Posted on 07/08/2007 4:02:39 AM PDT by John Jorsett
University Preparatory Charter High School in East Oakland bills itself as a high-end academy where students attract recruiters from the nation's top universities.
[snip]
But that bright image belies a grim truth: Someone at this inner-city public school, also known as Uprep, is cheating.
The state Department of Education has just concluded for the second year in a row that one or more adults interfered with state-required testing at the school. This spring, state investigators seized copies of 2005 tests being illegally used to prepare students for the 2007 exams.
State rules require test booklets be turned in at the conclusion of testing each year because many exam questions remain the same. At Uprep, someone photocopied 2005 test books and kept them.
"That's a fairly significant security breach," said Deb Sigman, testing director for the state Department of Education. "California statute specifically prohibits any preparation that is specific to this test."
Last year, investigators found that someone changed hundreds of test answers from wrong to right before they were sent to the state.
In a rare move clamping down on a charter school's autonomy, the state is ordering the Oakland school district to take over Uprep's testing, Sigman said.
Now, eight former teachers assert in a report to state and local education officials that a culture of cheating exists at the school. And they say it's done at the top level.
Teachers claim:
-- Students' grades are frequently falsified.
-- Course titles don't always match the easier content tested.
-- Low-scoring students are barred from taking state-required exams in an attempt to keep them from lowering the school's scores.
-- Discipline is arbitrary and intimidating.
Just as stunning is the teachers' assertion of who is responsible for the alleged misconduct: the director, Isaac Haqq, Uprep's founder and most fervent cheerleader.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Let Are Kids Walk.
Is he helping kids? Tough to tell from that article. If scores are truly being falsified and grades being changed, then no. If kids are learning because they are excited about learning and excited about someone giving a care, then that's a good thing.
I could see the falsifying and withholding students from taking tests. Happens all the time in schools like this.
I feel sorry for the kids if this is true.
I think it is strange that such happens in a Charter School. I thought Charter Schools were bastions of education and perfection.
If God wanted to give the earth an enema He’d stick the hose in Oakland
the lib/dems will just cry to throw more money at the problem!!!!
I suppose that when you get some semblance of choice in education, not all of those choices will be good ones. It is just like having a choice in buying cars, you get good cars but you also have bad cars too. Hopefully, the parents in this situation will take their children to a different charter school and this one will either fix its problem or close down.
The fact that the school could theoretically face closure due to bad performance alone proves that school choice is working. Hopefully, the parents involved will do the right thing.
Found this:
The Strange Past of Isaac Haqq
Schools | Alex Gronke | June 21, 2007 at 3: 19 PM
Before he moved to Oakland. Before he became the director of a charter school. And well before he ran afoul of Oakland Unified School District and the California Department of Education following accusations that he intimidated students and cheated on standardized tests, Isaac Haqq, the director of University Preparatory Charter Academy in East Oakland, had another life and another name in another place.
The citizens of Pasadena knew the man who now goes by Isaac Haqq as Isaac Richard. He served on the Pasadena City Council in the early 1990’s, where he was infamous for violent outbursts at a time when the entire council had earned a reputation for being something of a circus.
Judging by the trouble Mr. Richard stirred up in Pasadena between 1991 and 1998, it’s somewhat surprising Mr. Haqq is only now attracting attention for weird behavior after more than seven years in Oakland. Although, one wonders if Mr. Haqq would have been tapped as the director of a charter school had the Southern California exploits of Mr. Richard been more widely known.
Mr. Richard held only one term on the Pasadena City Council. After a tenure that included three censures and two arrests, he decided not to seek a second term. According to a 1995 article in the Los Angeles Times, his campaign manager declined to manage a second campaign and told him it was time for a new era in City Hall. The Los Angeles Times article reflecting on Mr. Richards short but memorable political career makes clear why it was time for a new name as well.
Only three months after taking office he allegedly threatened a cop who impounded Mr. Richard’s motorcycle for driving with expired registration.
In 1992, Pasadena cops arrested him on suspicion of pointing a handgun at a group of youths who were taunting him. Insufficient evidence led to the District Attorney dropping the charges.
A month later, his colleagues on the council censured him for profanely berating a housing official.
At one point, he seemed to recognize that he needed help and he checked himself into a treatment center for a chemical imbalance.
The fistfights and the lawsuits continued well after Mr. Richard left the council. He sued the city for $1 million for unlawful arrest after allegedly hitting a tenant in a building he owned in the face with her phone.
The biography might have been different for the 49-year-old educator and ex-politician. He has an undergraduate degree from Pomona and a graduate degree from Columbia University (although Los Angeles County Superior Court Records show that the trustees of that institution won a $17,000 judgment against him in the early 1990s).
Even his detractors say that he’s smart. Mr. Haqq won’t talk about his past as Mr. Richard with me, so I don’t know what he had hoped for his political career, why he changed his name to Haqq, or why he came to Oakland. One person who knew him in Pasadena, said that he moved here when his wife, who worked for the state Attorney General’s office in Los Angeles, took a job in San Francisco.
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