School Officials Address Cheating Scandal

Los Angeles - A Los Angeles charter school group fired its founder over a cheating scandal and has threatened to sue the school board to stay open.

Crescendo, which operates six schools in South Los Angeles, had its operating charter revoked by the school board earlier this week over alleged cheating on standardized tests.

Crescendo founder John Allen was fired on Friday.

"Please be assured that one of the most, main reasons we're here tonight ... is to keep the Crescendo schools open and operating for the sake of our future, which is your children," Anthony Handy, who chairs Crescendo's governing board, told a group of about 300 parents and students at a meeting Friday.

Allen allegedly ordered principals and teachers to break the seal on state standardized tests this past spring and use actual test questions to prepare students, a violation of state law.

Some teachers reported the practice to Los Angeles Unified School District officials, eventually leading the state to invalidate the 2010 test scores at Crescendo schools.

"Cheating is never right. It's always wrong and should not be tolerated," Handy said. "The teachers who stood against the cheating were courageous and should be commended."

Handy vowed to fight the school board's decision to revoke Crescendo's charter.

"We believe this action was taken prematurely without all the facts and was not made in compliance with California's open meeting law," he said.

The school board, which authorizes the publicly funded, independently run charter schools, had been scheduled to decide whether to renew the charters of two of Crescendo's schools. Instead, board members decided to revoke the charters of all six earlier this week.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy applauded the firing of Allen.