CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: Pacific Collegiate Charter School

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: Pacific Collegiate Charter School

Pacific Collegiate Charter School

by The Perimeter Primate

h/t anonymous reader:

Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz, CA is highly ranked by Newsweek and USA Today for student performance. Critics charge that the school has never sought to address under-served and underachieving students. In a community with at 50% Hispanic population, PCS doesn't even register a single significant subgroup other than White (see Ed Data). It is widely held that the school skims top performing students from affluent families; performance results from the "who" not the "what". There is little innovation in the actual program other than it is AP intensive and requires parents to donate 40 hours/school year (and $3,000/student/year).
There is huge demand for lower grade openings; the annual lottery results in 400-500 applicants for as few as 50 open seats in the 7th-9th grades. However, attrition is rumored to be steep with

School for Arts in Learning

by The Perimeter Primate

h/t to a reader
Charter school pioneer gets FBI scrutiny: Posh living, finances eyed (The Washington Times, May 5, 2010)

Charter school pioneer L. Lawrence Riccio is known internationally as an influential voice for youths with disabilities, an innovator in special education and the arts. He's authored books, drives a Porsche, dines in style and travels abroad frequently.
But his vaunted standing was brought low by claims of malfeasance after he retired in June from the nonprofit group and arts-based charter school he headed in Washington, D.C., according to public records, educators and school board officials who have been questioned by the FBI and the District of Columbia's office of inspector general.
An independent auditor's report said that in the fall of 2008, the U.S. attorney's office issued a subpoena for school financial records related to Mr. Riccio's "alleged criminal activities." The report said the school he founded in 1998 — the School for Arts in Learning (SAIL) — was cooperating with the investigation.
A review by The Washington Times of records and interviews of more than a dozen people familiar with the investigation has exposed cracks in the fiscal oversight of the District's 57 public charter schools in a city known as the vanguard of the nation's charter school movement but with a history of unaccountability and shoddy oversight.
Questions also have surfaced over Mr. Riccio's suspected use of a school 

Ross Global Academy

by The Perimeter Primate

Charter School at Tweed Probed for Test Tampering (NY Sun, June 2, 2008)

The city's Department of Education is investigating a charter school housed in its own headquarters building following an allegation that student scores on a state test were doctored.
The person accused of test-tampering, Stephanie Clagnaz, left abruptly as Ross Global Academy's principal in the middle of May. She is at least the fifth head of school to leave Ross Global since it was founded two years ago.