In this post, Daniel Katz, director of secondary education and secondary special education teacher preparation at Seton Hall University in New Jersey, interviews Mindy Rosier about what it is like to work in a public school that shares the same building with one of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter schools. Rosier is a teacher at PS 811, the Mickey Mantle School, which serves children with special needs. PS 811 is situated within PS 149 in Harlem, a traditional public school; it serves about 100 children with autism and other special needs. The Success Academy charter school was co-located inside PS 149 in 2006. What is it like to co-exist with SA?
Here is a sample:
“There is definitely an us vs. them feeling in the air. I’ve been told that they have shiny clean floors, new doors, fancy bathrooms, etc. Meanwhile, we have teachers who have bought mops and even a vacuum cleaner to clean their rooms for they feel what is done is not efficient enough. Near our entrance, we have an adult bathroom. It is for staff and our parents. Success Academy parents as well have used it. For many months that bathroom went out of order. Honestly, I am not even sure it is fixed yet, but after all this time, I really hope so. So we would have to either use the closet of a bathroom in the staff lunch area or use one of the kids’ bathroom when it is not in use. You and I know that had that been an SA bathroom, it would have been fixed by the next day. SA also throws out tons of new or practically new materials often. At first, some of their teachers would sneak us some materials thinking we could benefit from it. They stopped out of fear. With all the great stuff that they have thrown out, they got angry when they found out that teachers from P.S.149 and I believe some of our teachers too would go through the piles and take what we could use. Well, now they only throw out their garbage shortly before pick up so that no one could get at it. Nice, right?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you again Diane!!!!
Mindy
God bless you Mindy. You are wonderful and a saint. Love, Twitter Linda
Thank you Linda!!! 🙂
Mindy
OMG! What great role models at “not so great” Success Academy.
In Newark, one of the schools that has been turned over to a charter received air conditioning before the school year began. Never would have happened if the public school still resided within that building. Doesn’t that say it all?
Co-location tells the public school kids how little they matter to the school board, the mayor, the governor. The actions of the staff of the charter school show the public school kids that they are lesser than. Its shameful.
Help Mindy and the other teachers document this abuse of power, money, and priviledge with the date, time, event, names of abusers if known, etc. This documentation is clearly needed in every “co-location.” It id truly a matter of accountability and equity.
There has to be a lawsuit that stops this appropriation of space and inequitable treatment of “shared” public facilities. There is the added insult of placing all of these students together, especially if they have formal individualized plans per IDEA.
I grew up in the segregated South. This reminds me of the rule of having two drinking fountains, one for “colored,” one for “white.” And there were two bathrooms, one for white folks inside, and maybe none for “coloreds,” or if so, outside and likely a one-holer rigged up in a vacant lot, no running water, lots of flies, spiders and other unwanted critters. Awful back then, terrible for any echo of that now.
Hi Laura. I honestly never thought of that correlation before and I can definitely see that now. So sad that we have come so far to only go backwards again.
So Ms. Chapman, you must be very opposed to allowing some NY City HIgh Schools to refuse admission to special ed and other students who can’t pass their admission tests?
Have you spoken out about the inequities that permit a few educators to pick and choose which students they will work with (including at the school that one of the current mayor’s youngsters attended)?
Mindy Rosier says “There is definitely an us vs. them feeling in the air.”
Read what she says to back up that statement.
Then ponder the rheeal meaning of the following assertions by the leading advocates for, and promoters of, charters and privatization: “charter schools are just like public schools—and often better!” and “charter schools are the rising tide that will lift all public school boats” and “charter schools and public schools are just the same—except for 150 exemptions in Ohio, e.g., and student/teacher/parent rights” and “charters have exactly the same kinds of students as other public schools and do a better job with them” ad nauseam.
BTW, is Ms. Rosier the owner of the blog “Inside Colocation”?
Whatever the case, I heartily recommend it to the viewers of this blog—
Link: http://insidecolocation.tumblr.com
😎
No I am not and I do not know who that is. Our stories are all very similar yet nothing is done. This blog/interview was done in response to the NY TImes Mag article by Daniel Bergner a couple of weeks ago. I interviewed with him at length telling him everything I have seen and it all went ignored. Other teachers and parents were ignored as well. I’m so tired of reading all these fluff pieces when schools are suffering. I sent Bergner and his editors a very detailed email. I have yet to hear back from any of them. Cowards!!!
They don’t even talk out of both sides of their mouths. They tell us public schools suck and they intend to vanquish them. Whatever it takes. Period. Big money backs them, newspaper “reporters” back them, and we’d all better just shut up and take it. Period.
How DARE we get in their way with the truth.
Exactly!! The only good too come out of the whole Moskowitz debacle is that I am now an education activist. I will be silenced no more. Enough is enough!
Mindy
It was a real pleasure helping Mindy get her story out — It was horrible but sadly predictable that a Times author would be given such compelling material and intentionally reduce it a few dismissive words. Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for helping get the word out even more!
Did you make any effort to interview someone from Success Academy? Did you make any effort to verify the assertions?
When I taught (for 22 years) at the University of Minnesota, one of the things we prized was the importance of students hearing varying viewpoints.
I’m also wondering whether and how you, as a faculty member at a Catholic University, have spoken out about the extensive child abuse by Catholic priests. I looked on your blog but did not find anything about that.
Incidentally, our children all attend urban, non- admissions test public schools, k-12. I served as an urban public school teacher and administrator.
In looking on your bio, there is a description of your work at a very elite private school in Hawaii, and a Catholic school. Did you ever teach in a public school?
What I dont understand Joe, is why are you getting on Dr. Katz? I am a public school teacher in Harlem and I am fully capable of giving Dr. Katz the information that I did as a response to a NY Times Magazine article where I was interviewed as well and ignored. That NY Times Magazine article purposely hid verifiable information that I gave. I have no idea why you are trying to attack someone for helping me get the truth out. I’m sorry if you didn’t like what we had to say, but that’s what happens when big money is involved to hide the truth.
Mindy Rosier
Mindy, having been an urban public school teacher and administrator (before working at the University of Minnesota), I’ve found that truth often is complex. I’m also familiar with and a fan of the Julia Richman complex in Manhattan, which houses a number of district schools and other organizations.
I’m wondering whether Dr. Katz thought it important to find out what Success Academy had a different perspective – or whether he tried and then declined to be interviewed.
As mentioned, I’m also wondering if a person who is in charge of preparing secondary English teachers has ever taught in a public school. His bio mentions that he taught a a very elite private school in Hawaii, and in a private Catholic school.
Mr. Nathan,
The purpose of the article was to inform readers of what they could not have gleaned from reading Mr. Bergner’s article in the New York Times – that he had spoken at length with teachers who worked in schools at the center of the controversy and that he had subsequently ignored their input entirely. Dr. Diane Ravitch of New York University was quoted, but her input was thoroughly distorted by Mr. Bergner’s reporting. Fortunately, she has a significant platform through which she is able to inform the public about how she was misrepresented.
It was my pleasure to offer Ms. Rosier a chance, even in a modest platform such as mine, to inform the public about the side of the story which Mr. Bergner had at his disposal and discounted. As I am sure you are aware, another important principle in educating students is “stick to your subject.” The Success Academy perspective was given almost entirely uncritical space in the original Times article — to which I linked at the beginning of this article.
As for your second question: Child sexual abuse by any individual or within any institution is a matter of the utmost importance and is an outrageous betrayal that must be pursued and prosecuted wherever it exists.
It is also not the subject of my blog, and it is a subject outside my fields of competency which I assume you know if you had indeed done even a cursory examination of my blog. Your question is, at best, irrelevant and, at worse, borderline offensive. I believe survivors of sexual abuse are not there to serve as objects for poorly crafted rhetorical points.
Dr. Katz, You did not respond to the question about whether you taught in district public schools. So I’ll ask again, as a person who is responsible for preparing people to teach in schools – public and private, have you ever taught in a public school?
Yes, I did look at your blog. Some professors at University of St. Thomas here in St Paul have challenged the local archdiocese for its mishandling of the child abuse issue. I wondered if you had done so – apparently it’s not a priority for you. Too bad. I think academics at Catholic institutions could be taking a lead on this issue. Their silence, in many cases, is unfortunate. I realize you think this is a distraction.
As mentioned, I think the truth sometimes is more complex than the view of the person you interviewed. That’s why I asked if you attempted to get the viewpoint of someone from success.
My view of universities is that faculty should be examining and sharing multiple viewpoints in the search for truth. A person can come to her/his own conclusions – but I’d think you as a college faculty member would want to learn more about what the view is from the Success Academy.
Apparently we disagree.
Joe Nathan, PhD
Dr. Nathan,
You are correct. My secondary classroom teaching experience did not include teaching in a district public school. Since 1997, I have worked as a teacher educator in many such schools. My dissertation research was conducted in the Cincinnati Public Schools. My doctorate program was centered around public education and teacher education for the public schools. The inquiry you made is most often one made to question to qualifications of a person to either comment upon or be in a position to influence public education. I am more than confident that my work with public schools and public school teachers during the entirety of my 21 year long career in education is adequate to my current tasks.
The content of the article at hand is present to provide voice to a public school teacher who, in sincerity, offered a reporter at the paper of record with significant input into his story only to find it discarded in the creation of a single sided, long form article. In doing so, I HAVE helped to make the truth more complicated by providing a platform for the excluded point of view. That you you portray that as my disagreeing “that faculty should be examining and sharing multiple viewpoints in the search for truth” is, of course, another cheap rhetorical trick.
As for your comment about what is or is not a “priority” for me — you commented about looking at my blog for any indication about what I have or have not said regarding sexual abuse. I repeat, such a topic is outside the scope of this blog, and whether or not I have or have not spoken on that topic in any forum whatsoever is also not relevant to the article about which you were commenting. Since you have decided to draw a conclusion about me in your comment, I must admit that I find such off topic and entirely cheap rhetorical tricks startlingly clumsy and disappointing from someone with the qualifications and, I presume, talents to be a senior fellow at such a prestigious organization as the Humphrey School.
Interesting you should mention your work in Cincinnati, since I worked closely in Cincy with the local teachers union and teachers for 7 years, 2000-2007. One of the things that came up frequently was their frustration with teacher preparation – and the lack of faculty in colleges of education of people who have been successful urban public school teachers. It’s a view I find shared across many district & charter educators.
You regard questions about your speaking about about Catholic child abuse as cheap rhetorical tricks. Having worked with families who left the Church in part because of what happened to their children, I can assure you that they have been deeply wounded – and that part of their frustration is the unwillingness of most Catholic higher education faculty to speak out. So victims don’t regard questions about this as cheap or rhetorical or tricks. They wonder why more people such as yourself have not spoken out.
Our Center left Humphrey after 22 years and is now located in an urban charter started by the first African American to be elected to the St. Paul Mn city council, and who formerly was the Mn Human Rights Commissioner.
It’s great to be located in an urban public school.
Dr. Nathan,
I’ve explained why I have written what I have written and what is and is not on topic here several times. You keep choosing to not respond to that and instead to put words in my mouth by saying what you think I “clearly” believe and what you believe is a “priority” for me.
This is worthy of a copy editor for Sean Hannity, but it is sorely disappointing for someone in your position.
Different people have different views about what is on and off topic.
I wish you had spent as much time defending children who have been abused by the church that your university promotes you do criticizing what’s some people allege is happening in Harlem.
My response to the situation at the schools is that I’d hope a person committed to the search for truth would be interested in obtaining the views of other people who share that space.
You can throw around accusations about Sean Hannity all you like – but we’ve now established:
You try to prepare teachers to teach in public schools but you’ve never taught in one.
You think questioning practices related to child abuse by the church that your employer promotes is not something you want to talk about.
You don’t think it’s important to ask someone from another school sharing the building what their view is of the situation.
Dr. Nathan, I honestly think you are way out of line. Dr. Katz has clearly explained things to you, yet you still attack him about topics that have nothing to do with THIS blog. I went to Catholic colleges for my undergrad and Master’s degrees. So by what you said, I guess I supported institutions that back child molesters??? I personally may not write about it but as a survivor of abuse I am keen to picking up signs and have reported it. My point is we all have things that we focus on but that does not mean all else is ignored. They are just done differently than what we focus on. It also does not mean we don’t care. I have been teaching since 1997 so I do have lots of experience with children and my undergrad studies focused on psychology. As for your “allege” comment, I take offense to that. I will be happy to provide my coworkers and teachers from the other TPS in our building and guess what? We all pretty much have the same story. We have had community leaders, the Manhattan Borough President, a Senator, a Councilman, the President of the NAACP, amongst others, speak up for our school. I did not pull my “allegations” out of thin air. Also, charter school practices in general are no secret nationwide. Now back to the original purpose of my response to you, was that I am horrified and offended by someone of your stature to make the accusations that you did. How dare you say such things and try to discredit someone who was helping me get the truth out to everybody. Something that was denied to me and other teachers and parents. In NYC all you hear lately is from the Charter School perspective. Its time to get a different view which is what Dr.Katz did and he did so wonderfully. To then have it picked up by Ms. Ravitch is an honor. You can disagree and that’s fine, but to try to discredit someone and accuse him of supporting child abuse is truly reprehensible.
It’s clear that you appreciate Katz promoting your views. It’s clear what is and is not important to you and Katz.
It’s one thing to attend a Catholic institution. It’s another thing to teach there.
While speaking out about this apparently does not seem to matter to you, it matters to many people who have been abused, and to their families. I did not accuse him of supporting child abuse. I asked why he has not spoken out. No response except that this is not the purpose of his blog. Got it.
I have talked with a variety of NYC educators about co-location, and have in fact brought a number of district educators to see NYC district schools where co-location has taken place. We’ve described the Julia Richman complex in two different publications, and stood with them when there was a university threat to the building.
What’s clear to me is that if you want to have the full story on any of these co-locations, you need to hear from people who represent various schools.
I was not speaking about all charters. I was speaking for MY school. I do not expect every co-located school to have MY story. (Unfortunately many have their own.) Dr.Katz was talking about ONE charter school which is the ONE in MY story. What part of that do you not understand??? I also said in my previous response to you that I am a survivor, meaning I was sexually abused myself for 8 years, so how dare you imply that I don’t care either. I am an educational activist and I stand for all children and help all children as well as fellow educators and parents. You continue with what I now consider an immature attack. Stick to the topic of the blog. Your implications are simply disgusting. You do not know either of us and you are basing your vile attack on a blog of MY story about ONE charter school which has NOTHING to do about sexual child abuse. If you think there are blogs lacking when it comes to this topic, then start your own blog and I can share MY sexual abuse stories with you. Unfortunately you will have only one side since my abuser passed years ago. So according to you, that wouldn’t work either!!!
Joe, you have a fair point re: two sides of the story, and you made that point, and you got a fair response. Your points about sexual abuse are not fair points, and yet you’ve gotten a pretty fair response on those, too. Walk away.
Thanks for your note, FLERP!
Here’s a link to one of our publications, that describes shared facilities such as the Julia Richman complex:
Click to access saneschools.pdf
We found it valuable to talk with a variety of people.
Based on hundreds of interviews, I don’t think there are just 2 sides in a shared facility. Often there are more. Katz is not interested in learning from other views. Got that.
What’s ironic is the number of people who work in public schools who are frustrated that colleges employ people who have never worked in public schools to train the next generation of teachers. We’ve worked hard to include outstanding teachers to help teach college classes. That should be happening everywhere.
Katz, who earns his pay from an institution that promotes Catholicism would rather criticize people working in some charter than priest who abuse children. Got it.
You just don’t get it. He was sharing MY story. My school and the TPS that share space with Success Academy have rallied, protested, and done press conferences together. The only people that have a different view than us is Success Academy. The purpose of charter schools in the first place was to enrich the schools they share space with. SA has never done that. All they have done, was to take and take, and it has never been enough. So please forgive me for talking for my school and sharing MY story. As I said before, I never claimed my story is the same in all co-colocated schools. Please do us all a favor and get off your high horse. You do not know everything. You do not know me, my 100+ students, our staff, or Dr.Katz.
You’re welcome to share your story – that’s part of free speech. And I’m very sorry you were the victim of abuse.
Having said that, for some people, university faculty should be trying to determine the complexity of a situation. That involves asking a variety of people for their insights.
As to sharing views, I write a weekly column that appears in a number of Minnesota newspapers. That constantly includes the views of district, charter, union and community leaders. Here’s a recent example:
http://hometownsource.com/2014/09/04/joe-nathan-column-money-not-mentioned-in-educators-advice-for-first-month-of-school/
I’m sure you have heard of case study presentations which is what he did by sharing my story. I’m not going to keep going around and around with you since you still seem to want to discredit Dr.Katz who has wrote nothin short of amazing articles in the past on various education related topics. I’m sorry if you disagree with him. You are entitled to. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Educator to educator, your tactics are quite distasteful. The fact that you keep at this shmeer attack makes me believe you have your own agenda. This is not the place for it. I’m done!
Mindy, there is nothing to gain by arguing with Joe about charter schools. He is a zealous advocate for them and can never be convinced of wrongdoing. If you point some misdeed by charter operators, he always has an anecdote to say that public schools do the same or worse.
Thank you Diane. I am done because you are absolutely correct. I just felt awful by the things he said to Dr. Katz. He did not deserve the things that Dr. Nathan said. I’m protective of my colleagues as I am of my students. Its just my nature.
Mindy
Quite untrue. I’ve regularly acknowledged problems with charters.
Someone needs to draw a cartoon or make a video of the have-not teachers going through the trash.
Just one more example of US education in chaos destroying the youth of tomorrow. Too many adults now have already become dysfunctional from our declining society. Until we get a strong president and leaders who will get rid of DOE and give education back to the communities where it belongs, this insanity will continue. George Washington’s education was in his garden, and centered about botany and literary classics. He was our smartest and greatest president, but how quickly we forget. Schools today are producing robots, not leaders. Too many people think PhD or MD after a name makes one smart. It is the opposite. What makes people smart is their childhood environment. Our method of warehousing children in daycare and institutional abuse from harsh boring school environments is producing a society of deranged people. We have become a society of workaholics with social and emotional dysfunctional. We need to get back on track and restore authentic learning like Montessori, which is the same as George Washington’s school. Everyone needs to burst the little bubble they are living in and notice that our country may claim to be great, but actually it is a ghetto of dysfunction from traumatic grief and betrayal trauma: loss of trust in government, fear and insecurity, lack of respect for differences in race and religion, and corruption from the wealthy and powerful. We do not need war machines being sent to communities all over the country from the Dept of Defense, we need that money put into healthy schools to nurture our children rather than abuse them. What will it take for people in this country to wake up, another Civil War?
My view: This is what should be expected. The politicians do EVERYTHING they can to discredit the public schools while trying to make the charters look good. In Indiana our illustrious Tony Bennett even changed grades.
According to the most recently available data, PS 149 spends $23,535 per student, per year–$18,919 per general education student and a whopping $47,437 per special ed student. These numbers are quite a bit higher than the DOE-wide averages, and they exclude transportation and pension/debt costs. They are strictly operational expenditures.
http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/03/M149/AboutUs/Statistics/expenditures.htm
Putting aside for the moment whether Success is a good neighbor, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to view this situation–run-down facilities in a chronic state of disrepair, a severe shortage of basic supplies, teachers foraging through garbage for materials–and think that the bigger issue is how and where that money is being spent, not that there’s a non-DOE school in the building.
Before I start I want to say that I understand everyone’s frustration with the fact that success academy gets things done quicker than traditional public schools. My frustration comes when everyone wastes their time bashing Success Academy rather than spending their time finding a way to fix the problem. You do realize that if everyone that has a problem with Success Academy come together and brainstorm on ways to fix their schools they might just come up with a solution. Wasting time going against each other is not going to help any student and the back and forth is actually just putting a blindfold on the real problem. The problem is not how Success uses its material or how fast they fix their bathrooms, its the fact that kids are not learning and failing. I feel that if you do not have a valid solution to the problem, which is the state of our education, then stop wasting your energy complaining and try to find more productive ways to spend your time. Start acting and stop just waiting for something to happen.