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Abramson Charter in eastern New Orleans shut down amid TP investigation into startling misconduct

Ohanian Comment: Hold on to your hats here. Atlas Construction and Trading lists these schools under "Projects." They are involved in new school construction. . . and more.

Tevfik Eski is Chief Executive Officer of Pelican Educational Foundation, which operates the Abramson Science and Technology Charter School in New Orleans.

Pelican claims they need to import workers from Turkey. Pelican partners with the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit entity that supports the Harmony Science Academies Charter School System. Eski is listed as Principal of Cosmos Foundation.

You can read Pelican's in the news items they post on their site. You can also read their IRS form.

Family Security Matters points out that in 2007 Bill Gates funded Cosmos--$10,550,000--through the Texas High School Project. Although the tone at Family Security Matters is over-the-top alarmist and racist, the fact remains that Cosmos operates 85 Gulan madrassahs (Islamic schools) in the United States, and all operate with public funding.

When you get to the end of the story below, you will see the involvement of the Texas Turkish American Chamber of Commerce with this New Orleans school.

Go figure.

by Andrew Vanacore

The state's sudden shutdown of Abramson Science and Technology Charter School over revelations of a potential bribery attempt and other incidents came in part because of inquiries made by The Times-Picayune over the past few weeks.

Penny Dastugue, president of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, wrote to the head of the nonprofit that runs Abramson on Friday evening to say the board will close the school until the state can complete an investigation. The move came just a few hours after acting State Superintendent Ollie Tyler contacted board members to recommend that they shutter the school in eastern New Orleans while the state looks into the allegations.

Tyler's letter mentions a "possible attempt to bribe" an employee of the state Department of Education and an alleged incident at the school this spring involving two 5-year-old students that was "possibly sexual in nature." She said the department has referred the potential bribery attempt to the state inspector general's office.

Both incidents have come to light as a result of interviews and public information requests made by newspaper.

Records concerning a state investigation at Abramson last year show that Folwell Dunbar, the state's academic advisor for charter schools, was approached by an executive of Atlas Texas Construction and Trading at the school's campus. In a subsequent meeting, the executive, Inci Akpinar, offered Dunbar $25,000 to help "fix this problem," according to a memo that Dunbar sent to colleagues at the department.

Dunbar was in the middle of an investigation into numerous complaints about the school from a group of whistle-blowing teachers.

The encounter, along with records detailing serious deficiencies at the school, may raise fresh questions about the role that the state plays in policing the numerous charter schools that have sprung up in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.

Abramson is an independent charter school that operates under the state's Recovery School District, which took over most New Orleans schools after the 2005 storm. Charters operate with far more autonomy that traditional schools but must periodically come before the state board of education for renewal.

Several board members expressed alarm on Friday that information about the state's audit last year did not come before BESE ahead of a vote the board took last summer to renew Abramson's charter. The state education department recommended that BESE give the school a one-year renewal with a "corrective action plan" to address deficiencies in special education services. But the board had not seen Dunbar's memo about the offer of money. And they hadn't seen records that provide accounts of classrooms going unstaffed for weeks at a time and potential cheating in science fair competitions.

"I certainly think I should have known this before now,"said BESE member Louella Givens after a reporter had described part of the state's findings. "You're blowing me over."

There was no roll call vote at the meeting a year ago when BESE approved a one-year extension for Abramson. And no member recorded opposition to the approval.

Both Givens and Dastugue, who was a member but not board president at the time, recall being unaware of any serious problems at the school aside from a lack of adequate support for special-needs students.

Givens and Linda Johnson, a BESE member from Plaquemine, also traveled to Turkey this spring at the invitation of the Pelican Foundation before the full findings of the state audit came to light.

Tevfik Eski, Pelican's CEO, denied inviting BESE members on the trip. But a copy of the invitation obtained by The Times-Picayune shows that it was signed by Eski.

Givens said that she paid for the entire week-long trip herself. She said she saw the trip as an opportunity to learn more about Pelican and the way education is done in Turkey. She and others on the trip visited Turkish schools, as well as businesses, homes and cultural sites.

Johnson said that she paid for her own flight but that some of her hotel expenses were picked up by the Texas Turkish American Chamber of Commerce. Johnson said she cleared the trip with BESE's ethics office, getting the OK because no funding would come from Pelican or any other school operator that BESE oversees.

— Andrew Vanacore
The Times-Picayune
2011-07-15
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/07/abramson_science_and_technolog.html

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