John Merrow, who reports on education for PBS, did a segment on suspensions for children in kindergarten. He focused on the Success Academy charter schools and compared it to a public school in Brooklyn.
The segment begins with the U.S. Deepartment of Education’s view that out-of-school suspensions are very bad policy that discourage and stigmatize children.
The public school had no suspensions for little children. Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools believe in suspensions as good discipline.
In his interview with Eva, Merrow repeatedly challenged her claims. She told him that anecdotes are not data, then offered an anecdote. He showed data that her suspension rate was double that of KIPP.
Eva’s trump card? Spectacular test scores. Does she push out low-scoring kids? The same little children were repeatedly suspended until they withdrew and went to public school.
Reach your own judgment.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The age old trick is to force low scoring kids out of school or to suspend them on the day of the test. Better yet, they give a “time out” on the day of the test to keep the absence off the records. Leave early in the day before the test, therefore are present but not there.
I know where the skeletons are buried 🙂
Watch this video and see Eva duck the question about whether her charter chain’s lotteries self-select parents who are more involved, who are more upscale, and who deliver easier-to-educate children to Success Academy schools: (why, that’s “unknowable”… doncha know?)
In the process of answering, Eva inadvertantly lets slip the selective outreach she engages in to attract a more desirable cream of students… note the graphics superimposed as she talks.
NOTE: she was being interviewed by a friendly source—the union-hating libertarian REASON TV.
My favorite part of the video is when the Eva’s charter shill Jeremiah Kittredge condemns public schools with the claim that that “over 50% of public schools serve a less-than-average number of special ed. kids.”
Yeah… that’s the definition of “average”, as the video points out.
In New York City, 1-in-9 public students are categorized as homeless.
In Eva’s SUCCESS ACADEMIES, 0-in-9 students are homeless.
How did things en up this way?
Why that’s also “unknowable.”
Eva can also argue that 100% of SUCCESS ACADEMY students who are not kicked out prior to graduation end up receiving a diploma. That’s impressive
Per the latest IBO NYC indicators report, a little less than 1/12 NYC DOE students, not 1/9, are considered homeless, with roughly 28,000 in shelters and 48,000 “doubled up” with a relative or friend.
Please provide a source for your claim that Success does not educate a single homeless or doubled-up student. Thanks.
One in 12, that is still a sobering statistic.
Per this summer’s IBO report, an average of 53 charter schools (5 of which were Success Academy schools) lost 26.5% of their K students by 2nd grade, and another 22.5% by 5th grade, for a total of 49.5% of the starting Kindergarteners gone missing. Now Success Academy made up only some of those charter schools and the IBO was VERY careful not to report on their attrition rate separately.
Tim, I challenge you to demand that from the IBO since you are so concerned about attrition and what happens. Maybe the IBO will tell you what they are keeping hidden from reporters and the public — exactly how many kids at each of the Success Academy schools left by 2nd grade and again by 5th grade, and where did they go? And how did that compare with the charter schools that parents were not so desperate to attend? Tim, once you get the information, you can hand it directly to the SUNY Charter Institute — I know they could get it themselves but they don’t like to do that kind of oversight — it’s just so tedious. They only care about the result of the 55.5% of the kids who remain! And if the kids who remain happen to be more affluent, more with college educated parents, with far fewer disabilities, well who the heck cares? Do you, Tim? I doubt it.
By the way, backfill, which I know you care about Tim, is meaningless if you test a child and demand he repeat a year before being allowed in your school. If the only students added to the grade in 2nd or 3rd grade are guaranteed to already be at grade level from their education at a previous school, you are pretty much guaranteed good test scores.
This was @John_Merrow (‘s) last segment for PBS NewsHour as he is retiring. Be sure to thank him for his swan song! We can certainly use this interview in future discussions about Charter Schools and how are they not only re-segregating society, but they’re taking valuable dollars from REAL Public Schools. youtube.com/watch?v=sVfCMwLbiEs
Did Eva Moskowitz’ abrupt announcement that she wasn’t running for Mayor “to concentrate on her schools” have anything to do with this interview? It’s obvious she knew it wasn’t going well. Could she have thought that the issues it brought up might die down quickly if she took herself out of the running as a candidate? It certainly seemed like a gratuitous announcement out of left field – was it done so that there’d be no reason for more investigative reporters to start looking into her schools?
She pays herself $600,000, no? Why would she run for mayor and make 1/3 the pay? Would she continue to pay herself $600,000 and run the city? Is that even doable? Wink.
Just FYI, Eva Moskowitz doesn’t pay herself or set her own salary. That would be SA’s board of directors.
FLERP, why does that matter?
Because it’s true? If that’s not a good enough reason to matter, then I stand corrected.
FLERP,
Everyone knows that the head of a corporation answers to the board, and doesn’t set his/her own compensation. Why do you make this a revelation? Did I write that Eva pays herself? Who are you responding to?
I was responding to the commenter “Donna,” above, who wrote that Eva Moskowitz “pays herself 600k.”
FLERP!, you watched the video and read the comments, and all you wanted to say was to correct the comment that a CEO doesn’t “pay herself” a salary but her board sets the compensation”?
Were you shocked when you heard the Success Academy attrition rates were twice as high as KIPP? Do you really not understand that if there are really so many parents desperate to get in, the idea that they would voluntarily pull their children twice as often as another “no excuses” charter schools is pretty shocking? The fact that the suspension of Kindergarteners — age 4 and 5 in NYC — is brushed off by Eva as them all throwing chairs and using explicit language isn’t worthy of comment, but making sure every reader understood that she can’t “pay herself” unless her board approves is all you can add?
Seriously, even if we were all under that mistaken impression that she can set whatever salary she wants with no board approval — how does that change anything in the video?
That’s correct, NYCPP. All I wanted to do was to correct Donna’s misunderstanding that Eva Moskowitz sets her own salary and pays herself. Despite Diane’s view that this is an obvious point and is known by everyone, the idea that Moskowitz “pays herself” is repeated by a lot of commenters here. So I thought I’d correct that misunderstanding.
The correction does not change anything in the video. In theory, the correction does have an impact on whatever point Donna was trying to make. But as you can see below, in reality it had no impact. She still thinks that Eva Moskowitz sets her own salary.
FLERP!, it’s funny you feel the need to correct a commenter and no need to correct the misleading statistics given by Eva Moskowitz in the interview. I guess you believe that if a random poster claims that a CEO “pays himself” instead of “being paid by a board”, that will do great harm to public education. But if a woman whose words are used by politicians to direct precious public funds says something misleading, well, that’s just not any of your business.
Or maybe you believe that just because the attrition rate at Success Academy is twice as high as the attrition rate at KIPP, you just know there is no reason to wonder why — it just is and we need to accept that Success Academy is desperately trying to help those at-risk children who leave. We all know that their parents — after being thrilled to win the lottery — mysteriously “changed their minds” and left in great numbers and no need to wonder why. It just is and if Eva Moskowitz says she tried her very darn best to educate all kids and she knows she could have turned all the ones who were suspended and left into scholars, she is of course, to be believed no matter what. No need to look any further! If there are 10 kids left and they do well, that’s all that matters!
But we should NEVER allow a commenter to say that a CEO sets his own salary and not the board. I mean, that’s the kind of “dishonesty” that damages the kids so much.
I apologize for the correction.
FLERP!, to be clear: You don’t have to apologize for correcting a fact (at least, I don’t have a problem with it and you are free to correct any of my facts at any time). Everything you wrote was accurate.
I just hoped you would explain why you seem to care more about how a CEO of a charter school gets paid than how that CEO runs her charter schools and how some of the most vulnerable 5 year olds are affected by their policies.
It’s just unusual that you read an education blog and the only thing you find worthy of commenting on after watching this video is how a CEO’s salary is set. As if there is nothing worth noting in the video itself. I would have expected that your legitimate correction about the CEO payment process would have been part of a longer comment on what you thought about the video.
I guess I probably figured that ground had been adequately covered by Diane’s post and the 70 other comments here. Plus it only took 20 seconds to type. Of course I always forget to factor in the ten additional posts that are required to justify the first one.
Why the long, multiple lecturing of FLERP over a short comment? The comment was an accurate, minor correction. Does she/he belong to Moscowitz’s red zone now? Should he puff his face up? 🙂
Máté Wierdl, you have a point. FLERP, I apologize. I often find it strange what you choose to comment and not comment on, but I’m sorry for going on about it.
Flerp, thank you for correcting me. I work for a corporation made of equity partners who pay themselves handsomely. It is Eva’s school, Eva owns it to my knowledge, so she pays herself. How nice of her Board to think she deserves such a lucrative annual salary. Now, please inform me how the Board divvies up those billions in philanthropic donations, while still sucking on the public taxpayer teat, yet claiming they need more?
Flerp, you always manage to miss the point, and pick at the minutia.
Now tell me the sky is blue.
It’s all semantics.
For all intents and purposes, EM is the founder and CEO.
Arguing over her compensation by the board is silly. She set up the game, trust me, she’ll have plenty of sway over her salary.
She is a Wall St. sweetheart. Follow the money: http://littlesis.org/maps/271-eva-moskowitz-success-and-wall-street
Even insinuating that she doesn’t have a say on her pay is specious, quite insulting to the readers of this blog.
Cui bono? Eva, the hedge funds and Wall Streeters.
Cui non bono? Liberi.
She claims that early suspensions lead to later success. I have a strong feeling that theory ain’t based on research.
She claims that early suspensions lead to later success.
Success for whom? Not for those who have left the school.
One word: NUTS!
Success for whom? It means $ucce$ for Eva, of course!
The children are Eva’s means of production. Their high scores assure that SUNY authorizers will continue to bless her charters with renewals and that a bounty of state aid $$’s will continue to flow into Eva’s bank account.
I suspect that can be countered by looking more closely at the suspension rates in her schools. I suspect at some of them the suspensions are just as high in older grades until 3rd, when they have rid themselves of any student that they prefer not to have to teach.
Definitely not based on research and not even based on logic. Anyone who’s ever known a five-year-old knows they have no capacity to connect a punishment one day with a specific behavior the day before.
The only thing early suspensions lead to is the pipeline to prison for the most vulnerable students. Moskowitz is shameless.
If this was indeed his swan song at PBS Newshour, then it shows that John Merrow learned something mighty important from his interviews with Michelle Rhee—
Keeping it real. Not Rheeal.
Given the venue, I think he did a good job.
So he’s leaving on a high note.
😎
It’s the least he could have done, since he was an uncritical loudspeaker for so-called reform for quite a while.
OMG. I mean, OMG. I cannot believe a reporter is finally asking Eva Moskowitz some tough questions! Her face says it all — she has no experience with having anyone ever question her public relations with facts and is truly shocked that her practices are being questioned.
And her answers! “What does a 5 year old do to warrant an out of school suspension?” “Using sexually explicit language”. Right. How likely is it that huge numbers of 5 year olds are using this sexually explicit language in school? She could not come up with a better answer than that? I suppose she figured hey, these are mostly minority kids so people will believe it. Can you imagine her friend Arne Duncan’s wife claiming that the 5 year olds at the U. Chicago Lab School were using sexually explicit language so that’s why so many were suspended over and over again? And then when Mr. Merrow suggests other reasons he has heard — getting out of your seat, yelling out the answer to a question — she basically pretends that nope, it’s all because of that sexually explicit language all those 5 year olds are using?
Another shocking graph — “in another Success Academy school, 101 suspensions went to only 32 students…” and the graph has only 132 students total! So that means over 24% of them were suspended, many of them multiple times. (Apparently so many young kids using sexually explicit language at that school). I wonder where they got this information, as the NY State website only tracks total kids suspended, not how many times.
And finally someone mentions their sky high attrition rate (which is hard to track). Mr. Merrow was so kind to the SUNY Charter Institute when he mentioned that they don’t really care at all what happens inside charter schools, as long as the results of the kids who stay are good. I would have loved to get one of the SUNY people on camera to have to answer THAT question and explain why they laugh off attrition and suspension (after all, isn’t it funny when young, poor, and mostly minority kids are treated the way they’d never allow their own child to be treated). Why bother to look closely?
Sadly, if this is Mr. Merrow’s swan song, I guess he figured he would go out with a bang. I suspect the people at PBS — so dependent on funders — are not happy. If this piece disappears from public view, don’t be surprised. But I’d love to be proven wrong and see reporters start doing some real reporting on charter schools. Kudos to John Merrow and thank you for reporting. Maybe one or two other reporters might remember what journalism really is.
If this piece disappears from public view, don’t be surprised.
Can someone make a personal copy of that video? It would be good to have a copy in the event it disappears.
As evil and venal as Moskowitz is, and she is in the 99%, she is merely gaming the system in a way that’s inexcusably easy and logical. IE, those who create and give huge grants to this system of assessing kids and rewarding schools, charter & otherwise, by now know for a fact that her behavior is merely an inevitable effect of a myopic and misbegotten incentive and punishment system.
And that she like many other kindred spirits proclaims interest in children of the poor is nauseating. The corporatist ed reformers that have any interest apart from “doing well while doing good” [clearly she is not in any segment that believes they are altruists – she’s too cynical and no better a human than, say, Campbell Brown – ie, 7th circle people], are still willing to have substantial body count of kids that don’t train well and reliably for standardized tests. Those kids are quickly jettisoned and abandoned as lacking value on the only quality that matters: that they perform dutifully on timed tests. They are not humans, but data points, and if unsatisfactory, dismissed.
Mike,
I’ve argued that test scores are all about gaming the system for a while. I play tons of strategy games and it isn’t difficult to find a way to game test scores. SA has certainly put the blueprint out there if anyone cares to duplicate it.
But, yes, the obsession with test scores as the primary (or sole) determinant of school evaluation leads to shameful practices like the ones described above.
Bravo John.
Eva was going “Captain Queeg” a couple of time during that interview.
“That’s just… crazy talk!”
Merrow’s reporting on charters has been at best wishy-washy up to now. To bad he couldn’t find any integrity to tap into before. Moskowitz pays herself $500,000 per year. Many charters pay for real estate with the money they fleece from the public and they’ll walk away with prime real estate when they close up shop. They aren’t building for the future.
This blog covered the controversy over
the low-income scholars being forced to
buy ridiculously over-priced L.L Bean
backbacks and uniforms custom-made
for Eva’s charter chain. The parents were
not happy:
And of course, Eva gets a taste (cut of the sale)
Here’s a couple odd, perhaps funny
stories about the inner-workings of
SUCCESS ACADEMY.
First, there’s the “Golden Plunger:”
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2014/12/success-academy-bensonhurst-golden.html
In SUCCESS ACADEMY-land, a
spray-painted toilet plunger is given
as compensation to students who clean
the bathroom. Apparently that’s a lot
cheaper than hiring actual custodians.
T.C.F.W. … too creepy for words…
but I’ll try 😉
And to be honest, I”m not sure
if this brilliant idea originated with
Ms. Moskowitz, or some other
genius school administrator
within her charter chain.
This (BELOW) had been posted on
the “Success Academy Bensonhurst”
FACEBOOK page for the three months—
September-December, 2014—
However, when it started getting media
attention in early December 2014, it was
immediately pulled down.
Thankfully, Norm Scott over at “Ed Notes”
had the foresight to save it for posterity.
Doing janitorial work may be okay for the
kids of the the proletariat, but not so much
for kids of the middle or upper classes
that are being now wooed to join up with
Eva.
Eva is expanding her charter network
into these upscale areas, so this
“GOLDEN PLUNGER AWARD”
mishegass had to be scrubbed from
the Internet ASAP. Kids being awarded
prizes for cleaning bathrooms seems
a dismal prospect for those upscale
parents of the Seth’s and Caitlin’s
who are now joining the SUCCESS
ACADEMY family. I can imagine
some upscale parent calling Eva,
“With all the money you’re raking
in, can’t you hire a goddamn
janitor???!!!”
(to see an actual picture of the “Golden
Plunger” trophy that had been on the
“Success Academy Bensonhurst” page,
go to Norm’s article:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2014/12/success-academy-bensonhurst-golden.html
… a toilet plunger spray-painted gold.)
Here’s the text as it appeared on
the FACEBOOK page for SUCCESS
ACADEMY BENSONHURST:
————————————-
“Success Academy Bensonhurst
“September 12
“Today we launched our Golden Plunger Award. Each week, the boys or girls will have a chance to win the Golden Plunger Award for keeping the cleanest bathrooms! The weekly winners will have the award displayed by their bathroom as a reminder of all their hard work!
“We want to make sure that our bathrooms are clean and sanitary for your scholars all day long. Please speak with your scholars about putting toilet paper in the toilet, flushing the toilets after use, washing their hands completely after use, and throwing the paper towels in the wastebaskets.
“Hygiene and cleanliness are extremely important for keeping healthy!”
————————————-
Go to the link where it had been just days
prior to Norm’s article above:
https://www.facebook.com/SABensonhurst
No, it’s gone!!
For more info on S.A. Bensonhurst, here’s
an article about its aggressive, and …
shall we say… inconsiderate expansion
at its co-located school site.. and the
public school teachers who are livid
(not to mention lovers of old trees…
read on)
http://www.uft.org/news-stories/tree-falls-brooklyn
———
“‘Eva’s Bad Neighbor Policy:
A Tree Falls in Brooklyn’
“by Cara Met
“At an early morning meeting with UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Oct. 2, teachers at Seth Low in Bensonhurst had a chance to discuss their concerns as the school year — and the school’s first co-location — begin.
“Rumor has it that when Success Academy founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz recently toured the Bensonhurst school building where her new school had just put down stakes, she looked out the window and complained that a giant tree in the park across the street was blocking the view from her fourth-floor classrooms.
“ ‘All we know is that 24 hours later, that tree was removed by the city,’ said Judy Gerowitz, the UFT District 21 representative.
“Educators at IS 96, the Seth Low Intermediate School in Brooklyn, are wondering if Moskowitz has the power to end the life of an old tree what else she is capable of.
“Success Academy Bensonhurst has taken up 12 classrooms and more than three-quarters of the fourth floor for its kindergarten students. The school is slated to expand to the entire fourth floor and part of the third floor next year as it grows, even as Seth Low rebuilds under the leadership of a new principal.
“At an early-morning meeting with UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Oct. 2, teachers at Seth Low had a chance to discuss their concerns as the school year — and the school’s first co-location — began.
“Coincidentally, Oct. 2 was the date of a charter school rally in Manhattan, and seven large coach buses idled in front of the school as the Success Academy emptied out its students for the morning and shuttled them, staff and parents to Foley Square.
“Inside, the two schools’ students are kept separate. “Teachers on the fourth floor tell me that they just don’t interact with us — if one of our students does accidentally walk into their hallway, they get them out fast,” said special education teacher Howard Rybak.
“The students at the two schools use different entry and exit doors.
“Seth Low educators, parents, community members and elected officials organized protest rallies and objected vociferously at public hearings last school year about the proposed co-location. Chapter Leader Sokol Muja said they were concerned their new math and science academies as well as their new medical program in affiliation with Maimonides Hospital would be harmed.
“ ‘All these charter schools are pulling kids and pulling money from our system,’ said Corinne Kaufman, a math teacher for 25 years at Seth Low.
“In his discussion with the Seth Low educators, Mulgrew said that charter schools call themselves public when they ask for funding and facilities, but then say in court that they are private businesses when it comes to auditing their finances and operations.
“ ‘There’s no transparency and the economics are very different,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m concerned about.’ ”
“The same little children were repeatedly suspended until they withdrew and went to public school.”
So what you’re saying is Success Academy couldn’t operate like this without the public schools as a backup.
Moskowitz relies on the public schools for her success, because if the children were chased out and had no where to go there would be public outcry because the rejected kids wouldn’t have anywhere to go.
As long as she has the public system she’s covered. She should at least admit that.
Exactly — that’s some of the worst hypocrisy of her style of charter school. She denigrates the public system to demand more space for her brand, and then she sifts the children she gets via lottery until she only has the children she can effectively mold via her behavioral program and spits the rest of the children out. And then has the nerve to call the system she relies upon to take back children she doesn’t want a “failure” after she helps make it even harder for those schools to serve the children they have.
There would be a public outcry in my state, Ohio, when we have events like 11 charter schools closing without warning or planning over one summer, but there isn’t because the much-maligned public system is used as a back up for the “choice” system.
My own school system is used as a backup to absorb the “churn” in the for-profit cybercharter “sector”. Those kids move and in out of our schools, with absolutely no regard for the effects on the public school. Meanwhile, the CEO of the cybercharter schools issues derogatory statements to media on “government schools”.
You can’t tell me the Best and the Brightest don’t know schools are systems and what happens in the “charter sector” affects the public system. Eva Moskowitz strikes me as smart. She doesn’t realize this?
Ed reformers choose to ignore it, because they don’t value the public schools. Our schools exist solely to stand at the ready and absorb risk.
Cami Anderson admitted (the obvious) in Newark, which considering how lock-step this “movement” is, was brave of her to do.
Anderson (essentially) said that the public schools were bearing the burden of the risk re: the”choice” schools. This obvious truth about how systems work didn’t make a ripple in ed reform. They marched right on by. Arne Duncan insists “plus/and is win/win!” which is just absolute nonsense. He has no earthly idea how his experiments in such a complex system will shake out- none. He’s just willing to gamble the public schools.
I confess I don’t know as much as I should about Newark, but Cami Anderson certainly seemed to be thrown under the bus in Newark. The reformers and consultants all got rich, and when people realized their plan was a failure, she became the scapegoat. Never once has a reformer actually recognized that if you make the public system the dumping ground for every tough and expensive child that charters don’t want, you need to direct far more money to public schools and far less to charters, and even then there is no way publics can match the result of a no-excuses charter that loses so many kids.
It’s rather astonishing reformers don’t realize how blatantly obvious their complete lack of concern for all the disappeared children is. I suppose they are happy to let those kids rot if they can’t achieve the high test scores that charter schools demand as their “tuition”. After all, the kids doing well may not have to pay a dime, but their performance is what brings in all the donor money. You can’t have a struggling child mess that up, right?
Exactly it. Public Schools = The Backup and The Bedrock.
Down in New Orleans there isn’t a public school back up and the students just seem to disappear when they are pressured out of charter schools. Sometimes they reappear in a school right after testing. Having a large part of my family in Louisiana and watching them shrug as we discuss the fact that no one is truly keeping track of the school-aged students in New Orleans, I am not convinced that the majority of taxpayers even see the need for a public school system for “those” students. “They couldn’t hack it, so why bother?”
Try explaining that “those” students are 5 and 6 years old.
When most people shrug this off, they imagine young teens. Not thinking that a 5 year old is being thrown out into the streets with no school to attend because he was unable to stay in his seat or yelled out an answer before the teacher called on him. Remind your relatives that 1/3 of the Kindergarteners in NYC are still 4 when they start, and any school that pretends to be a “public” school, as Success Academy does, is supposed to be teaching them at that age, not deciding they are expendable because they aren’t behaving like their image of a “young man” should. And, by the way, I guarantee you that very few Kindergarteners at Arne Duncan’s wife school could do what the 5 year olds at Success Academy were doing in unison without having some trouble along the way. I hope Mrs. Duncan isn’t suspending them all.
Yes, and like Walmart with (what used to be called) food stamps! All part of that same great “we built that” lie, in which those at the top of the HCP (Human Capital Pyramid) claim credit for the work of everyone on all the tiers leading up.
And now we find the real reason she is not running for mayor. She doesn’t want people looking under the lid. Even Cuomo wouldn’t be able to help her once former teachers, principals, and parents stepped forward. Stories like this don’t even touch the surface. Look how easily the NY Times’ story on Success was quickly covered up by posting Stories From Success Parents that appeared on the website under Education for over 6 months and still pops up from time to time.
I went to bed smiling about Eva’s strained expression and “crazy talk” line. I woke up this morning thinking about the video of the kids in class, of the ones who hadn’t been suspended yet. Not smiling any more, I worry that the creativity, the American ingenuity that has for hundreds of years driven this birthplace of democracy and freedom is being drained from them. They, mostly minority minors, are being trained for military obeisance, not for the university, not for leadership. I’m reminded of Full Metal Jacket, which suggests that the intense pressures of military training create serial killers among other insanities.
I’m led to believe there’s more good to come this week on the PBS Newshour.
To the NYC DOE administrators and teachers, former Success Academy teachers, and current Success employee who, according to John Merrow, possess actual evidence that the network intentionally targets low-performing children and suspends them:
You need to contact the SUNY Charter School Institute immediately:
518-445-4275
charters@suny.edu
41 State Street
Suite 700
Albany, NY 12207
Silence is consent! And as we are nearly two years into the de Blasio administration, worries about reprisals are, frankly, far-fetched.
It’s time to do the right thing. Diane, I hope you will help to spread this information far and wide. It isn’t enough to tell a reporter or friend or advocate that Success is violating state education law; the proof has to be presented to authorities and agencies that will do something about it.
Why would any parent trust SUNY Charter Institute? Seriously, I watched the video of last October when SUNY approved what – a dozen? — new Success Academy schools. Mind you, a group of parents had brought proof that many of their current schools had empty seats. And the SUNY Administrator and the group laughed it off as a “glitch”. Their efforts at finding out whether this could be true or not were absolutely nil. They asked Eva Moskowitz and she said there was a glitch with “advertising” (right – empty seats with “thousands on the wait lists”). That was the extent — not lifting one finger to find out if it was true because after all, it’s not really up to SUNY to do oversight right? I mean, that’s their job but expecting them to do it — nope.
SUNY is supposed to be doing oversight,period. That is their JOB, especially if they are going to allow a charter chain to expand. The suspension rates have been sitting on the NY State website for years (as you know since I often quote them). Contrary to what Eva Moskowitz claims in the piece, if you look at a school like HSA 4, the suspension rates are 20% as a K-5 school, 21% as a K-4 school, 19% as a K-3, and 14% as K – 2 school. Those are across the board suspension rates, so it is very clear that the rate isn’t declining as there are more older students who have “learned” the system. And SUNY Charter Institute has never been interested in looking at attrition rates (like the guy in Hogan’s Heroes who used to say “I see nothing” it’s pretty evident they don’t want to know). Losing as many as 50% of the starting K class and no curiosity as to why? When this school is supposedly coveted by thousands of parents? It’s nonsense.
By the way, apparently this is all LEGAL anyway! Make a struggling 5 year old feel misery? No problem, SUNY Charter Institute will reward you with lots more schools as long as the kids who remain do well. Guess what kind of incentive THAT gives to charter schools? You tell me, Tim, and tell me why it takes a news reporter to report what has been right in front of SUNY’s eyes for years?
“worried about reprisals are, frankly, far-fetched…”
Yes, because every NY City taxpayer is now paying $20 million in rent for Eva Moskowitz’ charter school thanks to a “reprisal” because she was unable to kick out severely handicapped children from a school she wanted and have them bused far away from home. She was given free space in 5 NYC school buildings — which we were all paying for — but since she got turned away from a few — like the one where she’d have to kick out severely handicapped kids, the NY Legislature and Cuomo decided to punish de Blasio and all NYC taxpayers. Yes, no worry about reprisals at all, Tim.
Tim, I had the impression that you work for Success Academy. You knew in advance exactly when Eva scheduled her press conference to announce that she would not run for mayor. You regularly support everything connected to SA. Clearly, you have the goods, why don’t you tell the State Education Department.
Diane, if you compare the time stamp of my comment with your Twitter feed from that afternoon, you’ll quickly see the sources of my “information.”
The statement that I support everything Success does is, of course, a bald-faced lie. Eva knows where I live and where my kids go to school because of multiple comments I’ve made on the public record regarding backfill. That’s why I have no patience or understanding for all the people who supposedly have proof that Success intentionally targets low-performing children for suspension but who are afraid to testify about it.
Your tiresome accusations that I’m not an NYC DOE district school parent without any connections whatsoever to charters or reform do provide a valuable service to parents, however. It is the sort of ad hominem abuse parents can expect if they dare to point out some obvious truths and depart from the UFT’s company line.
Tim, I don’t care who you are — you are someone who doesn’t give a darn about all the kids who go missing from Success Academy. The fact that the great majority of them are from low-income families is no business of yours. I do know that you criticize Eva Moskowitz for not backfilling as if bringing in a more academic child to replace the ones you made feel misery until they left makes it all okay.
I don’t really get you, because I can’t believe any human being could be so uncaring about the 5 year olds who get suspended or made to feel misery — held back over and over again while their failing test scores are posted on the bulletin boards for all to see — until they eventually disappear. I am quite certain you know how it works and quite certain that you don’t care. If you aren’t being paid to post here, it is hard to understand how you could be so unfeeling but maybe you think certain 5 year olds just are undeserving of a spot in a charter school and should be left to rot.
NYC public school parent,
It isn’t just the test scores of the children that are posted.
The teachers’ gain scores are posted in public too, so everyone can praise the winners and feel sorry for the losers. This contributes to the high teacher turnover rate at SA. Demoralizing.
“Tim, I don’t care who you are . . .”
Leavinh logorrheic and monomaniacal replies to virtually every one of a person’s internet comments is the ultimate form of showing just how much you don’t care about them. Well done!
Tim, you misunderstood my comment. I don’t care who you are and whether you work for Success Academy, FES, or some other pro-charter organization or have some other familial or financial connection to them. Or if you are, as you say, merely a non-charter public school parent who spends an inordinate amount of time posting defenses of charter schools that mimic the PR of Families for Excellent Schools.
I do care about people posting honest things about charter schools and if I have the opportunity, I will always do my best to correct the record. That makes you think this is personal, but it is just that you happen to be someone who occasionally posts misleading comments that mimic the kinds of things that Eva Moskowitz usually gets away with when reporters question her. This was the rare instance where a reporter actually followed up with real data, as I like to do. Her shock at being presented with facts and follow-up questions was sad.
I realize that you don’t like all the statistics and my long-winded posts with the data that I find on data dot nysed dot gov that lists suspension rates and the disappearing at-risk children in some (not all) Success Academy schools. Like Eva Moskowitz, when confronted with facts you don’t like, you change the subject to pretend it is “personal”, as if facts don’t matter and don’t have to be addressed. Let’s just all take her word that all those kids who left were treated kindly and made to feel welcome and their idiotic parents decided they preferred a failing school instead and hey, there are thousands on the wait list and yet so many who get in then choose to leave but we just don’t know why and of course, will never actually ask them why. The deplorable lack of curiosity and rationalization and suppositions and theories when it would be a simple matter to actually gather the facts is truly a lesson in an organization and a person (you, Tim) who is very, very determined not to know the facts, and not to have anyone else know them either.
Because the kids leaving Success Academy schools are almost always the ones without the political clout and resources that upper middle class families have, perhaps you don’t really care about them. But if you really believed in “reform” instead of “privatization” you would. You see, Tim, real reformers care about all kids, and fake reformers care about the ones who will justify more privatization of public education and are happy to let the others rot. It seems clear which kind of reformer you are. But don’t worry, you have lots of company and lots of billionaires in your corner.
So carry on calling this a “logorrheic and monomaniacal” reply. You can attack me all you want because each time you do it is more evidence that you know the data I present can’t be attacked since it is true. Thank you for that.
Tim,
I would say that John Merrow did a fine job of spreading the word. He doesn’t need my help. Who knew that 5 and 6-year-old children were suspended from school? Now we know. The U.S. Department of Education says it is wrong. They say it hurts children. Now we know.
It would be great to have an expert opinion on evaluating Moscowitz’s behavior during the interview. To me, it’s completely clear, she is lying when asked about using suspension to boost her test scores. She becomes dramatic when answering the question (the bump on her neck got red earlier when she was confronted with negative parents’ opinion)
The brief segments about documenting actual military style discipline is too short. I couldn’t find anything longer on youtube.
I noticed that too. It’s a sign of how terrible the reporters have been on this. They usually ask one question, like “what about these suspension rates?” and allow her to spout on with what we saw first — smoothly repeating her lines about kids throwing chairs and “using explicit language”. But when a reporter actually followed up with facts, she had absolutely no answer. The problem is that it is very rare that a reporter ever does their homework here and has the facts at hand to question her about. When Mr. Merrow followed up, she couldn’t handle it at all. If anyone can find an instance of ANY reporter actually following up one of her typical PR-speak replies with real facts, I’d like to see it.
You are so right. I noticed the same thing. Clearly, she was lying.
Conclusion? Eva is a liar and aa charlatan. She is untrustworthy and thus perfect to run for elected office.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/success-academy-charter-schools-revenue-doubles-year-article-1.2050561
Eva’s salary is approaching $600,000 now. $567K last year!
I watched the video and I know that one sign of a liar is when their eyes break contact. I saw her eyes break contact on a number of her lies. The eyes would dart away briefly as she said the lie and then come back.
I think Eva is a total psychopath.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindmelding/201301/what-is-psychopath-0
And did you also notice how her neck and part of her face turn blotchy red when Merrow starts questioning her more about suspensions?
Jms, a friend called to make same observation
JMS, I just watched the video again. The red spot gets redder as she goes along with the interview. Amazing.
“I think Eva is a total psychopath.”
Except she does seem to have a plan. 🙂
In any case, we can conclude, the camera didn’t like her much.
Psychopaths are capable of having plans and goals and they lie smoothly in order to fool as many people as possible. It’s sociopaths that have trouble with that skill set.
Her Recipe: Eva’s Secret Sauce for Success
(My best guess given her miraculous outcomes)
1) Natural Test Selection (survival of the fittest test takers)
2) Proprietary test prep materials courtesy of Pearson
3) Five months of excessive, relentless test prep
4) Test “counseling”
5) In-house, creative “scoring”
Not a legal (or ethical) recipe for public school consumption.
“If you get it right in the early years, you actually have to suspend far less when the kids are older, because they understand what is expected of them.” Sounds like hobbling would be embraced there as a best practice as well, were it not for the unable-to-leave part.
Sorry to correct you again, but Eva Moskowitz does not own Success Academy.
This was meant for Donna, above.
For additional information, we do have to remark, that even if the 10% who are suspended stay in Success Academy, and if this 10% is simply added to those who failed the math and English tests, the passing rate of SA is still much higher than the average passing rate in New York state.
For example, the 8th grader passing rate would be 8% instead of 90%, but the 80% is still more than double than the NY state 30% passing rate.
Since in the SA schools the poverty rate is high (85% according to SA’s website), perhaps not everything is badly done in that school. I understand (and saw) the harsh discipline, and I understand the issue of teaching to the test, but still, could there be something to learn from SA?
The 8th grade passing rate is a bad example since they have only had 2 years of 8th grade testing and for both those years, the cohort is so much smaller. In 2014, Success tested 32 8th graders from over 70 who began in 1st grade, and in 2015 tested only 44 8th grade students who started as 83 Kindergarteners. And it’s possible that some of the 44 who were left in the 8th grade are students who replaced students who left and were “better” students who could join in 2nd or 3rd grade (at that point I don’t believe they backfilled beyond 3rd).
However, you are correct that their results are still admirable, if not quite as stunning as they keep saying. I suspect they have excellent test prep materials which you’d think they would share with all schools but they don’t. They also quite frequently ask students to repeat a year — again, how often we don’t know but if they are realizing that even their own vaunted program takes a good many kids two years to master instead of one, why not be honest and say that? And also tell us if they are finding that the held back kids move on and finish out, or end up being asked to repeat a second year or even 3rd year. How many 3rd or 4th graders taking the test are “overage” and does that help results? But the PR and advertising that Success Academy uses some secret method to turn 100% of low-income kids into scholars while not mentioning any of that does more harm than good. And it seems pretty clear that a large percentage of at-risk kids who win the lottery are not being served by her schools. What good is using her system if the public schools are teaching most of those kids?
the 8th grader passing rate would be 80% instead of 90%
Why are the kids puffing their cheeks when they march through the hallway?
That proves they aren’t talking. If they feel the urge to talk, they puff their cheeks instead.
I’m thinking that it is because its one of those many suspendable rules that no one talks in the halls before or after school and between classes. Try to talk when you puff your cheeks out and if someone doesn’t have their cheeks puffed out that means they must be talking and a flat cheek means suspension.
It’s an easy way to catch people who might be talking. No puffed cheeks, you had to be talking in the halls.
If a kid didn’t talk during a break, I’d think, she is sick.
Wierdlmate,
Children in no-excuses schools are required to walk in a straight line in the hallways and not allowed to speak. They are taught to puff their cheeks to prevent talking.
Or maybe a shy introvert but even most introverts have friends they talk to, but it seems that Eva isn’t interested in letting kids socialize.
With that many kids walking in a single file line with their cheeks puffed out, I’d be thinking cloned Stepford children.