Harmony Prep in the News

and not for good reasons...

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A charter school once called "an abject academic failure" by Ohio's attorney general owes the state $2.6 million, according to an audit released today.

Harmony Community School in Roselawn didn't provide necessary documents to show that it met state curriculum requirements, state Auditor Mary Taylor said. The school also didn't have records proving that all teachers were properly licensed.

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Harmony owes 2.6 Million

With one of our top recruits coming from here, what could the ramifications be for eligibility now and in the future? There has been a criticism of these "prep" schools in the past, and some of it may be coming to light.

Also, some of the comments from readers are disturbing...

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I saw on their website that school starts on Monday. If McCulloum and the rest of the people who run the school truly cared about their kids, they would close the doors now and spare them from this situation. The kids will be reading about their teachers in the news or wondering every Friday whether they will have a school to go back to on Monday. Obviously, it doesn't look like much educating was ever going on there, but it will be ten times worse now.

I agree with you on every point but one... judging by the test scores, you don't have to worry about any of the kids reading about their teachers in the paper because most Harmony students CAN'T READ.

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What a shock. This is the same school that when they first "opened" they didn't even have a building... they tried to hold class every day in the Public Library downtown. Without telling anyone at the library what was going on. But this is a much bigger problem than just Harmony; it is an issue with many charter schools. They are run by people who have no business running a UDF, much less being in charge of educating children. Of course the icing on the cake is the fact that many charter school kids are kids so bad that CPS have kicked them out - and to get kicked out of CPS takes some major doing!

If you want to see something funny (sad?), check out Harmony's report card from the Ohio Department of Education. Some of the more startling numbers include the fact that the school is on Academic Emergency and t hat they met exactly ZERO of a possible 19 state indicators. Shut this school down already; the kids aren't learning and the the faculty isn't teaching.

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The "prep" school stuff has always bothered me, and not just Harmony.

There were stories in the national press many years ago, in the late 1990's, about the proliferation of "preparatory schools" that were nothing more than basketball factories. One in particular was Mt. Zion Academy in North Carolina, where a player who many remember, SirValiant Brown, went to before going to George Washington. These places were exposed as barely nothing more than dorms and basketball gyms.

That being said, let us not forget that David West and Stanley Burrell, two of Xavier's most articulate and engaging players ever, were products of Hargrave Academy.

I trust Sean Miller, Mike Bobinski, Sr. Rose and the XU administration to ensure that kids going to Xavier will continue to be, and be held accountable as true college students. There has been no report that has disputed this. If I ever do hear of a report that tells me that a player at Xavier was allowed to slide in the educational side of the equation, and passed along without accountability, I would be very, very disturbed.

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Originally Posted by Masterofreality

If I ever do hear of a report that tells me that a player at Xavier was allowed to slide in the educational side of the equation, and passed along without accountability, I would be very, very disturbed.

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According to many on this board, you are already very, very disturbed.

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Originally Posted by MADXSTER

According to many on this board, you are already very, very disturbed.

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Only in fun, right. If otherwise, beware the pippsywaaaaaaa!:D

The Washington Post did a great article in 2007 on the diploma mills that had graduated Mo Rice, Omar Williams and other high schoolers who needed credentials to be recruited and awarded grant in aids. There was typically one teacher, a basketball guy, no exams, etc. in these mills, run out of store fronts.

I can easily distinguish Harmony from those fraudulent enterprises. Whatever defects Harmony is guilty of --- and there are many charter schools that fail or are failing -- they are at least schools with teachers, classes, classrooms.

I'm opposed to charter schools on several grounds, but Harmony does not appear to be a fraudulent diploma and credit mill, and the Xavier recruit, and Xavier, have virtually no exposure on that count.