Charter school targeted

3/17/2006
Steve Steel, left, a member of the Toledo Board of Education, reads statistics on Eagle Academy during the charter's open house. At right, teacher Robyn Hage talks to other teachers.
Steve Steel, left, a member of the Toledo Board of Education, reads statistics on Eagle Academy during the charter's open house. At right, teacher Robyn Hage talks to other teachers.

Toledo Public Schools teachers from Navarre, Birmingham, and Garfield elementaries distributed informational flyers yesterday outside an East Toledo charter school, which compared test data between Eagle Academy and the TPS schools.

Eagle Academy, a charter school at 2014 Consaul St., hosted an open house last evening for prospective students and parents.

The teachers' flyer stated that Eagle Academy has been rated by the Ohio Department of Education as in academic emergency with a performance index of 49.5 out of 100.

By comparison, Garfield is the lowest-performing TPS school in East Toledo, said Carrie Collins, a teacher at Navarre. Garfield is labeled academic watch - one level up on the five-tier ranking system - and has a performance index of 71.7.

TPS teachers held a similar rally outside the charter school last year. At that time, they also used Ohio Department of Education statistics to compare the Eagle Academy with the TPS schools in East Toledo.

Nick Kadel of the Leona Group in East Lansing, Mich., which operates Eagle Academy, disagreed with the teachers' claims that the charter school does not show results.

"We have accurate data that shows students who have been with Eagle Academy two years outperform students who come to us fresh from TPS," Mr. Kadel said.