Sometimes it is hard to believe that anyone cares anymore about old-fashioned things like integrity, honesty, accountability, and transparency, especially in the red red states where the charter chains have bought the legislature and the governor.

But look at this story.  All of these schools are associated with the Gulen movement, a Turkish chain of charters, the largest in the U.S. They get high test scores. but apparently they crossed the line, wherever that is.

The Ohio Board of Education ordered an immediate investigation of a chain of 19 charter schools in the state today after hearing allegations of test cheating, attendance tampering, sexual misconduct and other misdeeds.

Former teachers from the Horizon Science Academy Dayton High School in Dayton testified at the board’s monthly meeting in Columbus about years of misconduct. Some said they had been afraid to come forward before finding new jobs.

One teacher said he’d made a previous complaint to the Department of Education but never heard back from agency officials.

“Your concerns have not fallen on deaf ears,” promised Board President Debe Terhar. “We hear you and we will move forward with making sure this is investigated.”

Other board members said they were outraged and disgusted. Some said they were taken aback because they’d visited the schools and observed nothing questionable.

“Inside my blood is boiling,” said Deborah Cain, a board member from Uniontown. “It is almost incomprehensible.”

Kellie Kochensparger, a teacher at the school until last year, told board members of an incident in which school officials failed to tell parents that their children were suspended for having oral sex while other students watched at a school festival. The activity was caught on surveillance cameras.

“The school told parents the suspensions were handed out because the kids were outside of their assigned areas,” she said. “As a teacher and parent, when I questioned further, I was told that I ask too many questions and the situation was being handled.”

On another occasion Kochensparger said she was asked to make sure students completed all questions on a standardized state exam before allowing them to turn it in. When she told an administrator that it was not permitted and she would inquire of the Department of Education, she was forbidden from contacting the state.

“I know of one student who failed the 7th grade and then had to repeat the year with the agreement with (an administrator) that she would be promoted to the 9th grade if she passed 7th grade during the second attempt. She indeed completely skipped 8th grade and all associated curriculum,” Kochensparger said.

“I don’t think parents had any idea what was going on at the school. There was great emphasis on keeping parents happy and there was a culture of intimidation intended to discourage teachers from doing anything that could adversely affect the school’s relationship with parents,” she said. “Any teacher who asked too many questions was at risk of getting fired.”

The Chicago-based Concept Schools operate 30 schools throughout the Midwest, including the 19 Horizon Science academies in Ohio. Four are in Columbus. Like all charter schools, they are publicly funded and privately operated.

Some of the schools, including some in Columbus, are part of a broader probe by the FBI.

Could it be those free trips to Turkey for key legislators?

One of the curious aspects of the charter movement, beloved by both Republicans and the Obama administration, is the growth of Gulen charter schools. These are schools associated with a reclusive Turkish imam named Fetullah Gulen who lives in the Poconos but leads a vigorous political movement in Turkey. The Gulen schools have a board of directors composed typically of Turkish men, and most of their teachers are Turkish immigrants.

The Gulen charters are the nation’s largest charter chain. Texas has the largest number of Gulen charters.

As the Akron Beacon-Journal reports in a story by Doug Livingston, “Ohio taxpayers provide jobs to Turkish immigrants through charter schools.” The state has 19 Gulen charters. Some powerful state politicians have traveled to Turkey, and they return as supporters of Gulen charters. Gulen charters have innocuous names that do not reflect their ties to Turkey.

Livingston writes:

“A chain of 19 publicly funded Ohio charter schools, founded by Turkish immigrants, is taking the position that the United States lacks a qualified pool of math and science teachers and is importing perhaps hundreds of Turks to fill the void.

“The schools are run almost exclusively by persons of Turkish heritage, some of whom are not U.S. citizens — a new twist in Ohio’s controversial charter-school movement.

“In addition, the Horizon and Noble academies, run by Chicago-based Concept Schools, are related through membership, fundraisers and political giving to the nonprofit Niagara Foundation, which provides trips to Turkey for state, local and federal lawmakers.

“Among those touring Turkey has been State Rep. Cliff Rosenberger, a Clarksville Republican on the powerful finance and appropriations committee and considered to be a leading candidate for House speaker next year. He was joined on the trip by at least four other state legislators and local government leaders from his area in southwest Ohio….

“However, as early as 2002, state audits found thousands of public dollars “illegally expended” to finance the U.S. citizenship process for Turkish employees — some fresh out of college with no classroom experience and broken English. Help with legal and immigration fees also extended to their children and families, including the spouses of directors.

“The auditor also cited suspect wire transfers, totaling $36,000, and checks made out to “cash” to repay personal loans issued by individuals in Istanbul, Turkey.

“Three of the Ohio schools have been visited by the FBI as part of a multistate probe. The agency said it is part of a white-collar criminal investigation.

“Federal agents have not disclosed details, only that the investigation originated in Cleveland, has spread to Indiana and Illinois, and may or may not be connected to previous investigations at related schools in Baton Rouge, La., and Philadelphia.
Last school year, these Ohio charter schools, called Horizon and Noble Academies, received nearly $50 million in public funding transferred from local school districts where students otherwise would have attended.

“At $50 million, Concept is among the larger players in Ohio’s charter-school movement, totaling $914 million last year. For years, charter schools have come under fire for poor academic performance and questionable finances…..

“Last school year, Ohio’s Turkish-run schools — which offer the Turkish language and promote themselves as specialized in math and science — enrolled more than 6,700 students.

“In Cleveland alone, $12 million was transferred from the municipal school district to Concept schools. Academies also exist in Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Euclid, Toledo and Youngstown.

“According to the Ohio Department of Education, the academies’ performance on state tests varies widely from school to school and year to year. In 2013, 12 received D’s, four C’s and three B’s….Former employees allege that Turkish employees generally are paid more than U.S.-born teachers, then asked to contribute as much as 40 percent of their pay to an Islam-based religious movement known as Hizmet that supports interfaith dialog.”

To learn more about the Gulen charter, read Sharon Higgins report on Valerie Strauss’s blog.

For a guide to the Gulen charter movement, read here. For a state-by-state listing of Gulen-connected charter schools, see this list compiled by Sharon Higgins.

From Bill Phillis of the Ohio Adequacy and Equity Coalition:

Another charter school will close down: corruption, ethics, nepotism and poor performance, at issue.

The superintendent of the VLT Academy, a charter school of 600 some students, was making $140,000 per year; her daughter was making $92,000 per year for data entry; and her husband was making $62,000 in addition to running his company that performs the charter’s janitorial services, under a highest bid contract, for $323,000 per year. The family was receiving nearly $1,000 per student for central office duties and cleaning.

The board of this VLT Academy charter school recently voted to start closing procedures. The operator (family) is shopping for another sponsor. The current charter school sponsor is dropping authorization for VLT Academy.

This charter school, in six years of operation, has been rated academic emergency, two years; academic watch, three years; and continuous improvement, one year.

State officials, via the laws they have enacted, have invited this kind of nepotism, mismanagement and low academic performance in the charter school industry. At least a half dozen charter school accountability and transparency bills are pending in legislative committees, but are not being heard, in the 130th General Assembly. Apparently the current Governor and majority leaders in the General Assembly are either oblivious to or unconcerned about this kind of reckless charter school operation.

Remember, this wasted money was extracted from school districts to the detriment of public school students. Where is the outrage from taxpayers and public school advocates?

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Ohio has some of the worst charter schools in the country, which avoid accountability because their owners contribute generously to elected officials.

Among the worst performing charters are those specifically designed for dropouts. Some of these schools teach students online. Can you imagine how ineffective it is to put a discouraged student in front of a computer instead of in a class with a live, empathetic teacher who knows how to engage the student in learning and how to get him to think anout improving his life chances?

This excellent story by Doug Livingston in the Akron Beacon Journal shows how poorly dropouts are served by certain charters. Yet state legislators give these low-performing schools even more money.

“Charter schools such as Life Skills, operated by Akron-based White Hat Management and targeting dropouts, are sending Ohio spinning off in the wrong direction. Dropout rates nationally are on the decline, but Ohio’s rate is on the rise.

“Granted, some dropout charter schools graduate nearly half of their students on time, a notable feat considering students enter these programs at least a year behind their peers in traditional high schools.

“But that’s not the norm.

“Many dropout charter schools, including White Hat’s chain of Life Skills centers, consistently report single-digit graduation rates. Over the course of last school year, more students dropped out of Life Skills than attended on the average day.

“Together, they are dragging down the state’s overall rate.

“After charter schools received the largest funding boosts per pupil in the most recent state budget, state legislators are toying with the idea of giving them more money to fix Ohio’s dropout problem at a time when charter schools are reporting record-high dropout rates.”

One of these schools had a 4.2% graduation rate.

“In the 2012-13 school year, more than 5,300 dropouts — a quarter of all Ohio dropouts that year — attended one of two online charter schools: the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow or Ohio Virtual Academy. Collectively, these two charter schools have a dropout rate 45 times higher than traditional public schools, and 10 times higher than the state’s eight largest city school districts.

“Another 6,829 students ­— about a third of all Ohio dropouts — attended charter schools designed specifically for dropouts, among them Invictus and Life Skills. Last year, these dropout charter schools enrolled one percent of Ohio’s public school students but accounted for roughly the same number of dropout events as did public district schools, which enrolled 91 percent of Ohio’s students.”