By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times |http://lat.ms/fdveDe
Editorial: The cheating charter (follows)
March 2, 2011 - The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to shut down six charter schools that were accused of widespread cheating on last year's standardized tests, citing the malfeasance and an insufficient response to it.
The board took the initiative to revoke the charter of the Crescendo organization despite an earlier recommendation by the district to reauthorize its schools for another five years. District staff had said they believed that the charter board had taken adequate steps to deal with the scandal.
But on Tuesday, a day after The Times detailed Crescendo's problems, incoming Supt. John Deasy recommended an investigation by the Inspector General of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Pending those results, a one-year renewal could be considered, Deasy said.
Crescendo founder/executive director John Allen allegedly ordered principals and teachers to prepare students for last year's exams with the actual test questions. Several teachers at the schools alerted the district about the cheating.
Allen, who initially denied wrongdoing when confronted, was demoted, according to district documents and interviews. Principals received 10-day suspensions.
A contingent from Crescendo declined to comment after the board vote.
"This charter school is thumbing their nose at the district and thumbing their nose at the rules," said board member Tamar Galatzan, who called on her colleagues to revoke the charter. Crescendo should not have "another year to do what they were supposed to do in the first place."
Before the vote, two Crescendo principals defended the organization's overall record and its approach to instruction. Two parents also praised Crescendo.
"Whatever was in the past or whatever is going on, we should give them a second chance," said Alfredo Guillen, who has two sons there.
But board member Richard Vladovic said the parents' trust had been betrayed with a hurtful message: "We don't have faith in our children. We have to cheat for them."
At Tuesday's meeting, only two Crescendo schools were up for the standard charter renewal process. The board's action applies to all six campuses, which are in South Los Angeles, Gardena and Hawthorne.
Crescendo schools will be allowed to remain open during the months-long shut-down process required by state law.
The board move was unusual — it has rarely revoked a charter for wrongdoing or academic performance.
The vote was 6 to 1, with Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte dissenting. She said she was concerned about the welfare of the school's students and cited the charters' apparent academic success.
But school board President Monica Garcia said the cheating made it hard to tell whether the schools were as successful as believed. The state invalidated the 2010 test results, which were nonetheless cited by district staff as evidence of the schools' academic success.
The Crescendo charter had a pair of unlikely defenders, the head of the teachers union and the California Charter Schools Assn., which has called for strict accountability for charter schools. Charters are publicly funded and independently run.
Union President A.J. Duffy wanted the schools to stay open in the interests of students and teachers, who recently voted to join United Teachers Los Angeles. He said teachers had courageously risked their jobs to report cheating. He also said anyone involved in cheating should be disciplined and perhaps even fired.
The charter association supported a short-term charter renewal to give the school time to prove itself. Crescendo joined the charter association as the cheating allegations were emerging.
Association director Jed Wallace said he lacked enough information to pass judgment. Nor would he say that cheating per se should be a cause for dismissal or a charter revocation.
In other related actions, the school board approved, without discussion, allowing El Camino Real High School to become a charter. The Woodland Hills campus has long been considered an academic powerhouse.
The board also voted unanimously to shut down Cornerstone Prep School in Florence, because of poor academic performance.
And, board members also agreed not to renew the charter of Wisdom Academy for Young Scientists, also in Florence, over management issues and a financial conflict of interest among its operators. LaMotte abstained, citing the school's high test scores.
The school's operators said they would appeal the non-renewal to the L.A. County Office of Education, which also can authorize charter schools.
THE CHEATING CHARTER: Crescendo gave students test answers. How low does a school have to go for L.A. Unified to close it?
LA Times Editorial | http://lat.ms/hp0Ezm
1 March 2011 - The Los Angeles Unified School District has rightly been raising the bar for its public schools. Now it needs to do the same for its charter schools.
For years, the district has been reluctant to close problematic charters, even when the California Charter Schools Assn., an organization that promotes the publicly funded but independently run schools, has recommended doing so. On Tuesday, the school board will be faced with a clear case: Crescendo Schools, whose six campuses in L.A. Unified engaged in rampant cheating on the yearly state standardized tests. The cheating was ordered by founder and then-Executive Director John Allen, promulgated by principals and carried out by teachers, except for a few brave ones who blew the whistle. Under a mandate from the top, teachers broke open the seals on the tests and used the questions to prep students.
Charter schools generally operate on five-year contracts under which they agree to be held accountable for whether they reach ambitious goals, in exchange for freedom from many regulations. At the end of the five years, their progress is assessed before they are given another five-year contract. The school board will consider the extension for two Crescendo schools Tuesday.
Crescendo at first denied and then downplayed its illegal behavior. It never fired any of the people involved, though it did move Allen to another position. And now district staff proposes renewing the schools' contracts for five years because Crescendo reshuffled its governing board and instituted new ethics training for the staff. On Monday, after The Times reported on this situation, Deputy Supt. John Deasy proposed amending that to year-by-year renewal. Neither is acceptable. Exactly how low does a school have to go to be closed by L.A. Unified?
If the board reauthorizes Crescendo's contract, as well as renewing agreements with charter schools that have not appreciably improved test scores or other educational outcomes, not only is it reneging on the most elementary concept of accountability, but it is sending a terrible message to other charter schools about the standard to which they are held: There are no real consequences as long as you promise not to mess up anymore. Bad charters aren't good for students, or for the reputation of the many charters that do an outstanding job.
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