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Testing Theory or Testing Patience?: Parents, Former Staff Say Voucher School Lacks Direction

Posted on: Monday, 24 April 2006, 03:04 CDT

By Sarah Carr, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Apr. 24--With leaders in the voucher movement promising to take a hard line on troubled schools when it comes to a new accreditation requirement, the leaders of some schools face a choice: Shape up or get out.

The Milwaukee School of Choice, whose name embodies the promise of the program, could be an interesting test case on this score.

Over the past several months, the school has been riven allegations from a group of former employees and parents, who claim the school has no curriculum, no established discipline standards and no computers.

At the same time, Partners Advancing Values in Education (PAVE), which provides scholarships for students at private schools, is distancing itself from the School of Choice and its sister school, the Milwaukee Multicultural Academy, declining to provide new scholarships.

School leaders dispute the allegations and say a group of fired employees is trying to tarnish the school's reputation.

But the controversy raises broader questions of whether schools that have met the financial and logistical guidelines of the voucher program also can survive closer scrutiny of their academic programs. About 50 of the schools are not accredited; a handful could find the process to be an uphill battle.

The group of five former employees -- several of whom were fired -- and two parents at Milwaukee School of Choice, alleged in separate interviews that the school:

-- Had no formal curriculum or set teaching approach, and teachers were expected to "wing it." Students frequently were shown non-educational videos, they say. One mother reported finding her daughter's class watching "Jason Goes to Hell -- The Final Friday" from the Friday the 13th series and "Bad Boys II." Her daughter no longer attends School of Choice.

-- Had no disciplinary policies or procedures, so one student might be suspended for fighting, while another is sent back to class.

-- Lacked essential resources at different points, such as proper lighting and heating, appropriate textbooks and computers.

-- Did not regularly teach core subjects such as history and science.

"This is not a school," said Vickie Finch, a parent who pulled her daughter out of the school in January. "They don't learn there."

Shukrani Gray, a former teacher who quit, said: "There was nothing for us to go on which said, 'This is how you deal with a problem.' For me, it was difficult because everything was fly-by-night."

The others who are complaining about the school are former employees Tuwan Clayton, Edward Pettis and Richard Johnson, along with Kenya Rembert, the parent of a sixth-grader.

In a written statement, School of Choice Administrator Veronica Mosley strongly denied the allegations.

"We have our curriculum in place, and as the administrator I make sure the teachers adhere to the school's academic standards. On behalf of the school, we give every possible support to our teachers allowing them to work with our students and follow the specified curriculum guideline. Some of our earlier staff was terminated because they were not following our curriculum and procedures and chose to 'wing it' on their own."

According to the Web site of Wisconsin Circuit Court Access, one of the fired employees who spoke to the Journal Sentinel, former principal Troy D. Coleman, has a criminal history, including a 1992 felony conviction for burglary and a 1997 misdemeanor for disorderly conduct.

He said he was fired in October, citing personality conflicts as the reason.

The School of Choice, 2200 N. 12th St., has about 75 students in third through ninth grades. It has been owned Milwaukee businessman Amit Ray for two years. Ray also owns Milwaukee Multicultural, a sister program to the School of Choice. The two schools have shared some of the same teachers and students in the past. The School of Choice has received $376,296 in voucher payments so far this year.

Institute's role disputed

Milwaukee School of Choice leaders say their curriculum was developed with help from the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, which was founded longtime voucher advocate Howard Fuller at Marquette University. School leaders say they are working with the institute to get accredited as required within three years under the new law that allowed expansion of the voucher program. The voucher program gives eligible low-income families tuition vouchers to attend private schools.

But Robert Pavlik, the director of school design and development at the institute, said the institute had no role in working on the curriculum at Milwaukee School of Choice and is not currently working with the school on accreditation. He said the institute had done some planning for curriculum development for the Milwaukee Multicultural Academy. But Pavlik said the curriculum for Milwaukee Multicultural was never finished.

Mosley responded that the curriculum the school is using was developed six years ago for another school in consultation with the institute.

PAVE recently said it would discontinue scholarships for Milwaukee Multicultural students after this school year. It did not offer any new scholarships to the school this year and agreed to continue the scholarships only for two students who had received them in the past.

"We knew what they said they were going to do; we knew what their plans were," said Dan McKinley, the executive director of PAVE. "But we don't know that they were ever carried out."

With "the Milwaukee School of Choice, we never got to the stage (of providing scholarships) because they never got past the first things we wanted to scrutinize, which is the board of directors and governance of the school," McKinley added. In an interview at the school, Mosley pulled out a binder that she described as the school's curriculum. It included general information about teaching philosophy and goals for reading, writing, listening, speech, music, art and handwriting.

Mosley said any student who has committed a "serious infraction" is expelled from the school. She added that teachers who don't use textbooks are "lazy" because the school has plenty of them, and the school has computers on a lower level. Some of the computers aren't working, she said, although the school ultimately hopes to have a functional computer lab for the students. She said all problems with the heat and lighting systems were dealt with September.

Mosley added that the incident with "Jason Goes to Hell" and "Bad Boys" was a student prank. She said a substitute teacher in charge confiscated the DVDs immediately upon noticing the prank and the student was expelled.

During two recent visits to the school, which were scheduled in advance, the classrooms appeared orderly and the teachers worked on academic lessons. In one third- and fourth-grade classroom, students reviewed a lesson on long division and multiplication and moved on to a review of photosynthesis. They easily identified terms such as "quotient,""remainder" and "chlorophyll." None of the students took notes. But one said they had learned the lessons earlier in the day.

Staff defends school

Ten school employees sent a letter recently to the Journal Sentinel protesting what they described as a "smear campaign" against the School of Choice. "Some of us came on board and under leadership of Mrs. Mosley and our Board things have improved steadily," they wrote. "We are happy about our work atmosphere and looking forward for a successful year-end and planning for the coming school year."

Ray, the school's owner, has done accounting or other work in the past for schools such as Woodson Academy and Greater Holy Temple Christian Center, and was tied through a land deal to Alex's Academics of Excellence, a school that closed after several highly publicized problems. He said he has cut ties with other schools to focus on the School of Choice and Milwaukee Multicultural.

He said he hopes to put together a diverse board of directors at the School of Choice and put in place a curriculum focused on Gandhian principles of non-violence.

The board of directors consists of himself, his wife (a psychologist) and Annie Oliver, a woman who leads another voucher school, whom Ray describes as a close friend.

Speaking generally, McKinley at PAVE said "if the school governance is weak, if it's just friends of the founder on the board, to me that is a big red flag."

McKinley said a school always can have plans, but "between the planning and the accomplishment is sometimes a huge chasm."

He said a good curriculum "is connecting what your overall plan for education is with the kind of educational materials you need, the training of the teachers, and how you are going to evaluate it. It's not just books."

Mosley declined to talk in too much depth about the areas where the school needs to improve to get accredited, noting the process had just begun.

"We're a work in progress," she said. "There's room for improvement, no matter what."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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