Breaking the Law to Satisfy No Child Left Behind
New Jersey District Uses the Internet To Steal From Parent Group

ST. LOUIS (October 30, 2007) - Public school administrators are committing academic fraud in their parent outreach programs in order to satisfy No Child Left Behind. As a result, Project Appleseed routinely searches the Internet, to find schools that illegally copy the organization's parental involvement programs and trade names without permission. That is the case with the billion dollar a year Newark Public Schools in New Jersey. Newark has pirated Appleseed's Parental Involvement Report Card trademark and was illegally passing off a counterfeit document to district parents. Copies of the fake document are in circulation throughout Newark schools, as an end-of-the-year self-diagnostic tool for parents to grade themselves. Federal law requires all states and school districts, receiving federal funds, to involve parents and share responsibility for improved student achievement.

Congress is currently debating renewal of the NCLB law and parent groups want stricter enforcement of the law's parent involvement mandates. "Schools are faking their parental involvement programs. This is one of the problems in parental involvement in America today. There is no enforcement from states and the federal government. It's all about the money and not about providing real parental involvement. Real involvement requires an honest partnership of equals, between parents and schools. This includes the parent mandates in NCLB and the intellectual property rights of parent groups," said Project Appleseed President & National Director, Kevin Walker. Mr. Walker has been named twice as one of the 10 most influential people in American education by Teacher magazine and Parenting magazine.

Newark Public Schools (NJ) has misrepresented to parents that there is some sort of association between Project Appleseed and the District. By counterfeiting the Parental Involvement Report Card trade name, the public is misled into thinking the activity is associated with Project Appleseed's nationally award winning programs. The result is Project Appleseed suffers a great deal of damage. This activity is fraudulent.

This is the latest round of Internet piracy of the Parental Involvement Pledge and the Parental Involvement Report Card, the most widely used learning compact and parental involvement diagnostic tools in America's public schools. Newark Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Marion A. Bolden has not responded to Project Appleseed's demand for payment for $9500.00 in fees for each year the trade name was used. Project Appleseed's enforcement program has been ongoing and awareness that this activity is illegal has skyrocketed. Schools like Newark cannot delay or refuse to pay for the use of the Parental Involvement Report Card and claim ignorance of federal trademark laws while they fake compliance with the NCLB law.

Project Appleseed is also asking the New Jersey state department of education to investigate the district for possible violations of the parental involvement provisions of Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. Newark Public Schools receives 7% or $70,000,000 of one billion in funding from federal funds including the Title I program. Federal law requires that 1% of these funds are to be used specifically for the purpose of increasing parental involvement.

Project Appleseed continues to offer settlements to those accused of illegally downloading the Pledge and Parental Involvement Report Card from www.projectappleseed.org. For comment contact Project Appleseed Communications at communications@projectappleseed.org.

About Project Appleseed: Project Appleseed is a nonprofit parent group and is the primary provider for information on parental involvement in America's public schools. Project Appleseed is the #1 source for 'parental involvement in public schools' in Google, Yahoo! and MSN! The mission of Project Appleseed, the National Campaign for Public School Improvement, is to Leave No Parent Behind. Our goal is to organize America's 50 million public school parents to volunteer a minimum of ten hours each year, to improve the nation's 15,000 public school districts and 90,000 public schools.