In early November, the Miller-McCoy Denver Board of directors decided to surrender the school's charter and withdraw plans to replicate the LA Recovery Zone charter school previously led by new Delaware DOE PZ director, Keith Sanders and co-founder Tiffany Hardrick, who also relocated as Assistant Superintendent of Newark, NJ Public Schools.
The new Miller-McCoy Charter was slated to open in Denver in August 2013.
Keith Sanders opens a school in Louisiana and works to expand his model to Colorado: Bring me your boys, we'll nurture them, teach them, turn them into graduates, make them men of distinction and oh, by the way, I got a better job in Delaware so you're on your own. Gee, I wonder if this will be the legacy Sanders leaves our children?
But, let's be fair, while Sander's exit may have killed the Denver charter, his MMA partner left the LA charter in a bit of a lurch, too. Tiffany Hardrick's brother, Bobby, owned the bus company with which the school had contracts for student transportation, a clear violation of Louisiana Revised Statutes Title 42, Public Officers and Employees Chapter 15 Code of Governmental Ethics Part 2, Ethical Standards for Public Servants. MMA and B. Hardrick agreed that the last day of service would be Nov. 2, 2012. On Oct. 29, B. Hardrick ceased to serve MMA's students, leaving families and children with no transportation to school. MMA has since resecured the services of Hammond Transportation, the company that lost the contract to Bobby Hardrick's company. MMA is now in the process of self-reporting this ethics violation.
And I'd like to dispel one other Sander/Hardrick/MMA myth. Miller-McCoy claims a 100% 2012 graduation rate. "The founders' efforts resulted in groundbreaking achievements for the Class of 2012. Each of the 72 seniors in Miller-McCoy Academy's first graduating class received college acceptances to 27 colleges and more than $420,000 in college scholarship offers."
However, Miller-McCoy enrolled 117 students into its 1st 9th grade in 2008. They graduated 72. What happened to the other 45 students? Hello? 72 is not 100% of anything. In fact, according to the study of the data that the link above takes you to, Miller-McCoy flagged for disappearing students. All that glitters is not gold, as they say.
And one last thing - All of these problems pile on atop of a high-stakes test cheating scandal involving the founders of Miller-McCoy.
------------------------
No comments: