An inexperienced science teacher with no textbooks or lab equipment. Special education students who get no special attention. Bills paid late or not at all.

Theresa B. Lee Academy, a Fort Worth charter school discovered cheating on 2005 TAKS tests, is failing in virtually every regard, according to state records.

Yet it remains open.

Monthly reports by a Texas Education Agency conservator sent to oversee Lee Academy provide a detailed look inside a public high school in academic and financial disarray.

"This school is woefully inadequate to provide even a marginal education," the conservator, Carol Francois, concluded in one report. "The staff, for the most part, is poorly qualified, poorly trained, and poorly managed."

Jesse W. Jackson, the school's superintendent and owner, did not respond to requests for comment this week.

What does it take to shut down a school like this? Some critics say TEA needs tougher state laws to make it easier to sever the contract between a failing charter school and the state.

Some state efforts to shut down charters languish in court for years.

"I think it's very obvious that the bad charters need to be closed down and the good charters need to be emulated, and it's not as easy as it sounds," said state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.

TEA sent Dr. Francois, a former TEA official and DISD administrator, to Lee last fall to oversee TAKS testing and an attendance audit.

A state investigation had found that Lee staff helped students cheat on the 2005 TAKS test. Many students on the attendance rolls couldn't be found. Attendance is important because state funding is based primarily on the number of students in class each day.

The audit, released last month, found that Lee didn't keep required attendance records for most of the 2006-07 school year and collected state money for special education services that students never received. The state says Lee must repay $516,388.

Dr. Francois also oversaw efforts to raise student performance at Lee, which the state has rated "academically unacceptable" the past two years.

Her monthly reports to TEA describe a school where teachers drilled students in how to take tests, but spent little time teaching the subject matter.

One report mentions three learning-disabled students who said they didn't receive extra academic help the law allows for them. They didn't even know they're supposed to get it.

Another report documents an untrained but eager science teacher begging for biology textbooks and lab equipment only to have her bosses tell her to find and use whatever her predecessor left behind.

Then there are financial problems.

Teachers haven't been paid for May, Dr. Francois said. Special education consultants said their invoices were paid late, if at all. A $3,446 check to Dr. Francois bounced.

Dr. Jackson told Dr. Francois he transferred money from his Houston charter school, Jesse Jackson Academy, to pay some of Lee's bills, according to conservator reports.

In 2006, Dr. Jackson received $144,000 as superintendent of Lee and Jackson academies. Arthurlene Jackson, his wife and assistant superintendent, received $125,000, according to IRS records.

Churches, colleges and other nonprofits own charter schools. They are classified as public schools and receive state funding. Advocates say the majority of Texas' 252 charter schools do a good job.

"The bottom line is that just like in traditional public schooling, there are folks who are abusing the public's trust, and I think we have to weed those people out," said Jonas Chartock, president of the Charter School Policy Institute, a pro-charter think tank in Austin.

Lee, located in a gray storefront building in East Fort Worth, serves a challenging population. Most of the 100-plus students are poor and minority. Nearly all are at risk of dropping out.

Dr. Francois said she found glimmers of progress.

"At least at the campus level, there's a great deal of desire to do well and to do right on behalf of students," she said.

But is it too late? Preliminary TAKS scores for 2008 are so dismal it appears Lee will be "academically unacceptable" a third straight year.

If the results hold true, Dr. Francois said the commissioner of education should "levy the most severe sanctions permissible by law against this school up to and including closure."

TEA Commissioner Robert Scott raised the possibility of closure last fall in a letter to Dr. Jackson. This week, he said he's awaiting results of a special education audit.

"I haven't got enough information to make a final decision yet, but I remain as concerned now as I was then," he said.

Location: Fort Worth; sister school in Houston

Owner: Jesse W. Jackson

Students: About 115 in grades 9-12; most are poor and minority, and nearly all are at risk of dropping out

State rating: Academically unacceptable for two straight years. It could be headed for a third, based on early 2008 TAKS scores.

PROBLEMS:

•A state investigation found that educators helped students cheat on 2005 TAKS tests.

•An audit of the 2006-07 school year found that Lee failed to keep required attendance records and collected state money for special education and other services students never received. Lee must repay the state $516,388.

•In 2006-07, Lee reported an average attendance of 252 students. In 2007-08, with a state conservator in charge, attendance dropped to 115 students. Because schools receive state dollars based largely on attendance, Lee's annual state funding dropped from about $1.6 million to about $750,000.

•Students taking different electives, from social studies to physical education, were put in the same class with the same teacher.

•Classroom activities often consisted mostly of rote drills, reading aloud and filling out worksheets.

•A special education teacher did not always show up when she was supposed to.

•Only four students in the entire school passed the math TAKS and only three passed the science TAKS, based on preliminary 2008 scores.

SOURCE: Texas Education Agency