The Project School debacle
Posted by David Hoppe on Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 3:00 PM
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"Meet the new boss," The Who's Pete Townshend once sang. "Same as the old boss."
Those lines have been roiling through my head in the days since Mayor Greg Ballard announced he wanted to close The Project School, one of the city's charter schools.
The Project School has had more than its share of problems. Of its 311 K-8 students, only 28.9 percent passed the latest round of ISTEP tests — one of the poorest showings of any school in the state. Financial management has not been a strong point, either. According to media reports, The Project School is millions in debt; it is alleged to have improperly used $63,500 in federal grant money to cover salaries and operational expenses.
Although The Project School disputes the interpretation of some of these numbers, they remain serious issues; they demand scrutiny and open th