AT contributor Patrick Poole has been looking at the taxpayer-funded charter schools run by CAIR officials in Columbus, Ohio and published his report today at Front Page Magazine. There are many serious problems uncovered, including use of the schools for CAIR events, the political extremism, and possibly self-dealing:

The Franklin County Auditor's property tax records shows that the building currently occupied by Westside Academy is owned by Unified Investment Corp., which lists its place of business as Mouhamed Tarazi's [the school's principal] home address and Tarazi is the listed as the business agent. The 2004 Ohio State Auditor's report notes in addition (p. 22) that a corporation that Tarazi was a partner of, Sali International, was also paid $140,386 by International Academy.

Apart from the operation of the schools by extremists, the poor academic performance of the schools ought to be cause for concern for parents, taxpayers and education officials alike. The recently released Ohio Department of Education 2006-2007 report card for International Academy shows that it meets only 2 out of 19 state indicators for proficiency - 7^th grade writing and attendance (report cards are also available for 2005-2006 and 2004-2005). Westside Academy has not had a published report card yet because it has only had one year of operations