{"id":5120,"date":"2009-07-22T07:18:22","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T12:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5120"},"modified":"2009-07-22T07:18:22","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T12:18:22","slug":"followup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5120","title":{"rendered":"Followup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, we noted that Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), an Islam-based charter school in Inver Grove Heights, was taking the state to court<\/a> over the withholding of the school’s allotment of money.<\/p>\n

A small tangent; while the state and some of the state education system’s apologists were griping about teachers’ “licensing”, it’d seem that the school is better off without ’em:<\/p>\n

Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA) public charter school<\/span> serving more than 500 students on two campuses, announced today that it has received a Growth Achievement Award for student achievement during the school year 2008-2009 from the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA).<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

\n

In addition to the NWEA award, TiZA leads the state in math and reading achievement as measured with the state MCAII assessments and has been recognized for\u00a0achieving the highest percentage of students scoring at grade level or better, despite having a high number of children living in poverty. TiZA serves a student population from over 20 countries. 80% of the students are from low-income households and about 70% are English language learners<\/span>. TiZA has also received the Commissioner\u2019s Finance Award for the past two years.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How many Twin Cities schools, much less schools with lower-than-average family incomes, can say that, charter or not?
\nWhile TIZA has faced allegations that it mixes religion and education in an unconstitutional manner, including lawsuits from the ACLU.\u00a0 It’s worth noting that the first of the three ACLU suits has been dismissed.\u00a0 From another <\/em>press release from TIZA’s attorney, Erick Kaardal:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cToday, <\/span><\/font>the U.S. District Court<\/span> dismissed one of three of the ACLU\u2019s claims against TiZA.\u00a0 As to the remaining two claims, the ACLU now has the burden of proof<\/span> to show that TiZA is in violation of the Establishment Clause<\/span>. TiZA remains confident that there is no violation of the Establishment Clause.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ACLU must prove that TiZA, which has made religious accommodations for students and <\/span><\/font>is compliant with\u00a0the federal government’s\u00a0official guidance\u00a0on religion in public schools<\/span>, has violated the Establishment Clause. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Anyway – regarding the licensing flap, the school won that one, too. From yet another press release:<\/p>\n

Two days after it erroneously took almost $125,000 from <\/span><\/font>Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) and received negative media scrutiny, the Minnesota Department of Education reversed its original decision and has transferred the funds back to the charter school. <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile TiZA appreciates the Department\u2019s decision to release the funds, this is just another example of the erratic behavior of the Department and, in particular, Commissioner Chas Anderson,\u201d said Erick Kaardal , TiZA\u2019s legal counsel. \u201cIt\u2019s another example of a department that ignores requests, makes accusations without merit and fails to follow the rules it\u2019s required to enforce.\u201d<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0 As a result of the July 15 decision to take TiZA\u2019s student aid, the school has requested the Department turnover all documents and communications regarding the instruction to apply penalties against TiZA.\u00a0 The Department has not responded to this request.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

TIZA is a controversy magnet, of course; leaving aside the Separation Clause issues, there’s the matter of it being Islamic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Certainly, if a charter school with pseudo-Catholic roots (like, say, Eagle Ridge Academy in Eden Prairie), held a mass on school time, there’s be some squawking.<\/p>\n

But when people see Islamic school<\/em>, some of them think “wahhabi madrass”.<\/p>\n

So here are some questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Presuming the separation clause exists, and provided that TIZA is not <\/em>advocating radical wahabbism, what’s the problem?<\/li>\n
  2. Given that the school does <\/em>do something that eludes most schools; it gets spectacular academic results with children that the conventional school district pays lip service to teaching, but largely warehouses anyway, isn’t it time to address the fraudulent notion that “separation of church and state” means “no money goes to religious schools?”\u00a0 Because it is <\/em>a fraud; all kinds of tax money goes to religious colleges and universities; student financial aid, arts and research grants, yadda yadda.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There’s a significant chance that TIZA, baggage notwithstanding, is an answer rather than a problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week, we noted that Tarek Ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), an Islam-based charter school in Inver Grove Heights, was taking the state to court over the withholding of the school’s allotment of money. A small tangent; while the state and some of the state education system’s apologists were griping about teachers’ “licensing”, it’d seem that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}