellor-Beacon, and recent audits show debts have increased since Imagine took control, according to school district records…

…Just 27 percent of Imagine's schools received an A or B, while 66 percent of public schools statewide earned one of the top two grades.

In Martin, where Imagine officials want to build a new elementary, 94 percent of the schools received an A or B last year.

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*HILLARY'S PRAYER: HILLARY CLINTON'S RELIGION AND POLITICS, Sep. 1, 2007, Mother Jones

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.