Here in Montgomery, rumors about LEAD Academy charter school, which opened this fall, have swirled for weeks.  About discipline issues, lack of resources, class sizes, teachers quitting, students withdrawing, etc.  And the rumor mill really cranked up when the school...

There was a pep rally, complete with high school cheerleaders and a pep band, at Chatom Elementary on Friday morning, Oct. 18, even though the K-4 school has no football team.  And there was good cause as this is when students at this Washington County school got the...

At its essence, the charter commission is actually a bank.  And every taxpayer in Alabama has a stake in how they conduct business.. What the charter commission really does is decide how taxpayer money will be invested, to the tune of about $8,500 per student who...

While the handful of supporters of Woodland Prep charter school in Washington County insist that all they want is better education opportunities for local students, their actions tell a far different story. For example, the Oct. 11 edition of The Washington County...

It was Monday, September 30 and right there is front of me, only 25 feet away, stood Soner Tarim, the wizard  of charter schools, all the way from Houston, TX (even thought he said in the meeting he lives in Montgomery). It was the most recent meeting of the state...

We've all seen them.  Folks who look down their nose at people from Alabama.  Their disdain is evident.  Like, "What the heck am I doing among all these rednecks?  Why they wouldn't know a martini from a Martian." They feel superior.  They can say anything and the...

Terri Michael is a member of the Birmingham city school board.  She works hard to keep a watchful eye on things involving that school system.  She is very concerned about things she has learned about the push for charter schools there.  In the article below, which was...

Is Nichole Ivey the principal at Montgomery's LEAD Academy charter school--or is she not? This subject was raised at the Sept. 30 meeting of the state charter  school commission.  LEAD board chair Charlotte Meadows told the commission that Ivey was no longer the...

Josh Moon has been an investigative reporter for years.  First for The Montgomery Advertiser, today he writes for The Alabama Political Reporter.  Never one to shy away from exposing the underbelly of political--and other-shenanigans--Moon lets the chips fall where...

The newly re-constituted state charter school commission met in Montgomery on Sept 30 and one thing is quite clear.  There is a new sheriff in town. The state school board replaced four incumbent commission members on Aug. 8, one of whom was chairman Mac Buttram. ...

Deception and false info have been standard operating procedure for those promoting Woodland Prep charter in Washington County since the get go. They have used bogus letters of support, fake proficiency rates, unverifiable numbers and listed non-existent "team...

"There are "no measurable differences" between the performance of charter schools and traditional public schools on national reading and math assessments from 2017, a finding that persists when parents' educational attainment were factored into the results." This is...

After thousands of miles and visits with countless teachers. principals and superintendents.  After sitting in school board meetings from one end of Alabama to the other (including some when I was a member of the Montgomery school board) and seeing it all from the...

It's damn hard to admit that your baby is ugly.  If you don't think so, then you should have been at the Montgomery County school board meeting on Sept. 24 when this group voted to let the Montgomery Education Foundation turn two elementary schools and one junior high...

We've all heard someone say something and immediately did a double take.  And we say to ourselves, did I just hear what I think I heard? This was certainly my reaction the first time I heard what Soner Tarim, the Woodland Prep "education consultant," said when...

My last post was about University charter school on the campus of the University of West Alabama.  As I wrote about the methodical approach they took to building public support, about the $350,000 they had pledged to the school before they applied to the state for...

The University of West Alabama in Livingston, the county seat of Sumter County, faced a dilemma.  It was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit faculty to come to their school.  The reason?  The local school system.. College professors value education for their...

Editor's note: Diane Ravitch is probably the best known voice in the U.S. who is a constant critic of what is today loosely clustered into "education reform."   A native of Houston, she is an education historian by training.  She was an assistant U.S. Secretary of...

Illinois passed a charter school law in 1996.  Today there are nearly 70,000 students in charter schools in Illinois.  However, all is not well there. In fact, the governor recently signed into law a bill abolishing the state's charter school commission.  Here is a...

The Alabama Education Association filed suit against Woodland Prep and their education "consultant" Soner Tarim in Washington County Circuit Court on Aug.  2.  The suit charges that both the charter board and Tarim have committed fraud through the use of both...

Sweet Jesus.  It was hot, like really, really hot.  But what do you expect on an August afternoon in the middle of a football field just 90 miles from the Gulf of Mexico? I was there to watch the 2019 version of the Fruitdale Pirates practice.  Fruitdale is one of...

While many states have had charter schools for 20 years or longer, Alabama did not pass a charter law until 2015 and only two were in operation in the 2018-19 school year. Minnesota was the first state to pass a charter law in 1991.  California followed in 1992. ...

The state charter commission held their organizational meeting on August 27, 2015.  At best, one can only conclude that they have conducted business since then in a very haphazard manner. For instance, a close examination of commission minutes (some of which are...

The state school board voted today (August 8) on six openings for the 10-member state charter school commission.  They picked five new members.  Two "incumbents," Tommy Ledbetter of Madison County and Melissa McInnis of Montgomery, were replaced.  Only "incumbent"...

I made my first visit to Washington County concerning the Woodland Prep charter last April.  From the get-go, something did not seem right. What in the world is a guy from Texas doing in tiny Chatom, Al wanting to open a charter school in an area where school age...

The charter commission should have 10 members.  But it presently only has nine since Chad Flincher resigned in March.  (The charter law says vacancies will be filled within 60 days.  But why pay attention to the law?) Of the remaining nine members, five are serving...

Attorneys for the Alabama Education Association filed suit in Circuit Count in Washington County August 2 alleging that Soner Tarim, the Texan with the management agreement with Woodland Prep, has submitted false information to the state charter school commission on...

Call it a day late and a dollar short, but at the August 2 meeting of the state charter school commission members raised questions about what little info they have about the financial situation of Woodland Prep charter in Washington County and their budget numbers....

Anyone submitting an application for a charter school to the charter school commission is bound and determined to show that they are filling a need.  And it is the duty of the commission to determine if this need really exists--not just rubber stamp any application...

Josh Moon has been a journalist for two decades.  Once with the Montgomery Advertiser, he can now be found on the pages  of the Alabama Political Reporter. Never one for beating around the bush, Moon has taken dead aim at the charter law passed in 2015.  When first...

Jan Resseger is a longtime public school advocate.  Before retiring she worked with the United Church of Christ to improve public schools by reducing standardized  testing, calling attention to opportunity gaps that confront many children and advocating for schools...

California has long been a hot bed for charter schools.  As of the 2017-18 school year, there were charters in 54 of the state's 58 counties with more than 628,000 students. And some of the folks running these schools are making out like bandits according to the San...

Josh Moon was a reporter for The Montgomery Advertiser for many years.  Today he writes for The Alabama Political Reporter. He has once again taken a look at the charter school mess in Washington County.  But what jumped out at me in his latest article is his...

Once upon a time it was common to hear someone say, "That's the $64 question."  Meaning that this was the question no one could answer.  As in, "How does your mama make such great biscuits?"  In my case, even mama could not answer this question because there was no...

Long ago a friend loved to say, "You got to dig where the taters are."  In other words, you have to have a market to be successful. But numbers from the University of Alabama tell us there are not many taters where Woodland Prep in Washington County is trying to dig. ...

When Soner Tarim pleaded his case for four new charter schools in Austin, TX on June 14, the Texas school board was not impressed and voted 8-5 to deny his application.  Four Republicans and four Democrats turned him down. Yes, the same Soner Tarim who has management...

It’s reasonable to think there might be some controversy about any new school. Maybe where it is located, what it is named, who the principal may be, what courses will be taught? But seldom do you expect the wholesale turmoil that hit rural Washington County, AL when...

Winston County is a small, rural county in northwest Alabama.  Double Springs, with just over 1,000 residents, is the county seat.  Its "claim to fame" is the fact that citizens here were very opposed to Alabama withdrawing from the Union during the Civil War.  When...

Unity School Services is the education management organization, created by Soner Tarim, signed on to run the new Woodland Prep charter school in Washington County and LEAD Academy in Montgomery.  Documentary film maker Mark Hall of Austin, TX has spent years following...

Lord only knows how many hours I have spent in the last three months or so digging  deeper and deeper into the charter mess in Washington County.  And have written more blog posts about it than most readers probably have cared to read.. But those who know me either...

Alabama is one of the new kids on the block when it comes to charter schools, having only passed a law allowing these schools in 2015.  Which says to many that we would be wise to take some lessons from states who have played the charter game much longer than we have....

Our Montgomery lawmakers often labor long and hard at drafting a bill--and then ignoring what they wrote later on.  There is no better example of this than the charter school law sponsored by Senator Del Marsh and passed in 2015. This law sets up a 10-member charter...

As the debacle with Woodland Prep in Washington County continues and as the state charter commission resembles a lap dog more than a watch dog, questions keep piling up in my mind. Soner Tarim, the self-proclaimed education guru from Texas, who owns Unity School...

When the senate sent its education budget to the house during the past legislative session, the line item for the charter school commission was increased from $200,000 to $900.000 and there was an additional $500,000 for New Schools for Alabama. I could not find...

Pat Hardy of Fort Worth has served on the Texas State Board of Education since 2002.  She has been re-elected five times.  A Republican, she has more than 30 years’ experience in education. She has received a bushel basket full of honors and awards along the way....

Editor's note: Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group, more commonly known as AL.com.  He has never shied from calling out things that make no sense to him.  He does just that in this recent article about the state charter school...

Since Soner Tarim of Sugarland, TX has management contracts for both Woodland Prep and LEAD Academy charter schools, I watched with great interest when he appeared before the Texas Board of Education, on June 14, trying to get approval to open eight new charter...