LouisianaVoice has learned that despite serious deficiencies that included widespread cheating that closed the Abramson Science & Technology Charter School in New Orleans last year, its sister school in Baton Rouge continues to operate with the blessings of the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE).
At the same time Abramson’s problems were surfacing more than a year ago, reports of wrongful firing of teachers and student mistreatment at Kenilworth Science & Technology School in Baton Rouge finally came to light when it was learned that DOE had launched an investigation of Abramson.
Both schools are run by a Texas company affiliated with the Gulen movement, a Turkish offshoot of the Islamic faith.
The problems at Abramson were first reported by state education employee Folwell Dunbar. Dunbar and his supervisor, Jacob Landry, who was director of the DOE charter office, were promptly fired after reporting the abuses that included sexual misconduct, neglect and missing files.
In a cover-up that has become indicative of the manner in which DOE is run under the Piyush Jindal-John White administration, a 72-page report on an investigation conducted by DOE was generated. That report included a five-page cover letter by then-acting Superintendent of Education Ollie Tyler to Board of Elementary and Secondary Education President Penny Dastugue that claimed DOE first learned of the allegations surrounding Abramson on July 14, 2011, even though Dunbar and Landry had warned of problems at the school more than a year before.
To be fair, the report was compiled and released prior to White’s being named superintendent but he has taken no apparent steps to alter the situation at Kenilworth subsequent to his takeover of the department.
The claim that the department had no knowledge of wrongdoing at the school only served to discredit the entire report.
Dunbar, in a memo to department colleagues in 2010, said that Inci Akpinar, vice president of Atlas Texas Construction & Trading, the Texas company with ties to the Gulen movement, told Dunbar during a discussion of the school’s problems, “I have $25,000 to fix this problem: $20,000 for you and five for me.
A state audit conducted well in advance of the report’s publication also cited the school for having classrooms without instructors for weeks or even months at a time and of students who claimed their science fair projects had been done by their teachers.
Abramson’s charter was subsequently revoked but Kenilworth has continued to operate and last week, the school’ superintendent was calling on businesses in Baton Rouge in an attempt to raise funds for a science fair at the school.
Dr. Tevfik Eski, chief executive officer of Pelican Education Foundation in New Orleans which ran Abramson until its charter was revoked, was handing out business cards that contained the names of both Abramson and Kenilworth Science & Technology Charter Schools, only the word “Abramson” had been scratched through with blue ink and the letters “CMO” scribbled in over the word “Technology.”
CMO stands for “Charter Management Organization” and Pelican Education Foundation contracts with Cosmos Foundation, the CMO that runs the Harmony School Network in Texas, with which Abramson and Kenilworth were affiliated through Atlas Construction.
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If all that sounds terribly convoluted, it’s for a reason. Because of its organizational structure the Texas Education Authority (TEA) reported last year it had no knowledge of the problems with Abramson and Kenilworth even though the Cosmos Foundation operates more than 30 such schools in Texas.
In addition to his Baton Rouge address, Eski’s business card also contained the telephone and fax numbers of Pelican Education Foundation, his email address at Kenilworth and the web address of Pelican Education Foundation. In addition, he had written (also in blue ink) his Baton Rouge cell number.
One would think that a year after Abramson had its charter yanked, Eski would spring for new business cards but give him points for austerity.
In addition to the deficiencies already mentioned, the 72-page report by DOE also noted that Abramson students who were failing in English and math and who would not graduate from Abramson on time were being accepted en masse to North American College in Houston.
Then-Abramson principal Cuneyt Dokmen cited the acceptances as proof that Abramson was successful but the DOE report noted that Dokmen was scheduled to work at North American College in the fall of 2011.
North American College is a private, non-profit, four-year institution founded in 2010 that offers only three bachelor degree programs—education, computer science and business administration.
So what we have here is a dysfunctional DOE that shoots the messenger when it hears bad news from its own, generates lengthy investigative reports that deny knowledge of information that in fact the department had for more than a year, and allows one of the charter schools to continue operations with no accountability required.
Bottom line: can we believe anything that comes out of the Louisiana Department of Education’s administrative offices?
No wonder John White thinks he needs that $144,000 public relations mouthpiece.
The inmates are truly running the asylum.
Louisiana Voice 
White was not Superintendent, as you rightfully write, but he WAS in charge of the Recovery School District during the period when most of the illicit activities at the school took place. And your readers should note that Ollie Tyler also began an investigation of Kenilworth Science and Technology, which had a troubled history, in addition to a series of lawsuits, one of which was over a student who had a medical condition, known by the administration, which required that she be allowed to use the restroom whenever she needed. In spite of that condition, her teacher refused to let her leave to go to the restroom, and she, due to her condition, urinated on herself. She was forced to sit in her chair until the class let out. Lots of problems at Kenilworth… AND THE INVESTIGATION WAS NEVER COMPLETED! So, so records. It has been noted in a Channel 2 (WBRZ) news report, that the then RSD head over Baton Rouge schools notified Paul Pastorek of problems at Kenilworth. He was told to “take it easy on them and leave them alone.” Why was, and is, Kenilworth being protected?
They fired Jacob Landry to protect Erin Bendilly who was really in charge of all the charters and vouchers when the whole Abramson thing was going down. They were only just tranistioning Jacob into this role for a few months before he was booted.
Erin is the Governor’s mouthpiece and reported to be the true head of LDOE. She was appointed by the governor to blaze the trail for the charter and voucher explansion we are seeing now. She was in charge of Parental Options when much of this stuff was going on and she did the firing.
This seemed to get the media off the topic and Jacob Landry was promptly offered a higher pating position going from 99,500, (to avoid the 100,000 legilsative approval) to 100,500 in Jefferson Parish about a week later (and much closer to his geoprahic home) He was commuting from New Orleans to Baton Rouge every day prior to his “firing”
That’s the cool side of the story no one else has tried to tell. I was just about to write something up about it tonight when i saw you had started probing this issue again and since you have around 2000 times more readers than I do I thought it might get more airtime here.
I have never been able to understand why there hasn’t been an effort to really do more investigation into the operations and instruction that goes on at Kenilworth. I am glad you have resurfaced the issue. Based on what information was there initially, this school should have been scrutinized with a fine tooth comb. It still should be. In my opinion, a school that has ties with the Gulen Movement should be vetted with the highest degree of intensity. I hope we can get somewhere with it this time around. However, I do expect there will be more White lies.
Thanks Tom! The education tragedy will only get worse. BESE actions should be the subject of a special Attorney General investigation, which means I believe the La. Supreme Court will punt on the voucher question and allow Jindal to privatize our entire education system. Just too much tax money being given out by Jindal, and money always wins. rrt
It is so disheartening to see what is happening in our state. While I value quality educational experiences, I don’t understand how so many in Louisiana are blinded by the “greed” of education entrepreneurs who are making empty promises.
Thecamptoledo2012, I hate to disappoint you. Ms. Hill and I attempted to secure an AG’s opinion relative to rulemaking because we believe BESE is non-compliant with Administrative Procedures Act; the response from the AG’s office was an opinion could not be rendered to individual citizens. Opinions are generally rendered to elected officials. (WE are!) However, the response further suggested we had to secure BESE’s approval to seek an opinion. We would then need to provide copies of the minutes verifying BESE’s approval for the request. Consequently, I attempted to get BESE members to support a resolution seeking an AG’s opinion relative to the rulemaking process during today’s BESE meeting. My motion failed with Ms. Carolyn Hill and Walter Lee favoring an AG’s opinion.
Have our courageous leaders fled Louisiana?????
Maybe we just need new leaders?