A compilation of news articles about charter schools which have been charged with, or are highly suspected of, tampering with admissions, grades, attendance and testing; misuse of funds and embezzlement; engaging in nepotism and conflicts of interest; engaging in complicated and shady real estate deals; and/or have been engaging in other questionable, unethical, borderline-legal, or illegal activities. This is also a record of charter school instability and other unsavory tidbits.
A building
inspector was unaware a charter elementary was opening in Davie until a few days before school started.
He closed the school for a month because operators had renovated the building
without getting required permits.
Code
violations dealt a severe blow to a three-year-old charter school in North Lauderdale. The county
ordered it closed for the entire year a few days before 300 students were to
return this fall.
A 43-year-old Mesa charter school teacher was arrested Tuesday night on accusations he locked one of his students inside his classroom twice and molested her, police said.
Wade Gordon Oborn, a teacher at the Gold Campus of Life School College Preparatory, 2929 E. McKellips Road, is being held in Maricopa County’s Madison Street Jail in Phoenix without bail on suspicion of two counts of child molestation.
A 12-year-old girl told detectives the incidents happened between August 2002 and earlier this month while her classmates were at recess, Mesa police Sgt. Mike Goulet said.
Court records indicate that when Oborn was questioned he admitted his involvement and alluded that pornography had an impact on his behavior.
Oborn began working for Life School about two years ago after the standard fingerprinting and background checks were completed, said Reed McCormick, assistant director of Life School, which has 1,000 students among three campuses in Mesa and Gilbert...
Cincinnati's newest charter school will be managed by a national for-profit company that has faced lawsuits for allowing religious instruction and denying services to special education students.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based National Heritage Academies will manage Alliance Academy in Evanston, which is renting the former St. Mark's Catholic School and will open in late August…
In 1998, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of parents who alleged that NHA was violating the separation of church and state at its Vanguard Charter Academy in Grand Rapids. The suit was dismissed in 2000 after the school put policies in place to prevent the types of actions alleged…
DETROIT -- Acting on behalf of five parents, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today challenged a Kent County charter school for violating the First Amendment's protections of separation of church and state.
Vanguard Charter School Academy sanctioned prayer in the school, allowed the distribution of religious materials during class, allowed a nearby church to use its facilities rent-free to conduct worship, conducted a mandatory staff retreat with distinct religious overtones and taught creationism as an accepted scientific theory, according to the amended complaint filed today in United States District Court.
Vanguard Charter School Academy teaches children from kindergarten through seventh grade. Like all other charter schools in Michigan, Vanguard is a public school and must follow Michigan's code for public school academies. It is managed by National Heritage Academy, one of the largest management companies in Michigan.
The ACLU is suing on behalf of five parents of students at the school…
A group of angry parents and school administrators gathered today to protest the state's closing of their charter school here, and vowed to fight to keep the school open.
The Paterson Charter School for Urban Leadership had been on probation since February. Last week, the state education commissioner, William L. Librera, revoked the school's charter, citing problems with faulty criminal-background checks for employees and administrative accounting difficulties.
''The information that the school has submitted has not met the desired level of detail and/or it has not addressed all of the information and action items requested to ensure compliance and the operation's soundness,'' Mr. Librera wrote…
This is the second time in two years that a charter school in Paterson has closed, according to state officials. The first, Alexander Hamilton Charter School, was open for one year before financial and administrative problems caused state officials to shut it down.
The Paterson Charter School for Urban Leadership opened in 2000, and state officials said it had been operating with a large deficit. An investigation into the school by the Department of Education found that more than 75 percent of the school's employees had not undergone criminal background checks, and two employees with disqualifying convictions were subsequently removed…
The San Francisco school board revoked the charter of Urban Pioneer Experiential Academy on Tuesday night, shutting down the alternative high school that ran a wilderness program in which two students died.
Cincinnati's newest charter school will be managed by a national for-profit company that has faced lawsuits for allowing religious instruction and denying services to special education students.
Grand Rapids, Mich.-based National Heritage Academies will manage Alliance Academy in Evanston, which is renting the former St. Mark's Catholic School and will open in late August…
Ruppert said religion is not part of the curriculum. But National Heritage Academies are often criticized for teaching creationism as science theories…
Despite court challenges and concerns from groups such as People for the American Way, NHA continues to grow. The Michigan Family Forum, a religious group, in 1998 called NHA a choice for parents who can't afford private Christian schools.
In 1998, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit on behalf of parents who alleged that NHA was violating the separation of church and state at its Vanguard Charter Academy in Grand Rapids. The suit was dismissed in 2000 after the school put policies in place to prevent the types of actions alleged.
The Ridge Park NHA charter in Grand Rapids faced two lawsuits -- one from a parent and one from a teacher -- involving lack of services for special education students. The case was settled.
NHA is one of the first charter-school businesses to declare a profit…
Three relatives pleaded guilty Monday to swindling at least $5 million from state and federal governments by inflating the enrollment and the number of free lunches served at the defunct Prepared Table Charter School.
The guilty pleas, in a case that tarnished the reputation of charter schools and inspired tougher laws governing their operation, come three weeks after the death of the accused mastermind, the Rev. Harold Wilcox.
Wilcox and three family members were accused of using the bank accounts of the Greater Progressive Baptist Church, where he was pastor, to launder fraud profits.
If the case had gone to trial next week as scheduled, the government would have presented proof that the defendants inflated the enrollment figures at the Prepared Table Charter School's three Houston-area campuses and used a sham catering company to overbill a federal lunch program for needy students, Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Annise said.
Annise said the scheme also included a contract to rent church property that overcharged the school by more than $250,000.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas accepted guilty pleas from Wilcox's wife, Louvicy Wilcox, 52; her daughter, Rochall Frank, 32; and Wilcox's brother, the Rev. Anthony Mosley, 40, also a pastor at the church.
In return for the guilty pleas, prosecutors agreed to drop many of the 52 counts in the indictment.
Wilcox pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count. Frank pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count and a money-laundering count, and Mosely pleaded guilty to two conspiracy counts and four money-laundering counts.
Atlas scheduled sentencing for July 1, when they will face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each conspiracy count and 20 years and a $500,000 fine, or twice the value of the property, on each money-laundering count.
All three remain free on $50,000 bail.
Louvicy Wilcox and her daughter pleaded guilty to involvement in the false enrollment reports to the Texas Education Agency, which made payments to the school based on the number of students.
Wilcox founded the first nonprofit Prepared Table charter school in 1999 and opened two additional campuses in the fall of 2000.
During its three years of operation, the school received about $2.56 million in federal funds and about $16.76 million from the state, according to the indictment.
A TEA audit found that the school was inflating enrollment, failed to produce enrollment figures and failed to account for at least $1.3 million during its first two years of operation.
(HOUSTON, TX) United States Attorney Michael Shelby announced the indictment of four Prepared Table Charter School officials and employees for their role in a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars in federal funds secured through grants and state programs to the school and laundering the proceeds. Harold W. Wilcox, 52, Louvicy Wilcox, 51, Anthony Mosley, 42, and Roshall Frank, 32, all of Houston, Texas, have been named in various counts in a 26 count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury on June 29, 2004, and unsealed today. All four defendants were arrested this morning at their residences by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and appeared in federal court this afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley.
Following the appearance of the defendants in federal court today, United States Attorney Michael Shelby said, "Today's indictment alleges that the defendants defrauded the taxpayers of Texas and the United States in a deliberate, methodical and significant way. We intend to use every tool federal law provides to protect the nation's treasury from this kind of calculated plunder."
The indictment charges the defendants with embezzling and obtaining by fraud federal and State of Texas money allocated to the Prepared Table Charter School for the educational and nutritional needs of children, during the three years of the schools existence. In July 1998, Harold Wilcox applied to the State of Texas for a charter to run the school and serve as the Chief Administrator and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Prepared Table Charter School. Wilcox's wife, Louvicy Wilcox, worked in the administrative offices of the school approving expenditures and assisted in the running of the school's operations. Her daughter, Roshall Frank, worked in the school's attendance reporting office. Anthony Mosley, the brother of Harold Wilcox, ran the food services at the school.
According to allegations contained in the 26 count indictment, Prepared Table Charter School received millions of dollars in federal funds under various programs and grants of the Department of Education. They also received federal funds through the Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. The defendants made claims for reimbursement under these federal programs after posing as an independent contractor with whom the School contracted to cater meals for the school. The defendants had checks issued in the name of this alleged catering service and then deposited the checks into the church bank account.
The defendants are also charged with misrepresenting the attendance figures for the school to the Texas Education Agency and fraudulently obtaining approximately $3 million from the State of Texas, which provided funding to the School, based upon those attendance figures.
Harold Wilcox and Anthony Mosley are ministers of the Greater Progressive Baptist Church and are accused of using the tax exempt status of the church to further their unlawful activity. The indictment charges the defendants with utilizing their positions in the school to obtain money by fraud, and with attempting to hide and disguise the true source of the misappropriated money by depositing the money into a church bank account. They are further charged with depositing this money into the church bank account with the intent to evade federal taxes. Once the misappropriated money was deposited into the church bank account, Harold Wilcox is accused of withdrawing cash from the account in amounts below $10,000 to avoid the requirement that the bank file a Currency Transaction Report on any cash transaction involving over $10,000.
The indictment charges all four defendants with conspiracy to commit wire and program fraud (Count 1), and three counts (Counts 2 - 4) of wire fraud involving a total of approximately $1.7 million, allegedly occurring between December 1999 and April 2001. Harold Wilcox is charged in three counts (Counts 5 - 7) with program fraud involving the transfer of more than $70,000 in school funds to the Church in August 2000, and January and February 2002. Harold Wilcox, his wife, Louvicy Wilcox, and Anthony Q. Mosley are accused of conspiring with one another to launder the money obtained by fraud for the purpose of concealing the source of the money and to evade taxes (Count 8). In furtherance of the conspiracy, Harold Wilcox is charged with four specific counts (Counts 9 - 12) of laundering approximately $97,000 in school fund between January and September 2000. Anthony Mosley is charged with six counts (Counts 13 - 18) of laundering an approximate total of $181,000 in school funds between April and June of 2002. The final eight counts of the indictment (Counts 19 - 26) accuse Harold Wilcox of structuring multiple financial transactions with money allegedly obtained by fraud to avoid reporting requirements during eight short intervals of time between September 1999 and March 2001.
The indictment also includes a number of forfeiture counts providing notice to all defendants of the government's intent to forfeit $3.3 million, the real estate property and all improvements located at 20 Thornhill Oaks, and 9100 Tidwell, and all the amounts alleged in each of the counts of the indictment. The indictment alleges that Harold Wilcox used approximately $51,000 in school funds for a down payment toward the purchase of the residence at 20 Thornhill Oaks, Houston, Texas. Both the Thornhill Oaks and Tidwell properties are titled in the name of Harold W. Wilcox.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, Department of Education Office of Inspector General with the invaluable assistance of the Texas Education Agency. The case will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Melissa Annis.
The head and three employees of a Houston charter school once said to exemplify the problems with charter schools were arrested today on charges that they embezzled some $3 million in state and federal education funds.
The Rev. Harold W. Wilcox, former head of the now defunct Prepared Table Charter School and pastor of the Greater Progressive Baptist Church, and three family members are accused of siphoning funds from children's programs.
"We are confident that Pastor Wilcox will be exonerated of all charges," said Andrew Martin, Wilcox's attorney. "We are confident that the operation was run within the law."
FBI agents who made the arrest found Wilcox hiding in a false compartment in a closet at his home with $3,500 in cash, Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Annis told U.S. Magistrate Judge Calvin Botley.
Botley set a $150,000 bond for Wilcox and required him to be electronically monitored, remain in Houston and to attend Gamblers Anonymous counseling sessions.
Also arrested were Wilcox's wife, Louvicy Wilcox, 51; his wife's daughter, Rochall Frank, 32; and his brother, Anthony Mosley, 42, all of Houston.
Botley set bond for the others at $50,000.
After a court official accused Wilcox of trying to conceal his ownership of a passport, Botley ordered that he surrender it before leaving the courthouse.
The Prepared Table Charter School was at the center of controversy for several years before the Texas Education Agency revoked its charter in 2002.
The school was found to be inflating enrollment, failing to produce enrollment figures and failing to account for at least $1.3 million during its first two years of operation after opening in 1999.
The allegations of mismanagement lead to a tightening of rules governing charter schools in 2001, but charter school supporters in the Legislature repealed the rules in 2003.
Education officials in Texas have pulled the plug on a church-run charter school that has been embroiled in scandal and financial mismanagement.
In mid July the Texas Education Agency (TEA) held a three-day hearing on the fate of the Prepared Table Charter School, an institution run by the Rev. Harold Wayne Wilcox of the Greater Progressive Tabernacle Baptist Church in Humble. The school, which has been in existence since 1998, has allegedly squandered millions in tax dollars.
On Aug. 16, TEA officials revoked the controversial school's state charter and its lucrative public funding.
Texas lawmakers approved a charter school law in 1997 but officials have been lax in overseeing the program. Nearly any group or individual who applied for a charter got one--along with public funding.
The Kingwood Observer reported that Wilcox appointed himself and church board members as school administrators. Classes were held in the church sanctuary, and the "school" began paying the church $68,000 per month in rent, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Within a few years, the church had purchased or rented several other properties to expand, even though these new charters had not been approved by the TEA. By the fall of 2000, reported the Observer, Prepared Table was receiving nearly $8 million per year from the state of Texas.
TEA officials eventually became suspicious over a series of cozy arrangements between the school and church members. A church member who owned a cleaning service that cleaned the schools received $140,000 per month. When Wilcox resigned from the school, he received a "buyout package" worth $235,000 from the board--which consisted of Wilcox, his wife and his wife's sister.
Wilcox, who does not have a college degree, paid himself $210,000 annually to run the school. He paid his wife $50,000 to act as his secretary. This year, only 23 percent of Prepared Table students at the main campus passed Texas' proficiency exam. The figure was even lower at another Prepared Table school--18 percent.
State officials also accused the school of inflating the number of students t attending. The school claimed 2,500 students, but TEA officials said they could never confirm that more than 1,500 were enrolled.
Meanwhile, reports are circulating that the U.S. Attorney's Office is investigating Wilcox.
The Observer, which has covered the problems at Prepared Table in depth, editorialized in July, "[A]fter months and months and millions and millions of local, state and federal dollars being poured into the `school,' it turns out that the children are still failing, they can't pass TAAS [Texas' state proficiency exam], the police are regularly called to the campuses, and the superintendent has paid himself nearly $800,000 and his wife another $200,000 since the school opened in 1998. Your tax dollars have made millions of dollars worth of improvements to the church/school buildings (what we would call a real church/state separation issue) and the TEA won't or can't control the situation."
The scandal, along with other problems, has prompted Texas legislators to take a second look at charter schools. In heavily populated Harris County, the Houston Chronicle reported in June, only 13 of the county's 61 charter schools saw 85 percent of their students pass the state's proficiency exam, putting them far behind public schools in performance.
Americans United Board of Trustees member Charlotte Coffelt, a resident of Houston and a former principal of a public elementary school, commented on the scandal in the July 23 Houston Chronicle.
"Prepared Table Charter School should be a textbook case of what happens when individuals and organizations with no background in either managing a business or having successfully provided effective educational programs are given access to public monies," Coffelt warned. "Many millions were invested in this `innovative' educational program, with dismal academic results and evidence of massive misuse of public money and falsification of public documents."
PROCEDURAL HISTORY: This matter arises from five complaints filed against Mr. Paul Schaeder, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Golden Door Charter School, for violations of the School Ethics Act, N.J.S.A. 18A:12-21 et seq. Specifically, they alleged that he, without the consultation of the Board, forced the Chief Academic Officer to resign and that he appointed his former fellow trustee as a consultant within a month after he resigned from the Board. The complaints also raised various allegations that he misused his position in connection with the number of trustees on the Board, that he had police called to a public meeting on January 16, 2003 and that he discriminates against African-American parents and trustees...
DECISION: For the foregoing reasons, the Commission finds that Mr. Schaeder violated N.J.S.A. 18A:12-24.1(c) and (d) in connection with the termination of Ms. Jones and violated N.J.S.A. 18A:12-24(b) in connection with the hiring of former trustee Barry Fields.
The Commission considered Mr. Schaeder’s response to the finding of probable cause that argued that the matters for which he is being disciplined were decisions of the full board, but the evidence showed the opposite. Regarding Ms. Jones, the Board’s approval was sought only after Ms. Jones had been presented with the severance agreement. Regarding Mr. Fields, the Board’s approval was never sought. Mr. Schaeder has acted as a one-member board and in so doing has violated the Code of Ethics and the standards of conduct expected of board members in general. The Commission finds his conduct to be so egregious that only the penalty of removal would be appropriate. Therefore, the Commission recommends that Paul Schaeder [see story below] be removed from the Golden Door Charter School Board of Trustees.
After Bret Schundler won the special election in 1992, his theme was vouchers. He promised monetary relief to parents who sent their children to Catholic schools. This was his campaign strategy for the May 1993 mayoralty election. He promised the impossible!
Schundler's theme was to criticize the spending of the local public district. In 1994, he separated school bonding from the municipal tax rate. Prior to 1994, the school bonding was included as the final municipal tax numbers. This separation only happened on paper. It is still paid by the municipal budget but now on a separate line item. In fact, Schundler started to compare his municipal rate with former mayors. He left in the school bonding costs on their municipal rates but didn't show it in his rate. He's a regular con artist.
During the mid-90's, Governor Whitman wanted control over spending. She signed a bill fixing the costs for school bonding. Previously, Jersey City received money through a formula worked on by the legislatures. The formula usually gave Jersey City 65% to 70% state aid while the city picks up the rest. That means the stateed picks up two-thirds of school bonding cost.
Whitman fixed the formula to 35% which means 65% must come from local taxpayers. The local school district is now controlled by the state and they are on a building spree, yet Schundler, the critic is silent. Schundler got what he wanted Charter Schools!
Immediately, Schundler hires Paul Schaeder to manage charter school. Schaeder is on the public payroll assigned to the Mayor's office on 8/4/97 with the job title Administrative Analyst.
Now the law states that charter schools must use an existing building. But that doesn't stop him. Schundler uses tax dollars to build his Golden Door Charter School.
Schundler's school came from a $32 million bond that included $9.5 million for a "educational-recreation center" on the site of the for Betz Brewery. In a speech before the council he said taxpayers wouldn't be affected because it would be rented. Then he said that the local school board might take an equity position in covering costs, a clear violation of the law. He then offers other community centers in the wards of the other council members. Schundler said, "you give $9.5 million for my charter school and I'll go and build you a $5 million center in every ward."
While the school is being built, Schundler has a temporary site (that has now become a the site for The Community charter school run by Deputy Mayor Eliu Rivera).
He hires Advantage which was created two years ago by Steven F. Wilson, who helped write the Massachusetts charter school law. Charter schools were designed to be non-profit. But this is Jersey City and Schundler expects campaign contributions! Advantage receives 20% of the contract, approximately $800,000 goes into their pockets. Steven A. Wilson from Advantage said, "We're not squeamish about our for-profit status."
Now charter schools are competing for students from the public and Catholic schools. However, public schools will always be funded. The law demands it. But there is no law to protect Catholic schools. Across the state where charter schools exist, Catholic school are closing. Larry Thompson, Superintendent of Catholic school in the Trenton Diocese said, "Many of our students have gone over to the charter schools."
In 1993, Schundler promised parents financial relief for Catholic schools but he ends up destroying them!
Charter schools are handed out in Jersey City to political friends the way hot dogs are handed out at picnics. The closer the plitical connection, the more problems the schools have.
One school, Jersey City's Community School made headline in the local paper on June 13, 2000. This school in on the former site of Schundler's Golden Door and is run by his political friends Deputy Mayor Eliu Rivera and Julio Colon. The school is managed by a for-profit company called Mosaica.
The chief education officer returned to work after a lenghty sick leave. As she was gathering some boxes for her personal belongings (teachers do pack up in June) someone anonymously told members that Reed was resigning and taking home school documents. The board alerted the police. After a three hour ordeal the police officers checked each box and verified that the contents belonged to Reed. She was humiliated.
This incident brought issues to the surface which have been brewing all year since the school opened in September. Teachers say the school have face one problem after another-lack of supplies and bouncing paychecks. One teacher said there are no parents on the school board. Of course not, it is packed with politicans. The bouncing checks should be investigated. After all, 90% of the funding comes from the local school district.
JERSEY CITY - The Jersey City Branch of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) at the Feb. 18 Jersey City Board of Education meeting criticized the appointment by Gov. Chris Christie of former Jersey City Mayor Bret Schundler as the state’s education commissioner.
Schundler, 51, is a Westfield native who served from 1992 to 2001 as Jersey City mayor, the first Republican elected to that seat in nearly 100 years.
Jersey City NAACP Branch President Kabili Tayari, currently a Jersey City deputy mayor who coincidentally was hired in 1997 during Schundler’s tenure, issued a statement against Schundler that was read by NAACP officer Lorenzo Richardson.
In the statement, Schundler was criticized for his lack of “public, private, parochial or charter school” experience. Schundler served most recently as the COO of King’s College, a private Christian college in Manhattan.
“His appointment gives the appearance of an attack on Public Education, not that our education system is perfect,” stated Richardson from Tayari’s statement. “But he is clearly not the best choice to solve the problems of our Public Education system.”
During his time as mayor, Schundler gained a reputation as an advocate for giving parents vouchers to help them send their kids to private school rather than public. He is also pro-charter school, having founded the Jersey City Golden Door Charter School in 1998, located on Ninth Street in downtown Jersey City.
But he ran into controversy during the construction of the school, as $9.5 million in public bonds were utilized to erect it. There is a state law prohibiting public funds from being used for the construction of a charter school. The building instead was built as a community center to get around that problem.
