Harmony Public Schools Cleared by Texas Education Agency

TEA finds nothing to support claims made by foreign agent Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas  The Texas Education Agency (TEA) on Monday rejected complaints made by a registered foreign agent against Harmony Public Schools a Houston Texas-based charter school system. The TEA notified Amsterdam & Partners the London-based law firm representing the Republic of Turkey that their complaint filed in May does not warrant a TEA investigation". Amsterdam & Partners LLP a firm with offices in London and Washington D.C. was hired by the Republic of Turkey for a reported $50000 a month to call for an investigation of Harmony Public Schools. Amsterdam & Partnerss complaint argued that the charter school network favors Turkish teachers and contractors wastes taxpayer dollars and has ties to Turkish scholar Fethullah Glen who was accused of orchestrating what ended as an unsuccessful coup in Turkey earlier this year.

I have been working with charter schools in Texas for 20 years and I have never seen anything like this.

That a foreign country would attack a U.S. public school system and waste taxpayers dollars by requesting a state review of 42 pages of phony accusations is simply wrong" said Robert Schulman counsel for Harmony Public Schools.

The flagrant lies spread by these foreign agents are unconscionable Schulman said.

In May 2016 the country of Turkey filed what they admitted to be a politically-motivated" complaint against Texas-based Harmony Public Schools. As the largest charter school system in Texas and the largest STEM school system in the nation focusing on science technology engineering and math TEA records indicate Harmony has been a high performing school system that educates over 32000 students at 48 campuses across the state. Harmony serves a diverse K-12 student body including almost 62 economically disadvantaged students with a rigorous math and science-centered curriculum. We are pleased the TEA has issued a report clearing Harmony of false charges and we remain focused on our most critical mission of providing high quality public education to students across Texas" said Peggy England a spokesperson for Harmony Public Schools. Unfortunately we expect these unwarranted attacks to continue but we are heartened by the enormous support we continue to receive from our alumni parents and community and state leaders as we defend the integrity of our public school system" England said. The Texas Education Agency declined to release its findings. Our findings in the matter remain Audit Working Papers and are not releasable said TEA spokeswoman Lauren Callahan. Robert Amsterdam of the Amsterdam & Partners firm said he plans to continue to fight the charter school network. To learn more about Harmony Public Schools visit the Harmony Texas website or Twitter @HarmonyEdu and Facebook at facebook.com/HarmonyTexas.