Mayor de Blasio and Carmen Farina approved most of the Bloomberg administration’s charter co-locations, to the outrage and dismay of public school parents whose schools will lose space to the new charters.
Parents at the schools that will receive co-locations are furious and issuing press releases denouncing de Blasio for betraying them.
Of 49 co-locations rushed through in the dying days of the Bloomberg administration, the de Blasio administration approved 39, put one on hold, and denied 9.
Three of the new charters that were turned down belonged to Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain, and one of her existing charters was told to find a new home.
Eva is furious too. Unlike public school parents, her board has deep pockets. She has unleashed a blitz of TV ads and plans to bus thousands of students and parents to Albany for a rally on Tuesday.
Groups opposing Eva will hold a rally in front of the Department of Education to protest Eva’s TV blitz.
Interesting to note: In nations with successful school system, the community unites behind their schools. The schools don’t compete for space or money. They work together towards a common goal: educating the children of the community.
***************************************
Parents to Demand Wealthy Charter School Ad Campaign Backers Use Money to Pay Rent
Outrage Grows as Moskowitz Tries to Sabotage City’s Pre-K Advocacy Day in Albany
PRESS CONFERENCE
*TODAY, FRIDAY 2/28, 10:30AM,
52 Chambers St./Steps of DOE*
WHAT: Following the charter school industry’s new multi-million dollar ad campaign, parents impacted by co-locations will join the city’s leading education groups in demanding wealthy charter school backers put their money towards paying rent.
The controversial ads come as a major charter chain operator, Eva Moskowitz, announced plans to close her schools next Tuesday, to lobby for more charter school funding. Her lobby day is scheduled to compete with an advocacy day for universal pre-K on the same day, a fact that has angered parents across the city who believe pre-K is an urgent educational priority.
*Facts on troubling funding sources for ads will be presented*
WHO: Parents and community members from New York Communities for Change and the Alliance for Quality Education.
WHEN: Friday, Feb. 28th – 10:30AM
WHERE: 52 Chambers St. Lower Manhattan, NY.
# # #
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Charter school operators are allowed to bus children to Albany to protest changes made to charter schools but public school teachers are not allowed to encourage students to opt out of state testing or voice their political leanings
Mrs Ravitch once again openly missstating facts. The process for opening a public charter school takes years not weeks. These schools were in processing for over 3 years before mr wilhelm exterminated them. There are numerous public hearings and community outreach programs set up and events for community members to speak their mind. You can find these public meetings on youtube (beware that they are disturbing as the public charter supporters are attacked by ill informed union supporters each at each and every event). To claim that these schools were pushed thru at the last minute is preposterous. To be clear though, Wilhelm-Farina-Ravitch and the like do not care about public school students in this city. Blocking high performing schools from growing sends a clear message to these kids……..Drop Dead!!!
Did they pull the charters or just deny the co-location?
THey had space taht was given to them taken away. Charters were not denied. If you are a student at SAH1 in 5th grade, you now have no 6th grade to go to. instead of being in a school that is in the top 5 schools in the State, you have to go to your local zoned school that is in the bottom 5%. Why would a mayor do this to children who are performing so well?
Why not use the money being poured into advertising, find real estate on the open market, and pay rent?
Eva Moskowitz’s salary is $250,000/year higher than the salary for the mayor, maybe she could take a pay cut, and cut the salaries of her top executives, and put those funds towards rent.
Eva’s salary is close to $500,000, not $250,000
We agree that Eva’s salary is too high.
Why should public schools pay rent?
NYC School Chancellor’s annual income is about the same as Eva’s.
Carmen is responsible for 1.1 million children.
Eva: 6,700
Same salary
Diblasio approved most of the charter school co locations as well as other co locations so why is this so called eva witch so upset? Further down the road its only going to get worse as next year there will be NO MORE charters entering the public school buildings – NO MORE co locations invading our public school space. Hey, let me tell ya, the public schools have had enough, classes are jam packed, administrators are shoved into small little rooms with other personal such as secretaries, paras, counselors and social workers…there is a counselor at a small school in the colombus campus who has an office which use to be the janitors closet!! No kidding. So, for all you folks out there please note, eva moskowitz will become irrelevant in the coming years as she reached her orgasmic max until the final days of mikey bloomshits himself left office. You see it was mikey all along who was the trader to new yorkers and eva moswitch was his biach so she got what she wanted. Now, enter the diblas family and mikey and evas divorce and voila success schools fall in toilet
So inconsistent Diane, now its ok to earn that sort of money if you have the right numbers!!! Quite the double standard. Of course Evas kids perform better and are getting a better education than Carmen’s, but as we see with the anti choice movement, results dont matter, everyone being equally bad is what matters.
I reprint below a comment I posted yesterday on this blog—
I refer back to a very recent posting here on this blog:
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/02/25/eva-moskowitz-plans-to-fight-mayor-de-blasio-in-albany/comment-page-1/#comments
In an extended comment, I outlined the Venality Added Measurement/Venality Added Modeling system created by the charterites/privatizers and used as a club by their edubully enforcers.
I gathered the data. I worked like a VAMANiac. However, in spite of torturing figures, massaging conclusions, and giving Eva M[oskowitz] every numerical advantage (fair and unfair) over Carmen F[arina], I came up with a hard data point—
For every student of Eva M, $70@year; for every student of Carmen F, $0.50@year.
On the charterite/privatizer VAM index, the former obviously enjoys over the latter an unassailable advantage of 140 to 1 on any metric you care to raise—work ethic, morality, intelligence, saintliness, worthiness, patience, experience, formal education…
It’s as clear as the bottom line because “Men lie and women like but numbers don’t.” [Dr. Steve Perry, “America’s Most Trusted Educator”—channeling rapper Jay-Z]
Now, being the sort of troublesome public school advocate for the 94% of NYC students that the edufrauds and edubullies want to throw away, I decided to pursue their VAMania a little further than perhaps they originally intended…
Let’s say we leave the cage busting achievement gap crushing innovation of the twenty first century and return to quaint silly notions of yesteryear like “fairness” and “decency” and “good sense.”
If Eva M were to be paid like Carmen F, let’s see, 7000 students x $0.50 = $3,500@year. $499,000@year current salary – $3,500 = $495,500@year lost to touchy feely antiquated foolishness. The sheer horror of it all!
😡
If Carmen F were to be paid like Eva M, let’s see, 1,100,000 students x $70 = $77,000,000. $77,000,000 – $412,000 current salary = $76,588,000@year increase. The sheer horror of it all!
😡
I think you can see where I’m going with this.
As for the shills and trolls who come here to vent their sneering contempt, an old Greek guy nailed them to the wall over 2000 thousand years ago:
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.”
😎
“Why should public schools pay rent? ”
No, they’re not “public schools”. They are privately-run schools sucking off the public teat. Privately-run schools should pay rent.
“now its ok to earn that sort of money if you have the right numbers!!!”
Why yes, yes it is. One job is naturally far harder than the other, due to overseeing 163X the number of students. Swallow that sense of proportion, please.
@MS
It is clear that you do not work in public schools. If you did you would see how thoroughly lopsided funding has become. In pubic schools, cuts and more cuts, teachers leaving and not being replaced. No materials, outdated technology equipment. At the same time, tax dollars go to supporting charter school expansion, which in essence support only those students who have no difficulties. It is easy to pick and choose the cream. If I had a nickel for every student we accept in my building from charter schools (who never provided appropriate intervention or special education services to these students or addressed their bilingual issues) I would have a tidy sum of money. Let’s face it. Charters are a fraud. They are not public schools, They function like private schools. Give public schools the right to pick and choose and fund them properly and watch the test scores sore. Of course, the children with disabilities, or family problems or bilingual issues can just be left in the dust. NONE of your charters would succeed if you actually had to service students properly. If you were not allowed to “counsel out” the “exceptional ” students.
How about taking all that money being redirected to charters and put it into REAL public schools? Moskowitz makes 500,000 dollars per year, give or take. That is a travesty and a misappropriation of our tax dollars. She is protecting her salary. That is all.
So to you I say, charter schools have told all students who have difficulties of any kind, to “drop dead”.
See…..it cuts both ways.
Eva saves the taxpayer money. Her students cost the state $6,500 LESS than students in zoned schools and she gets better results. In the Bronx and Harlem alone, SA has 1,500 students. At a savings of $6,500 per student that is $9,750,000.00 to the tax payer. Oh, here is the best part, of that 1,500 student base, 82 percent got a passing score in math, and 58 percent passed English.Across the city, the pass rates were 26 percent in English and 30 percent in math.
Not only does Eva save the state tens of millions of dollars, she is doing a better job educating our children with LESS money! From an accounting perspective, her 500k salary is a bargain!!!
I am not sure the total number of SA students city wide, but whatever it is, multiply it by $6,500 and you will come up with a staggering number. It might be close to $20,000,000.00 (thats million) dollars a year in savings for the taxpayer. While she is at it, these are the results she gets:
http://nypost.com/2013/08/11/schooling-the-critics/
Carman Farina earns the same and only 60% of her kids graduate, and that is up from 50% only because of Mayor Bloomberg.
I think you need to consider more than the per pupil spending.
I think you need to consider that there are fixed and variable costs for the buildings. If the charter students are in the building, the variable cost go up somewhat. Some costs are fixed, but some are not (ie water usage goes up, electric costs are higher, converting closets to offices, etc)
Do the charters pay something for building upkeep and utilities? (not rent, but more along the lines of the down and out relative sleeping on my couch that helps out a little each month).
Also, I believe SA gets significant income from grants so it is wrong to say SA is doing a better job with less money. They are using less taxpayer money, but that may not tell you what the total per pupil spending is.
High-performing?!?! Because of the type of student they attract more than anything else. Oh yes, there’s also the “union thugs.” Calm down.
no its not MS get your facts straight thats why your confused. eva witch salary 500k nyc chancellor salary 225k. Is that clear? This is what happens when people just don’t know and then they open their big idiot mouths
The entire distortion of what Albert Shanker envisioned for charter schools is what has ended up telling disadvantaged kids to “drop dead”. Lack of choice was NEVER the problem with public schools. Unstable, inequitable funding and poverty. If you are not proposing direct solutions to those problems, you really can’t be taken seriously. Charter schools are nothing more than a distraction.
Public Charter school? That’s really a fancy word.
Wonder since when did Charters school get approved for public status–meaning functioning exactly the same as traditional public schools in NYC–in terms of accountability, evaluation, administrative responsibilities.
It might be so hard to discriminate themselves from regular public schools because there are quite a lot of ELL students to come in and out…
They are public schools by law fella. Read the law to understand a little better:
http://law.onecle.com/new-york/education/EDN02853_2853.html
“…….(c) A charter school shall be deemed an independent and autonomous public school, except as otherwise provided in this article. The charter entity and the board of regents shall be deemed to be the public agents authorized to supervise and oversee the charter school.
(d) The powers granted to a charter school under this article
constitute the performance of essential public purposes and governmental purposes of this state. A charter school shall be exempt to the same extent as other public schools from all taxation, fees, assessments or special ad valorem levies on its earnings and its property, including property leased by the charter school…..”
How many times does the law need to define a public school as public before the anti public school folks will accept it? Ever?
Enough said. Watching Ms. Ravitch waste time responding to MS is like watching Bill Nye respond to Ken Ham. I appreciate Ms. Ravitch’s generosity, but shouldn’t we make that unnecessary.
The pressure on deBlasio coming from monied interests must be incredible right now. Did anyone else notice the article in The Economist glossing over the facts and supporting charters in New York?
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21596558-charter-schools-are-working-new-yorks-mayor-wants-stop-them-killing-golden
My apologies, I started at the top of the blog and just made my way down to the article below on The Economist piece.
Jamie, in NYC, public charter schools outperform co-located zoned schools by years. To be exact, after graduation a student at a public charter will be 5 years ahead of his co-located zoned school friend in Mathmatics and a full year ahead in English. This is the sort of results that the estblishment is fighting. Ask yourself why?
Click to access CredoReport2013.pdf
If the charter is that successful, the building it’s in shouldn’t matter. I don’t live in New York but if I did, I wouldn’t want my education dollars going to a school that every child didn’t have equal access to.
Jamie, does this ” I wouldn’t want my education dollars going to a school that every child didn’t have equal access to”… apply to the selective magnet schools in virtually every large city?
Red herring alert, Joe Nathan, at least with respect to New York City. Selective charter schools are prohibited by NYS law. Operating a handful of selective schools is one method the NYC DOE has of providing an appropriate education to children who live here.
Tim, there are different ways of viewing the selective admission schools I mentioned. One is to say there are fine. Another is to say they are inconsistent with the principle that k-12 public schools should be open to all.
One of many reasons that we have a charter public school movement in this country is that there are a number of parents and educators who agree with the second point of view – who are not happy with “public” schools that have admissions tests, and wanted to create options that would be open to all.
Although some who post here don’t like it when I say something about the work that I do, the fact is that I helped write the charter law in Minnesota and have worked on this issue all over the country. It’s also true that I’m a huge fan of district public schools that are helping youngsters identify their own talents/gifts and interests, and achieve their potential.
Here’s a link to a newspaper column I wrote this week & just posted, that praises a variety of educators, says professional development and colleges of ed should make more use of these folks, and that we should not judge schools just on the basis of test scores.
http://hometownsource.com/tag/joe-nathan/?category=columns-opinion
Joe: Yes, I don’t think magnet schools should be exclusive, but open to any child/family that wants to make it work for them, if we have to have magnet schools at all. I think that there’s probably a better way to offer alternatives to children within their own public schools than doing it through magnets which seem to only exist within some larger cities.
Jamie thanks for your note. I think we should have a variety of options in public education but that none should have admissions tests. I also think that we should use multiple measures to look at how effective schools are. One of those assessments should be what the school’s retention rate. I’ve suggested to legislators that the school “report cards” used in many states share that information, as well as other info.
Magnets were created to support integration not selection
Actually, the oldest selective “district” public school in the country was created in Boston, well before integration issues.
Some observers of public education (and some public school educators) believe selective magnets were created in part as an effort to retain families in the district who wanted to be able to proclaim that their children had passed the test to get into those schools.
Some inner city families were furious with some magnets (in places such as Milwaukee and St. Louis) which brought in suburban, already advantaged white families into the city for the selective admission magnet, which African American students in the neighborhood could not attend because they could not pass the admissions test.
As the ST. Louis Post Dispatch pointed out some years ago, sometimes these suburban youngsters were brought into the city via taxis. So inner city parents watched suburban youngsters being transported into inner city selective magnets via taxi to attend schools spending more $ more pupil that the neighborhood school…and yet the neighborhood kids had to attend the neighborhood school because they could not get into the selective magnet school located in their neighborhood.
MS, it is easy to have a high performing charter school when low performing students are banned from admission, counseled out, or expelled.
For example, Success Academy kicked out their entire first class of middle schoolers. They also have a track record of very high suspensions and expulsions.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-fire-parents-fight-disciplinary-policy-article-1.1438753
Joe: I’m not familiar with the school “report cards” of every state, but I am dead set against the assessment testing that is being carried out in our schools now (in Indiana it’s ISTEP; in my former state, MCAS) and used for deciding the fate of schools and teachers. I see no value whatsoever in this type of appraisal or the collection of student data. It steals valuable time and resources from the education of every child in the school and in some cases (my own experience) causes damage.
Diane: Maybe it’s time to rethink magnets and whether they are serving the original purpose.
Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech, just to name 3 were established long before there were efforts in NYC to bring together students of different races.
Elite admissions test “public” schools such as the Illinois State Math & Science have nothing to do with integration efforts.
Moreover, there are a variety of magnets that were designed to bring youngsters together than do not involve admissions tests. I think those schools should be respected and encouraged.
Selective enrollment schools are for gifted students. That is because, contrary to popular opinion, those kids will not just automatically meet their potential. They need to be appropriately challenged, as well as engage with similar peers, and all too often their needs cannot be met adequately in the general education classroom.
There are lots of ways to help gifted youngsters reach their potential with creating entire schools that screen out the vast majority of youngsters.
I don’t know about your city, but in mine, there are NOT a lot of ways for teachers to work with gifted children in the typical overcrowded, under-resourced general ed classroom beginning in primary. Like other exceptional children, gifted kids need more teacher attention and differentiated instruction, not less. And with budget cuts and so much funding going to privatized charter schools, teachers at neighborhood public schools are spread very thinly around here these days.
I have to side with Krazy on this, at least for high school students. I do think that early college is a sensible option, but why pretend that they are attending the high school at all?
That being said, I agree that most of the criticisms of charter schools apply equally, or in the case odd skimming, with even more force to magnet schools. Magnet schools skim and pull students from neighborhood schools, they divert resources from neighborhood schools, and they break up neighborhoods by splitting enrollment.
Was Krazy involved in this thread?
The selective enrollment high schools in Chicago are among the very few diverse schools that exist in the city –which also happens to be the most segregated city in the US.
So it’s ok for some district schools to use admissions tests to screen out many applicants?
As I already indicated, I support programs for gifted children who have special educational needs that cannot be met in general education classrooms.
Defenders of charter schools as an instrument of government policy for school improvement would have us believe that it is all about the individual’s right to “choose.” However, government advocacy for a public system of choice based on the explicit idea that schools differ not just in educational emphasis, but in quality, fails the If I am only for me, than who am I moral principle. This raises the impact of choosing one’s own well-being over that of others from an ethically questionable personal decision to a fixed society-wide norm. In doing so, it shifts the improvement focus from a shared concern or common struggle about the community’s children to individual parents making self-interested selections for their own children.
I discuss this in greater depth in Education Reform and the Corrosion of Community Responsibility: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/26/education-reform-and-the-corrosion-of-community-responsibility/
Professor Camins, how do you feel about NYC elite, selective admissions public schools like Stuyvesant? For decades these places have used admissions tests to screen out many applicants. As the Stuyvesant website explains, “Places are awarded to those students who earn the highest scores on the entrance exam, the Specialized High Schools Admission Test.”
http://www.stuy.edu/
Another place on the same website explains, ” Four Nobel Laureates, as well as a host of leaders in science, mathematics, government, law, the arts, and music, are included among the graduates. With our outstanding record of academic achievement and our commitment to excellence, we feel that Stuyvesant High School merits the national recognition it has continued to maintain.”
They have publicly proclaimed themselves as superior choices.
Same is true in Chicago and many other large cities which have selective magnets as part of their system.
Does the practice of many large cities, creating “public” schools that use admissions tests to screen out many students, and then to boast about their graduates, concern you?
This is not a criticism. It’s a question because I don’t know how you feel about this.
Deblasio just took minioritiy childrends mealticket out of poverty away. The pressure on him should be coming from 100% of our society over this. Take a look at SA Harlem Central that he just blocked from growing into higher grades. 97% of its schollars are minorities. Not only is it Harlem’s best middle school, last year its 5th graders ranked tops in the state for math. Here’s their reward…..210 students have just found themselves school-less for next year, with the local public alternatives being some of the lowest-performing middle schools in the state.
wilhelms message sent……drop dead!!!
I simply don’t believe that Success Academy will play politics with the fate of ~200 kids (keep in mind it’ll invariably end up being fewer than that, given typicalSA attrition rates).
With cash on hand in excess of $30 million, with multiple network schools nearby with empty classroom seats in their upper elementary and middle school grades, and with the network’s can-do spirit and zeal for attacking challenges, I have total confidence that a seat in a Success school will be found for each and every one of these scholars in time for the 2014-2015 academic year.
You dont think the parents of these kids and their school will lie down and have their edcuational rights taken from them? Telling Tim, but than again you believe SA is breaking a law you can not define.
This dialogue show why, as a matter of government policy, giving a few parents the “choice” to opt out of regular public schools is so destructive. It pits parents who “win” a spot in charter schools, against those who are left in the co-located schools. Instead of joining together to fight for what is best for all of their children, they are fighting one another.
Fair point, although on the other hand, a “zero choice” policy wouldn’t exactly satisfy everyone either. I say that as a parent of a child who’s spent more time applying to public middle schools than I spent applying to university and law school combined.
School choice in NYC is a living hell for us (at least for me and my wife, as my daughter’s more resilient). But if we had no school choice, we would move out of the city. So it’s a bit of a paradox for me.
I have no idea what your response means, MS.
I don’t expect the affected parents to lie down.
I sincerely hope that such an incredibly well-resourced network — cash, connections, plenty of open seats in their schools that are located rent-free in DOE buildings — does not abandon them in order to make a larger political point.
Arthur, think about your logic here. If the public charter schools are the winners, as their superior results in NYC prove, why doesnt the ‘left behind’ schools emulate the public charters model? Does it have anything to do with strict teachers union rules stopping zoned schools from doing what the public charters are doing?
What you have to realize is that these high performing public charter school students were not created in test tubes, they are the result of a specific demand within the community for something better and most importantly, something the establishment (political-union-educational complex) can not provide.
You must be joking. The meal ticket out of poverty. seriously?
When one runs out of rational arguments, they go for the emotional jugular.
Graduate from SA Harlem you will go to a top level college, possibly Ivy League. Graduate from a co-located zoned school, you most likely do not even graduate…. Meal ticket out of poverty is stating the facts lightly!!! But tell that to the parents and students who just got kicked out of their schools. See how they take it. I bet not a single one of the anti-charter posters would ever have the cajones to have that discussion.
So before charters, no students enrolled in neighborhood schools in Harlem went to top level colleges?
SA has not been around long enough for their students to have graduated yet, so claiming, “Graduate from SA Harlem you will go to a top level college, possibly Ivy League” is speculation and wishful thinking.
Additionally, the kinds of test taking skills kids learn from massive test prep exercises have no correlation with college level work, so the proof of the pudding will not be college acceptance but whether students are able to handle college level course work and graduate.
Reduce overwhelmingly high salaries, pay rent. Problem solved?
Also, reduce advertising. I imagine there’s also other wasteful expenditures in there too.
Students are not scholars. Propoganda does not beget authentic worth. Aspiring scholars perhaps but that term puts the cart before the proverbial cart of a great deal of hard concentrated and protracted work.
Did anyone REALLY believe DiBlasio would keep his campaign promise. Notice the word CAMPAIGN. That politician speak for crossing fingers behind the back.
I agree. Charters should pay rent that would go directly to the PS involved. It should go to a Principal’s fund to pay for programs, supplies and per session pay for special activities. Why should charters get a free ride. Of course those school show better results. They have selective admission policies and don’t keep children who don’t follow the rules or cause problems.
Please take a moment to sign this petition against the war our mayor is waging on our best public schools. Thanks………..
http://www.change.org/petitions/mayor-de-blasio-and-pa-letitia-james-leave-performing-charter-schools-alone-please?recruiter=84003697
Take the money spent on the ad blitz and use it to pay rent. Seems simple enough. And stop already with the “not created in test tubes” arguments. Charter kids come from more functional families and tend to exclude the more difficult to educate. It isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. How many studies are necessary to make people understand this?
MS, I get that this affects you individually but I have a hard time accepting the segregation of schools that goes on and then says “we’re a top 5%” school. You should be! You’re getting the best students through admission and retention policies that stack the deck. If I could only receive the top quartile of students in my school I could claim to be the best teacher even though those students are smarter, better supported at home and more motivated. None of which had anything to do with me.
You like your school awesome. But let’s stop pretending that SA is not advantaged over the co-located “competitor” in multiple ways. That’s like saying my all-star team beat your ragamuffins so I must be a better coach.
I’ll be happy to sign a counter-petiiton.
MS. What war? All the Mayor is saying is that if a charter school is masquerading as a public school, and excludes students that a true public school must take in, then, in reality, Ms. Moskowitz is, in effect, running a private school. I don’t know if you live in NYC, as I do, but I resent my tax money being used to operate schools that don’t provide equal access and opportunity to ALL NYC students.
I’m not against school choice, but Ms. Moskowitz insults my intelligence by claiming to be for her students, and when her back is to the wall, chooses to CLOSE the school, instead of seeking other alternatives. Perhaps she might consider donating part of her salary to OPEN her schools other than in NYC public schools, if she really is interested in “serving” her students?
Actions DO speak louder than words, you know. So far, I’m not impressed by the actions of Ms. Moskowitz.
See what Tim had to say below. Why didn’t Ms. Moskowitz reassure the parents of her students that a way would be found to house
I’m very interested to know if the current ad/lobbying blitz undertaken by “public” charters in NY, is being funded by public monies? If not, who is funding the cost of media ads, buses to Albany, substitute teachers and the always amusing matching tees and hats on all the charter kids, parents and staff that descend on Albany to lobby?
Yes, who is paying for it all. I still can’t believe how much tax money is wasted on ad money.
MS = MoSkowitz??
I would hope MoSkowitz could spell better…but perhaps not???
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matthew-still/15/343/6b9
wow, who’s a stalker???
Wow, indeed. It looks like borgle has hit the proverbial nail on the head! The truth about MS is out and he basically confirmed it.
MS you disappeared, where are you? Do you know Joe Nathan? Why did you scurry?
I had my money on the thought that MS was most likely a woman, but I never knew for sure. Ha! I’ve been mistaken for having masculine-undertones in my commentary, too, so it might just be that gender-bias is hogwash. Well now we know his name, his position of employment and his affiliations…these are things I did not need to know. Sometimes I despise the Internet for the ability to know so much about a person.
Please take a moment and help us petition the White House over this outrageous attack on our best public schools. Thanks all.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/hold-nyc-mayor-bill-deblasio-and-his-administration-accountable-disenfranchising-expansion-charter/5ZBbx5Gk
Here’s some reading for you, MS: Educate yourself and beware of manipulated data:
“With that in mind, it’s important to consider the comparison between the two chains praised by the Daily News and the district schools in their Harlem neighborhoods. The latest official data available from the state (from 2009-10) indicates that all of the schools in these chains have demonstrably lower proportions of the city’s neediest students — those eligible for free lunch, English Language Learners, and students who receive special education services in self-contained classrooms or those with collaborative team teaching — than the average district school in Harlem.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-tapes-reveal-attempt-transfer-student-article-1.1441098#ixzz2dTHZicLZ
http://www.edwize.org/asking-hard-questions-about-what-works
Again, I’ll be happy to sign a counter-petition.
Ms. Ravitch, every time you post something about Eva or Harlem SA you should time how long it takes for MS to post a reply.
MS should start her own blog. Yawn
Seemed likely that it would be very interesting to watch de Blasio once he actually had the job. Doesn’t matter that he said many of the right things. A couple of factors quickly come into play right away: does he have the depth of knowledge and conviction to follow his words with actions despite the well-funded noise and pressure of the reformers.
A brief about the term: “the reformers.” I think there are a vast array of people working to help improve American’s public schools.
They don’t agree on many things. For example, some advocates for more public school choice oppose vouchers. Some advocates for more public school choice strongly disagree that the only valid ways to measure what’s happening with students is to look at test scores and graduation rates. There are some who believe strongly in the options within districts or combinations of districts but not charters.
Many more examples could be given. I think there are a much broader array of people trying to reform public schools that we sometimes say on this blog.
Whatever their (superficial) disagreements, all so-called reformers support the privatization of the public education.
You can call them “public charter schools” – as opposed to what? “private charter schools?” – or Joe Nathan’s most recent term of art, “chartered public schools,” or “schools of Choice,” or “Overclass Academies,” none of which change the reality that they are private entities, privately managed, that receive public money.
When they market themselves (with huge advertising budgets unavailable to real public schools) and get taxpayer money, they’re public schools; when the teachers try to unionize according to public employee labor law, they claim to be private schools.
When it comes to getting taxpayer money, they’re public schools; when elected officials want to audit them, they’re suddenly private.
Willful naifs may choose not to see the connection between vouchers and charters, but the people funding so-called education reform have a much clearer and less sentimental view of things, and they know the difference between the real players and those being played.
Fortunately some teacher union leaders join with community members to help expand b teacher empowerment: http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_25251268/teacher-deal-goes-beyond-wages-and-class-size?IADID=Search-www.twincities.com-www.twincities.com
Michael Fiorillo: sober, realistic, to the point.
A small addition: notice how “vouchers” are often referred to by their supporters as “opportunity scholarships”?
The words themselves make one feel all warm and tingly inside, but they don’t change the reality of stealing from many Peters to pay one Paul.
Same old putrid wine in new bottles. The corporate suits call it rebranding. And they don’t appreciate folks like you calling them out on it.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
These charter school people are all in it for the money and believe me they could care less about the kids. Case in point and its been posted all around, and, the plain truth is this:
1. Charter schools just need to get their own space. Get out of the face of public schools
2. Charter schools are no better than any other public school – you can see that if you really look into the numbers
3. Moskowitch is a greedy creep who participated in nepotism with bloomberg
4. Moskowitch earns 500 thousand dollars yearly to manage a few schools where as Ms. Carmen Farina nyc schools chancellor at the nycdoe earns 225 thousand dollars yearly to manage over one million students. (thats more that double nyc chancelor salary!
5. Working in a high school it is very disturbing to see elementary kids walking around next to 17 and 18 year old high school kids
6. The moskowitch people come into schools with an attitude like its them against the world…most staff will not speak with any other personal in the building from other schools – most staff at moskowitch school will not even look anyone in the eye – its almost scary
7. The staff turnover rate at moskowitch schools are off the charts with just about every teacher moving away from these schools due to abusive treatment – you can research this if you want to freak out
8. moskowitch does not adhere to department of education policy. For example, she allowed media and other people into a school and forced parents to attend the auditorium for a public relations stint to protest diblasios policies without proper approval from the Department of Education.
9. moskowitch treats her students parents like they are some idiots. For example, most of moskowitch people are white however she trotted out 2 black people to speak to the parents in the auditorium
10. This story is only going to get worse as the moskowitch little school story will soon be a bad memory as there will be no more co locations in nyc public schools. So, either moskowitch gets out of the kitchen or burn
Shifting education into a for-profit model does nothing to solve the problems in education. The “choice” and “voucher” argument are a sham. Private schools already have endowment funds and readily give scholarships to deserving students. Applying a business model to public education is foolish. Businesses rely on profit to stay afloat. The formula for a would-be charter franchisee becomes thus: try to get a building rent-free (or in North Carolina, one dollar), have open enrollment and take in as many students as you can (along with their $4800), after the twenty-day head count, start removing students from the school (money stays with charter, doesn’t follow them back to public school), hire entry-level staff (to keep costs low), thereby maximizing profitability.
Running public schools on a business model is pure foolishness. While nobody has the guts to say it like this (or answer it truthfully), I will…If public education becomes privatized, what ultimately happens to the kids with behavior issues? What about the poor (financially speaking) black kids?
Charters are all about the money. The children are an after thought.
Warren Wilhelm hates Eva, its sad that a person in this position of power would use personal hate to destroy childrens lives to settle a personal vendetta. Why? Maybe he blames her for his failure to become council speaker in 2002, after she backed Gifford Miller. Maybe Wilhelm resents that she became Education Committee chairman and not him. Maybe it’s because running public schools where black and Latino children acutally learn, Eva makes it hard for Wilhelm and his union overlords to excuse the massive failure of the zoned schools in NYC.
I’ve been following the issue of charter vs. public schools for a long time.
It appears to me that if a charter school person, such as Eva Moskowitz or Geoffrey Canada, can draw a salary in the $500,000 range, then, in reality, she/he is, in effect, running a private school, even though i charter schools are supposed to be public schools. Many public school principals, in the employ of the NYCDOE DON’T draw this type of salary, are more in the $100,000 range.
Further, if the charter schools are NOT electing to take on the populations of students that public schools are REQUIRED to take on ( or, as has been alleged, the charter schools “counsel” these students out), are they, in reality, TRUE “public” schools?
Here, in Brooklyn, the Amity charter school took over an old motel, and converted it to a school. It is not co-located in a public school.
Why should schools such as those run by Eva Moskowitz, or Geoffrey Canada be located in a public school, if they are NOT willing to teach or enroll the students that public schools, funded by tax dollars must take on by law?
As for the students performing well academically, sure, if the charters are not taking on low performing students, those that have ELL issues and/or special needs, it would seem to follow that these students would perform at higher levels than those students in the public schools of NYC.
Ms. Moscowitz and Mr. Canada should follow the lead of the Amity school. Open up your own locations, rather than taking up space in the public schools, or suck it up and pay rent to the city. I don’t see any reason why, if the schools are profitable in terms of income for people such as Ms. Moscowitz, how her charter schools are any different from any other private enterprise, except that she is hiding behind the mantle of “public education” to avoid paying rent, and using our tax dollars to make a profit for herself and her Board.
MS this is the same thing that bloomberg did. He had his own personal vendetta and teachers suffered. Payback is a bitch MS eat it now and lick the plate clean
As for the students of these schools, being “displaced”, as the claim has been made, I’m sure that Ms. Moskowitz, in her quest for true education, will find places for the students of her schools to attend when the time arrives so that they may continue their education…… Won’t she?
When Ms. Moskowitz and her network applied for these two elementary school charters, they pledged that Success had the financial resources to open the schools, whether they had rent-free space in a DOE facility or had to pay for it, no later than August 25, 2014. If Success cannot fulfill that pledge, I trust their failure will send an unmistakable signal to the SUNY Charter School Institute that the network is approaching a saturation point within the five boroughs, and their desire to open a total of 40 schools may be overambitious. While there is unquestionably some spare space in DOE buildings, there is hardly an infinite amount, especially since high schools and D75 schools are now off-limits.
Success’s reaction to the revoked middle school expansion for Success Academy #4 would have highly disappointed me if I were a parent there. Again, when Success applied for and was granted these charters and expansions, they were making a committment to children with or without free DOE space. That Success’s first response was to say “this school is going to be closed” rather than “this is a setback, but rest assured we are going to use everything in our power, including our financial war chest and our political influence, to fulfill the promise we made to your child” pretty much tells you all you need to know.
Tim: I fully agree with your last statement.
If Ms. Moskowitz were truly putting the interests of her students and their parents ahead of her own, your last hypothetical statement is what she SHOULD have been saying.
As you said so well, what Ms. Moskowitz DID say pretty much tells us all that we need to know about her REAL interests.
Sorry about that last dangling sentence, mea culpa. The complete sentence: Why didn’t Ms. Moskowitz reassure the parents of her students that she and her Board would seek other alternatives to ensure the continued education of those attending the Success Academy?
As the leader of a Charter chain it’s Ms. Moskowitz’s responsibility to find space, when Plan A isn’t approved, have a Plan B. Ms. Moskowitz is an intelligent, successful business woman who’s also been an elected official…she has tons of political savvy.
She knew this would happen. In business as in politics, the tide changes, fads change (and will surely change again/back) Ms. Moskowitz took this risk knowingly.
The second de Blasio was on the ballot to run for Mayor, Ms. Moskowitz owed her black/brown customers (our children and their parents — her CLIENTS) the respect of telling them she would not let them down and SHE would take responsibility for finding new space in: a church (as other charters do), in an empty parochial school building, in an empty space in a commercial building.
What I find fascinating is that Mr. de Blasio is the villain?! When it’s so blatantly clear Ms. Moskowitz is USING young children and their parents. Success parents — Ask Ms. Moskowitz why she doesn’t have a Plan B? Ask to see her 2012-2013 financials, is it true she can’t afford rent? How much does Success spend in legal fees? Where can her annual budget be trimmed to pay rent temporarily while her team either takes legal action or rents temporarily?
Accountability was the buzzword of the “reform” movement Ms. Moskowitz has led…why aren’t Success parents holding her accountable?
http://danieldromm.com/news/
“Statement by Council Member Daniel Dromm
Chair of New York City Council Education Committee
Capital New York reports that Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz “is closing all 22 of her schools for the day to attempt to rally support in Albany, and has asked teachers to provide instruction to students on buses up to the Capitol.”
First and foremost, I do not believe the inside of a bus is an appropriate location to provide educational instruction.
I am also deeply concerned about the legality of a school leader closing schools for entirely political purposes. As chair of the New York City Council Education Committee, I intend to hold an oversight hearing to investigate whether any laws or Chancellor’s regulations have been violated by Moskowitz unilaterally closing schools to effectively force children to lobby on her behalf.
This is the second time that Moskowitz has closed her schools for what seems to have been political purposes. In October, Moskowitz closed her Success Academy charter schools to lead a political march across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest Bill de Blasio. This must stop. No educator should be allowed to use children as pawns for their political agenda. Serious questions arise about closing schools for political gain.
As the recipient of public funding, I am also troubled by reports of the Success Academy paying administrators extraordinary salaries.
I also intend to use my oversight powers to investigate Moskowitz’s extensive marketing campaigns costing millions of dollars.
Field trips can be an important part of the educational experience. Dragging children to Albany to further Moskowitz’s political agenda serves no public or pedagogical purpose.”
Diane,
Is Rupert Murdoch still funding Success Academy?
“Closing her schools to lobby for chater funding…”
This seems like a typical behavior of school capitalist.
Nomination for “Twilight of the Elites”?