CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: Ivy Academia Charter School

CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS: Ivy Academia Charter School

Ivy Academia Charter School

by The Perimeter Primate

IVY ACADEMY SLAPPED WITH 38 FRAUD COUNTS, June 6, 2010, Los Angeles Daily News
A husband-and-wife team that run a high-performing West Valley charter school were charged Thursday with 38 criminal counts alleging misuse of public funds, embezzling, money laundering and other crimes.
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Public Integrity Division alleges that Eugene Selivanov, 38, and his wife, Tatyana Berkovich, 32, who operate Ivy Academia Charter School, misused the school's public funds, at times shifting them to a private school the couple operates and at other times putting them to "personal use."
Ivy Academia Charter School is publicly funded and serves 1,100 students on four campuses in Woodland Hills, Winnetka, West Hills and Chatsworth from kindergarten to 12th grade.
The couple was charged with felony and misdemeanor crimes in connection with alleged thefts of more than $200,000, officials from the District Attorney's Office said. The Los Angeles Superior Court complaint details

Lack of oversight, resistance to regulation

by The Perimeter Primate

FAILURES RAISE QUESTIONS FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS, April 5, 2002, The New York Times

FRESNO, Calif.— After investigators for this fast-growing school district went in search of the 67 students who were, on paper, being educated at one of the experimental public schools known as charters, they found only 23 desks in the building. In Texas, an investigation turned up similar discrepancies and also found that tax money intended for charters was being used to buy Victoria's Secret lingerie. In Arizona, a charter opened its doors to students but did not have a sewer line for its restroom.
Texas, California and Arizona account for nearly 40 percent of the nation's charter schools, the publicly financed, tuition-free schools that operate independently of existing schools and school districts. Now, a decade after helping pioneer the charter concept, the three states are leading efforts to rein in their experimental schools.
''Most charters were started for the wrong reason -- to make money -- and most of them