Eviction Proceedings Started For Second Time; Will Regis Academy Lose Facility?

Camden Diocese Spokesman Peter Feuerherd has confirmed that on March 14, 2012 eviction proceedings were filed against Solid Rock Worship Center over the Holy Rosary Church complex, future home of the Regis Academy Charter School.  And this is not the first time.  An eviction lawsuit was settled in June of 2011 after Solid Rock failed to pay rent several months in a row.  This time around Mr. Feuerherd confirmed that Solid Rock is in arrears $20,000.


Adding fuel to the fire, I received an OPRA request today confirming that Regis Academy has yet to make the required corrections to the enrollment data that was submitted to the Office of Charter Schools on February 15th.  Lead Person Christian Barnes failed to provide the Office of Charter Schools with a district by district breakdown and instead just lumped all of the enrollment together.


Regis Academy has received not one, but THREE reminders from the Office of Charter Schools to submit the district by district breakdown.  Emails were sent on February 23rd and 28th and also on March 9th.  According to the NJDOE, as of today, the requested data has not been provided. Check it out:

No Enrollment Data From Regis


Between the eviction proceedings and the seeming refusal of Regis Academy to provide the district by district enrollment data as requested, it would seem that Amir Khan and Regis Academy are in a world of trouble.  


And it sure seems like Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf rolled the dice on the wrong charter application.  I can't help but think about how poorly the reviewers rated the application, yet somehow Cerf decided to give Regis Academy the green light.


And you wonder why I crack up when the NJDOE says things like this in a press release:

Under the Christie Administration, the Department has strengthened charter operations by:


Following a careful and stringent three-stage review and approval process for new charter school applicants to evaluate the quality of the proposed educational program, the capacity of the founding team to implement that program, and the need for the proposed school in the community. 


Except this really isn't funny at all and has very real consequences for the districts involved.

Cherry Hill has been forced to put aside almost $1,900,000 for this travesty.  And as reported in the Courier Post, as of February 15th, only five Cherry Hill students had submitted applications to attend Regis Academy.  


That comes to $380,444.67 per student.


Well, that seems fair.  

NJDOE Conducts A Careful And Stringent Approval Process? Now THAT Is Funny!

I had a bit of an outburst when I read this in today's NJDOE press release:


Under the Christie Administration, the Department has strengthened charter operations by:


Following a careful and stringent three-stage review and approval process for new charter school applicants to evaluate the quality of the proposed educational program, the capacity of the founding team to implement that program, and the need for the proposed school in the community. 


How then do they explain that Acting Commissioner Cerf, in the first round of applications he oversaw from start to finish, approved Regis Academy Charter School?  The same charter school that has managed to enroll only 37 students since Cerf approved it in September, while a petition urging the Governor and the Acting Commissioner to deny Regis it's final charter has gathered more than 2,000 signatures in 2 weeks.  Not to mention that the legislators representing Cherry Hill and Voorhees have come out against Regis and questions abound as to the real reasons for Regis' approval, especially when Regis' application wasn't well rated by reviewers. (Thanks Jazzman!)


Way to conduct a careful and stringent approval process that gauges the "need for the proposed school in the community" guys!


LOL

Regis Academy Districts… Ummm... Un-Expanded?

The Courier Post ran an article today stating that the NJDOE has denied Regis Academy Charter School's request to expand to districts other than Cherry Hill, Lawnside, Somerdale and Voorhees.  As I detailed in my last post, in a January 26th letter Amir Khan asked Deputy Commissioner Andy Smarick for permission to expand to other districts and gave estimated enrollment projections for the original four sending districts, as well as four more.  


Susan Bastnagle, Public Information Officer for the Cherry Hill Public Schools, confirmed in the article that just this week the NJDOE sent Cherry Hill a revised enrollment projection based on the numbers Khan proposed in the January 26th letter I received via OPRA.  

Bastnagel added that the district is still unsure of how to budget, because it received two more Regis enrollment projections from the DOE this week in addition to the original one of 169. This week’s numbers are 186, based on the district’s own enrollment data for the grades that would be operational at Regis this fall, and the 50 suggested by Khan. 

She said Cherry Hill Superintendent Maureen Reusche has asked the DOE which number it plans to use to determine the district’s payments to Regis, which are to begin July 15.

“We await the DOE’s guidance,” Bastnagel said.  (emphasis mine)

Really?  This is how the NJDOE functions?  The week before district budgets are due Cherry Hill gets not one but two enrollment projections and the NJDOE can't tell them which to use?  Based on the $1.9M for the original projection of 169 students, the NJDOE is telling Cherry Hill to budget somewhere between $562,100 for 50 kids or $2.1M for 186 kids.


Well, that's helpful. 

I have also confirmed with the Superintendent of Lawnside, Dr. Ronn Johnson, that Lawnside also received a revised enrollment projection based on Amir Khan's January 26th letter.  This ups Lawnside's total from $54,858 for 4 students to $262,112 for 20 students.  In 2010-2011 Lawnside had 283 students.  If Khan manages to enroll the 20 students he projects, that's 7% of Lawnside's student population and over 3% of their total budget based on the 2011-2012 projected budget numbers available on the districts website.

This makes it all the more ridiculous when Amir Khan is quoted in the Courier Post saying things like this:

Khan said he would like to open the school to students from other districts to help make the situation more palatable for Cherry Hill and Voorhees.

“It would ease the financial burden on them,” he said.

Especially when just two short months ago, in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer titled 

Even in Cherry Hill, schools fall short he said this:

The relatively affluent suburban school districts of Cherry Hill and Voorhees have nevertheless argued that because their students perform just fine on state tests, a charter school would be an unnecessary burden on their budgets. 

and this:

If 169 students decide to attend Regis next year, it will cost the Cherry Hill district a mere 1 percent of its budget. (emphasis mine)

Huh, doesn't sound like he is really too concerned about "easing the financial burden" on Cherry Hill schools, now does it?  In fact, it sounds like he feels entitled to that money somehow, and how dare those "affluent suburban school districts" fight back!  

And upping the ante for Lawnside sure isn't considerate of the financial burden on that small district.  

So why is Amir Khan asking the NJDOE to pull kids from other districts?  Could it have more to do with this?

The Cherry Hill district has learned, through an Open Public Records Act request, that just five of the applicants were from Cherry Hill as of Feb. 15.

FIVE!  Cherry Hill is being asked to budget perhaps as much as $2.1M for the 2012-2013 school year when in five months Regis Academy has received applications from FIVE students. 

Based on my original OPRA request I also received an email from the Office of Charter Schools to Amir Khan letting him know that the enrollment data he provided was not properly prepared and submitted.  The NJDOE requires a district by district breakdown of the enrollment, but Lead Person Christian Barnes only provided all ten districts on one spread sheet.  Here is the email:

Office of Charter Schools Email to Khan
I checked with the OPRA custodian yesterday and she said that to date they have not received a response from Regis Academy.


I guess we'll just have to take Amir Khan's word for it when he tells the Courier Post:

Khan said that as of Thursday, there were 65 applications in — just over 50 percent of them from the original four districts.

And don't miss this gem:

Our recruitment numbers are on track. In fact, we’re ahead of the game.


WHAT?!? 


Need I remind Amir Khan of the recruitment timeline in his own application?  Please see pages 126 and 127:
Regis Enrollement Timeline

So between a press release on October 10th and the initial enrollment submission on February 15th, Regis Academy was supposed to conduct Information Sessions throughout the region, post admission information, make applications available, and conduct three enrollment periods with lotteries if needed.  


What happened?  How did all those months of work only turn up 37 kids, and most of all, how does this demonstrate that Regis Academy is "on track?"  Sounds more like they have crashed into the bleachers...


Notice that after February 15th Regis is supposed to move on to hiring staff, notifying districts of transportation needs and adopting and submitting their budget to the NJDOE by the end of this month.  How in the world can they do this based on the enrollment of 37 students? 


Even if Amir Khan is being truthful when he states in the Courier Post that he now has "65 applications in — just over 50 percent of them from the original four districts," that still puts him back to about 37 students!


Also notice that June 1st is the final day for late enrollments.  If Regis needs 90% enrollment from it's four host districts to get it's final charter, that means they will need to enroll another 188 kids between now and June 1st.    


Now here is the $64,000 question.  If the NJDOE denied Amir Khan's request to expand Regis' sending districts, why did the NJDOE send out revised enrollment estimates based on Amir Khan's projections in his January 26th letter?  


Cherry Hill confirmed in the Courier Post article that they received the revised bill for 50 students, and the Lawnside Superintendent confirmed to me in an email that he received the revised estimate of 20 students on Tuesday!  


Now that they have gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar, the NJDOE is saying, "No, no, no, they can't make any amendments to their application!"  But notice how in the letter to Smarick this is EXACTLY what Amir Khan asks to do:


With the expanded definition of a contiguous District in Region of Residence being explored, I am submitting this letter of request asking you to explore the possibilities of the Regis Academy Charter School being able to amend its application to expand our District in Region of Residence. (emphasis mine)


Isn't it funny how my OPRA request didn't turn up a response to Amir Khan's letter from Deputy Commissioner Smarick or any other NJDOE employee?  So let's review what has transpired between January 26th and now and see if the NJDOE has been living up to their claim that an application can't be amended.   

At the public information session on February 16th Amir Khan told those in attendance that Regis was given permission to expand it's districts.  He even bragged that now he could take kids from Hoboken if he wanted!  


The letter from the Office of Charter Schools on February 23rd says NOTHING about limiting the districts, just that a district by district breakdown is needed.  


The districts of Cherry Hill and Lawnside confirmed that just this week they received revised bills based on the numbers in Amir Khan's letter.  


Kind of flies in the face of the NJDOE's claim that they denied Amir Khan's request and that an application can't be amended, doesn't it? 


I suppose this is just par for the course.  Acting Commissioner Cerf's NJDOE does whatever they want, whenever they want, to whatever district they want, the laws and regulations that govern charter schools be damned!  All the while coddling and cajoling unproven charter operators.


Until they get caught.  


Which is why I won't be going away any time soon...

Regis Academy Hires Closed Charter VP, NJDOE Opens Enrollment Beyond Four Districts

Last night the Regis Academy held an information session that was attended by approximately 32 prospective parents.  Some Cherry Hill residents that have been vocal opponents of the charter school also attended the meeting.  One that is known to Amir Khan was pulled aside before the meeting and told that if she caused any trouble the cops would be called.  Another was asked if she was from the press.


Amir Khan is the president of the Regis Academy Board of Trustees.  Is this how he intends to run his Board of Trustee Meetings?  With threats of police action for anyone that is not a supporter or has questions about how the Regis Academy is spending public tax dollars?


Leading the meeting was Christian Barnes who was introduced as the Lead Person for Regis Academy.  Mr. Barnes was the Vice Principal of the Trenton Community Charter School.  He was fired only months before the charter was closed for good for poor performance.

Trenton Community Charter was founded in 1997. In March the DOE placed the school on 90-day probation, saying it had repeatedly failed to meet federal testing standards and needed to implement a turnaround plan.

According to state data, only 38 percent of the school’s elementary students passed the state language test in 2008, and the figure fell to 15 percent the following year.

Nearly half passed the math exam in 2008, but in 2009 the figure fell to 35 percent.

In the application The Regis Academy budget includes a paid position School Leader/Curriculum Director during the start up phase, and then a Vice Principle for Curriculum and Instruction once the charter is up and running.  Sounds like Mr. Barnes got himself a new Vice Principal position despite the closure of his last charter.

Vice Principal?


In addition, attendees at last night's meeting reported that Amir Khan informed the audience that "just yesterday" the NJ Department of Education told him that Regis Academy does not have to restrict their enrollment to the four sending districts they were approved for; Voorhees, Somerdale, Lawnside and Cherry Hill.  They can now accept kids from anywhere in the state. 


Here's what the charter school regulations have to say about what might have happened "just yesterday" to bring about this change.


(k) Prior to the granting of the charter, the Commissioner shall assess the student composition of a charter school and the segregative effect that the loss of the students may have on its district of residence. The assessment shall be based on the enrollment from the initial recruitment period pursuant to N.J.A.C. 6A:11-4.4(a) and (b). The charter school shall submit data for the assessment: 

1. In a format prescribed by the Commissioner; and

2. No later than 4:15 P.M. on February 15. (emphasis mine)


In the Regis Application February 15 is listed as the date their "initial enrollment count" is due to the NJDOE.
Timeline for Enrollment
  

Let's recap, shall we?


Regis had to submit their "enrollment from the initial recruitment period" or "initial enrollment count" to the NJDOE on February 15.  On February 16 they held a public information session and told the audience "just yesterday" the NJDOE opened their enrollment to kids from anywhere in the state.  


Anybody else thinking that the initial enrollment count wasn't looking too good?

Here's the question I have for Carlos Perez and the NJDOE.  What happened to parents "voting with their feet?"  If Amir Khan is having trouble filling 250 seats, 50 each in K-4, with students from the four towns he applied for, why has the NJDOE already opened admissions to other districts? 

In the end, parents vote with their feet. A charter school that fills up with students is one that was wanted by the community. If parents didn’t want more options, then a charter school wouldn’t survive. 

There is more than enough evidence that the Regis Academy is not wanted or needed by the community, and that it has not been proven to be "high-quality and innovative."  Yet somehow it "survives."

While the founders of Regis may be "determined" to see their charter open, NJDOE spokesman Justin Barra said something that the opponents of the Regis Academy need to be paying close attention to.  

“We will review their progress toward opening, as we do every approved charter school, in the summer before officially approving opening in September 2012,” Barra said.


The approval of Regis' charter DOES NOT mean that it will open in September.  In fact check out the Charter School Fact Sheet.  Five other charter applications were approved but never granted their final charter.  Regis must submit their final paperwork on June 30 to receive their final charter on July 15.  


If there is anything I have learned from my experiences battling Tikun Olam, it is that the opponents of the Regis Academy are going to need to remain vigilant, because the NJDOE's Office of Charter Schools gives unproven charter operators every advantage over communities and districts.  


Regis appears to be a partnership of an unproven charter school operator and a failed charter school operator, and they STILL seem to have the advantage over the district schools and parents.   


Unbelievable.

No Transparency At NJDOE Or For-Profit White Hat. What Are They Hiding?

Ten charter schools in Ohio that contract with White Hat Management, aren't too happy.   The saga is being covered extensively by StateImpact Ohio.

White Hat has been sued by the governing boards of some of the schools it manages. According to the lawsuit, White Hat collects at least 95 percent of the schools’ tax funding. It also owns everything from computers to student files. The governing authorities of the schools involved in the lawsuit would like to gain access to the materials and equipment and to decide if they want White Hat to continue to operate their schools.

For the 2010-11 school year, no Ohio White Hat school earned higher than the equivalent of a “C” on its state report card. Most were rated “D” or “F.”

And it looks like the lawsuit is heating up.  Today the Columbus Dispatch reported that:

Common Pleas Judge John F. Bender gave White Hat until March 6 to provide tax returns, building leases, transactions with its subsidiaries and other information to 10 charter schools that had contracted with the firm for management services.

“Public money must be accounted for,” Bender wrote in a 19-page order.

The judge asked attorneys for both sides to meet with him March 7 to discuss whether White Hat has complied.

For nearly two years, the company has fought against disclosing the information, arguing that it was proprietary. (emphasis mine)

Make sure to read the comment section of the Dispatch article.  The people of Ohio clearly see that they are being taken for a ride by this for-profit management company, and that their legislators are allowing it to happen.  I have written about Governor Christie's desire to allow for-profits to manage charters in New Jersey.  If he has his way, New Jersey will not be far behind Ohio.

Notice how White Hat is claiming they don't have to open their books because the information is "proprietary?"  

This reminds me of the NJDOE's refusal to release charter application reviewer comments.  I have been denied this information several times (I am expecting the third denial early this week!)   The reason for the denial is that the information is "deliberative." 

Let's break this down a bit.  

In all of our research we have learned a lot about the application review process, both at the state level for charters and at the federal level for grants.  (And by we I mean all of the fine folks I have been working with to battle Tikun Olam.)  In comparing these processes one thing is very clear. For all the problems with the federal process, it is COMPLETELY transparent.  When you file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for a grant application, whether it was approved or denied, you also receive the reviewers scores and comments.  This is because the applications are scored, and the highest scorers get the money.  It's just that simple.  

But the public is not allowed to see reviewer comments on charter applications.  Applicants can see them, and the proposed Quest Academy even posted them on their website, but concerned citizens or districts that want to see them to better understand how the NJDOE is making their decisions are denied.  

So why can we see the reviewer comments on a federal grant application but we can't see the reviewer comments on a state charter application?  Simple.  

In New Jersey the decisions are not made based on the reviews.  The decisions are left to the Commissioner of Education.  

This is why the reviewer comments are considered deliberative.  They are not the final deciding factor.  New Jersey's charter school law gives Acting Commissioner Cerf the power.  

Jersey Jazzman did a great write up on this topic.  The only detail he missed was that the reviewer comments on the Regis Academy application were not released in response to an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request.  Cherry Hill did OPRA them, but they were denied.  The reviewer comments were part of documents released for their appeal of the approval of Regis Academy.  

And clearly it is a good thing they appealed, since the reviews clearly show that the application was not scored well by the three reviewers.  This is from Cherry Hill Superintendent Dr. Reusche's Assembly Education Committee testimony:

In attempting to determine why this charter was approved, we filed an OPRA request for the application review sheets; the DOE denied our OPRA request, but later released the review sheets to our solicitor as part of the official record on appeal. Here’s what we found: Three reviewers reviewed the application, giving scores of “Meets the Standard,” “Approaches the Standard,” or “Does Not Meet the Standard” in 14 categories. Three reviewers, 14 categories, for a total of 42 indicators. Regis’s application was deemed to meet the standard in just 20 of the 42 possible indicators. That’s a score of 47.6%. Shouldn’t a charter school application be subject to at least the 80% standard that school districts must achieve in the NJQSAC review? 

If we could see ALL of the reviews of ALL of the applications that were considered in that round, how many denied applications would we find that scored much higher than Regis?  It's hard to imagine that all 56 of the applications that were denied in that round scored lower than 47.6%.  So why did Regis get approved?

The Education Law Center and ACLU-NJ sued the NJDOE for the names of the individuals reviewing charter school applications and ultimately the information was released to Senator Gill via an OPRA request.  In the last round of approvals the NJDOE released the list of reviewers without any fanfare in their official press release.  But apparently the ratings of those reviewers mean very little. 

Cerf is "The Decider".  

What we really need is for someone with some power to OPRA the reviewer comments for ALL of those applications, and to do it in a very public way.  Individuals like me and school districts like Cherry Hill are easy to deny information.  

Any takers?

Can a Man Of God Run a School For The State?

Jersey Jazzman and I have been using our blogs in the last week or so to raise questions about the Regis Academy that was approved by Acting Commissioner Cerf for Cherry Hill, Voorhees, Lawnside and Somerdale.  Jersey Jazzman came up with a great timeline that raises some serious questions as to how and why this application made it through the supposedly tough new application process.

I have some additional questions.

The first question stems from the videos that surfaced of Amir and Aughtney Kahn relishing the defeat of the marriage equality bill and vowing to continue to fight against the bill any time it comes before the legislature.  If you haven't seen them yet, you can catch them here and here.

It is important to note that each and every applicant for a charter school, including Amir and Aughtney Khan, must sign a Statement of Assurances when they apply for a charter that says the charter:

(W)ill be open to all students, on a space available basis, and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age, ancestry, athletic performance, special need, proficiency in the English language or a foreign language, or academic achievement.  


Is it conceivable that two pastors that feel so strongly that the LGBT community should not have the same rights as the rest of us would be able to admit gay students to their school and treat them equally?  Or hire gay teachers?  Or make gay parents feel welcome?


And then today I saw on an online petition (go sign it!) on Twitter against the National Heritage Academy which is trying  to set up a charter against community wishes in Chapel Hill, NC.  This is the charter the Ragin' Grannies were protesting.  


The petition includes a quote from self-described evangelical J.C. Huizenga (cousin of billionaire H. Wayne Huizenga)."   He is the man behind NHA (and big surprise that there's another billionaire in the mix, huh?)


Asked by the Wall Street Journal whether he would hire a homosexual to teach, Huizenga said, "Personally, I don’t believe a gay teacher is an appropriate teacher for a child."


NHA, which currently lists 71 locations on it's website, has also been in hot water for promoting religious activities and teaching creationism.  From a New York Times article in 2000: 

National Heritage has been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan over what the group says is the company's promotion of religious activities, including prayer sessions for parents, in a charter school there. National Heritage says it provides parents with a meeting room and some have prayed there, but not with the school's sanction. The suit is pending.

And this from a Wall Street Journal article on the topic from 1999:

National Heritage policy is to treat both evolution and the Biblical creation story as theories. Carolyn Thompson, a fifth-grade science teacher at Knapp Charter Academy and an evangelical Christian, says she believes in "creationism and then evolution from that point on" - and teaches it that way in class.

Becky Bullen, a fourth-grade teacher at Knapp, told her students about dinosaurs last year - and learned a lesson herself. Some parents protested that fossil evidence of dinosaurs, which became extinct 65 million years ago, contradicted their Biblical belief that God created the world 6,000 years ago. Since then, Ms. Bullen has dropped the dinosaurs and says, "I basically try to steer clear of any hot issues."


No hotter issue in public education than dinosaurs...


And this is from the same Wall Street Journal article:


Charter schools, which operate independently of local school districts, were intended to create a choice for parents discontented with traditional public schools. Under Michigan law, charter schools get almost as much per capita funding as area public schools - nearly $6,000 in National Heritage's case.

It didn't occur to many people that tuition-burdened parents at religious schools would also welcome an alternative, particularly one featuring small classes, strict discipline and moral education. But today, charters are taking market share from fundamentalist schools, their predecessors as the hottest phenomenon in American education. And charters' smudging of the separation of church and state has stirred up an unlikely combination of opponents: private religious competitors and civil-liberties advocates.

"Charter schools are often a ruse for the kind of schooling that the Supreme Court has said violates the Constitution," says Kary Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which is suing National Heritage for promoting religion.

About one-tenth of the nation's 400,000-plus charter-school students come from private schools. But at National Heritage, 19.7 percent are private-school transfers. And that doesn't count any of the 17 percent or so of the student body who started at National Heritage in kindergarten, and might otherwise have opted for private school.

The phenomenon goes beyond National Heritage. At Marvin Winans Academy, one of several Detroit charters started by ministers, one-fourth of the students transferred from religious schools. The Rev. Robert J. Coverson, who runs a small Baptist school in Detroit, says he may have to close it because he has lost half of his students to charters. 


Now, I understand these articles are from more than 10 years ago, but there is no reason to think these exact same issues aren't occurring here in NJ in 2012.  If anything, the example of the Regis Academy is more egregious. 


You have two pastors closing their private Christian school to open a publicly funded charter.  The charter will be located on the same premises as the pastor's church.  Are we to believe that a large portion of the parents that paid to go to Children of Promise will not be the first in line to attend Regis for free?  

Not to mention, Children Of Promise was charging $5,400 per child as a private school.  But Regis Academy will be allotted 90% of the per pupil funding of the sending districts.  Let's do the math.  The Cherry Hill district stated they have been billed $9,551 for each student that chooses to attend Regis, based on the preliminary estimates from the NJDOE.  That's a nice jump of $4,151 per child in tuition for the Khans, and all they had to do was apply for a charter!  

Are we really expected to believe that they can just switch gears from a curriculum that is based on the teaching of bible verses to a secular curriculum with no religious content at all?  This is the program description from the website for Children of Promise:


Elementary Education: Bible is taught in a deeper level at these grades. Oral recitation of memory verses is integral at this stage as it will greatly aid in their cognitive and memory recall development.  History, geography, health, safety, manners, arithmetic (number recognition to the hundred thousands, metric system, carrying, borrowing, story problems, multiple combinations and estimations) are just a few of the things your child will be learning.


When Khan responded to being awarded the charter by the NJDOE he said:


I thank God that we got approved


And here's a video (that is also backed up if it gets taken down…) of the interior of the school.  There's an awful lot of religious stuff that's gotta come down for this to be a public school. 

like the music?

Remind me again how this will be a secular school?

Amir Khan Doesn't Want YOU to Have Local Control!

Apparently the Khan's have not only been to Trenton to deny the LGBT community the right to marry, they have also made the trip to lobby the state to deny voters the right to control their school budgets and keep out unwanted charters.  Like his.

It make perfect sense that he would be against local control.

The way the system is set up works so well for him and the other members of the Black Minister's Council, why wouldn't he defend how the state is running the show!

Check out this YouTube video, PK on 3852.  Notice it's PK, not AK.  This is coming to you from Pastor Khan, not Amir Khan.  He is delivering this message straight to other pastors and the members of their churches.  (And don't worry, if it gets taken down I have it backed up…)

Pastor Khan encourages the pastors to come to Trenton and asks their congregants to contact their legislators to make sure that YOU won't have local control over charter schools in your community.

Let your legislators know exactly how you feel, and let them know you are in support of charter schools, and you are not in support, you oppose this bill, you want to keep it in the hands of the state, and not the local township. -- Pastor Khan

And then he prays that those pastors will let their members use their smart phones to call and email their legislators to oppose the bill right in the middle of their sunday sermons!

Now check this one out…

If we have a couple hundred churches and pastors rally behind us, and each one of us as pastors make the phone calls, send out an email, and we get our congregation members to do the same, we can bombard the senators and the speaker with thousands and thousands of phone calls and emails, that will put enough pressure to bring about change. -- Pastor Khan

Now here is my favorite part.  Did you catch that when he is talking about local control the decision should be in the hands of the state, not the local township.  But when he is talking about school choice, he says:

I believe that school choice should be in the hands of not the politicians or the government or the city, but back in the hands of the parents. 

What it REALLY sounds like to me is what Pastor Khan believes is that decisions about public education should be based on whatever is best for HIM and whatever enables HIM to re-open his private school as a charter with public money.  And he's not afraid to lobby Trenton for what's best for HIM.

Funny, looks like Khan could lose his tax exempt status if he get's caught doing it:

A church or religious organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation .

Churches and religious organizations may, however, involve themselves in issues of public policy without the activity being considered as lobbying . For example, churches may conduct educational meetings, prepare and distribute educational materials, or otherwise consid- er public policy issues in an educational manner without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status.

Uh oh PASTOR Khan.

Let's get back to how Khan got his charter for a minute though.

When the approval of Regis Academy was announced in September of 2011 Jessica Calefati reported:

Amir Khan, the principal founder of Regis Academy Charter School in Cherry Hill, said earning approval was an "honor."

"I thank God that we got approved," said Khan, the senior pastor at Cherry Hill’s Solid Rock Worship Center who also runs a private, Christian school associated with the church. "We applied last year, but our first application was denied."

He really should have thanked Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf.  Regis Academy's approval was one of only four that round; the first round COMPLETELY overseen by Cerf.  In the press release to announce the decisions it was stated that:

The Department has expanded its strategies for growing the state’s charter sector and increasing the number of high-quality seats available to students.  One shift in focus includes expanding efforts to attract high-quality charter applicants.

Which "expanded strategy" allowed for Amir Khan to be considered a "high-quality applicant?"

Guess only Acting Commissioner Cerf and the Governor know for sure.  But when Khan is on the dais, and the Governor preposterously claims not to know him, it sure makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Who is Amir Khan? WHERE is Amir Khan!?!

At a Town Hall meeting in Voorhees, New Jersey yesterday several vocal Voorhees and Cherry Hill residents challenged Governor Christie about the approval of the Regis Academy Charter School.  The Rev. Amir Khan is the lead founder of Regis Academy and also the senior pastor of the Solid Rock Worship Center, which will house the charter. 

Regis Academy was approved in September of 2011 as one of only four charters approved in that round of applications.  The New Jersey Department of Education said the four approvals were a result of a rigorous review process and they were confident the four schools would offer students a great education on day one of the school year.”

 In New Jersey Monthly however, Sara Butrymowicz reported that David Sciarra of the Education Law Center felt the low number of approvals raised “a lot of red flags of what’s really going on behind closed doors at the (New Jersey) Department of Education.  Because of the lack of public discourse about it (and) refusal to be open and transparent, the public is left in the dark about what happened here.”

In October, John Mooney of NJ Spotlight wrote a piece titled Church, State and Charter Schools, in which he stated that the Rev. Reginald Jackson helped steer four charter applications from pastors on the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, of which he is president.  One of these applications was for the Regis Academy charter. 

And yesterday the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Khan has said he sits on a committee of African American pastors that he said has met frequently with Christie on the issue of charter schools. 

An Asbury Park Press reporter detailed a heated exchange between Governor Christie and one of those four vocal residents, Alan Erlich of Cherry Hill about the Governor’s relationship to Kahn:

But after Erlich charged the charter school’s approval was a favor for a Christie supporter, the governor denied the claim.

“Who are you talking about?” asked Christie, who went on to say he does not know Amir Khan, a pastor who is organizing the school at a church complex in the Ashland area. “I haven’t given one friend a charter school.”

  The exchange is already memorialized on YouTube, like so many other clashes between Christie and audience members.  

What may make this one particularly interesting is that just after Governor Christie says he doesn’t know who Amir Khan is, the camera pans back, and who is sitting behind Governor Christie on the dais?  Amir Khan.  Sitting right underneath the “Jersey Comeback” banner.  Here is a still:

The woman sitting to Khan’s left is his wife; pastor Aughtney Khan, also a founder of Regis Academy.  

The pastors Khan, founders of the Regis Academy Charter School, sitting not just in the audience, but on the dais behind the governor, makes it awfully hard to believe that Regis Academy was not one of only four approvals in September because of pastor Khan’s connections to Rev. Jackson, the Black Minister’s Council and Governor Christie himself.   Especially with his repeated pronouncements yesterday that not only does Cherry Hill not need a charter school, he has told Acting Commissioner Cerf that charters should be focused predominately in failing districts.  Oh, and let's not forget, he has no say in what charters do and don't get approved?  Then why was Regis Academy approved in Cherry Hill?

Looks like in education the Governor's Jersey Comeback will be stronger and better for those with connections to the Governor.

UPDATE:  I have confirmed with multiple individuals in attendance at the Town Hall Meeting that Amir Khan was seen behind the curtain that was behind the platform.  Governor Christie came out from behind the same curtain.  Khan was allegedly behind the curtain for some time, and only came out and took his seat under the Jersey Comeback banner 5 minutes before the Governor.