A couple of weeks ago I pointed out to you the story of a couple of Houston charter schools that were suspected of cheating. Thanks in part to a Dallas Morning News investigation the Texas Education Agency could launch proceedings to close one of the schools permanently (the Jesse Jackson Academy was cleared, partly because the investigation did not examine a single student answer sheet. Hey, guys, you might want to rethink those investigative methods. I’m just sayin’).
Several researchers said they had never seen so much organized cheating in a contained environment.
The state’s report on Lee says school officials repeatedly refused to provide information to investigators. And when they did, the report states, there were a number of contradictions and other problems in the stories that school officials provided.
No - contradictions, you say? Like what?
When investigators asked Lee principal William Powell for certain testing paperwork, he replied that those documents had been “lost in the flood.”
Over the next few months, the exact details of “the flood” varied with each telling of the tale. It was blamed, variously, on “a nearby creek,” “leaking water pipes,” “blowing rain,” a “downpour that leaked through the ceiling” and “seepage up through the floor from unknown sources.”
Hey, nice try. Maybe Mr. Powell should rethink some of his excuses, you think? What about the teachers that worked for said principal?
Mr. Wolf said he first saw cheating at Lee when he was administering a retake of the graduation TAKS in October. Midway through the test, he said, Ms. Dukes came into his room and told him he needed to take the test himself.
“She said, ‘I need to make sure you know your science,’ ” he said.
He took the test quickly, he said. Ms. Dukes then told him she would take over proctoring the rest of the exam.
At the end of the school day, he saw several of his students and asked them how they thought they had performed on the test.
“They said, ‘We did as well as you did – Ms. Dukes just wrote your answers up on the chalkboard after you left,’ ” he said.
You really must read this whole article. It’s just unbelievable and infuriating for those that are trying to make real charter schools work.
The final decision on what will happen to the school as a whole rests with Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley, who has been sidelined by surgery. Even if Dr. Neeley decides to close the school, Dr. Jackson would be able to appeal – a process that can take several years. During that time, the school would stay open.
