By SARAH LEMAGIE, Star Tribune
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) faces a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota over how the public school handles religion, and it could lose $1.4 million in public funding because of alleged teacher-licensure violations, the school estimates.
But the Minnesota Department of Education's investigation of TiZA has gone beyond those topics, according to records released last week by the state. Among other reviews, the state asked its testing contractor to analyze tests taken by students at the school. The test security company said in June that it found no evidence of wrongdoing, records indicate.
"The silver lining of this cloud is that it is absolutely clear that our test results are valid," said Asad Zaman, executive director of the K-8 school, which has campuses in Inver Grove Heights and Blaine.
The Education Department has visited the school more than a dozen times since January 2008, Zaman said, reviewing the school's special education services, after-school programming and more.
"We are glad to be held to a higher standard," he said. "We are perplexed that this has continued for so long and so aggressively and so repeatedly."
Officials at the Education Department declined an interview request last week, citing pending litigation. "In recent weeks, [TiZA] officials and their team of lawyers and consultants have become increasingly litigious and have also ramped up an aggressive public relations campaign," said Deputy Education Commissioner Chas Anderson in a written statement. "It's important for Minnesotans to know that the Department of Education will not be distracted from its commitment to working through the legal process to ensure that publicly funded schools are following the law."
Source: Star Tribune, Aug 02, 2009