This letter was sent to Eva Moskowitz with reference to her release of confidential disciplinary files of a student.

Categories Education Reform

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Laura H. Chapman says:

October 23, 2015 at 2:02 pm

Hope this parent has the support and savvy to litigate. This appears to be a good first step.

Reply
Donna says:

October 23, 2015 at 2:24 pm

She is a bully. A very wealthy very savvy very influential bully, and she wants to argue with a child. Perhaps this boy’s record is a bit more unmanageable than, lets say, a uniform infraction, but Eva takes a sledgehammer to kill a fly, and that is wrong. She has no character. She is an empty hollow shell–but her bank account is overflowing. I say, give the people what they want. They want their children to be treated like silent criminals, go for it; keep rallying for more charters–I realize now that you deserve it.

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- NYC public school parent says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 11:39 pm
  
  I agree. But like most bullies, she gets away with it because everyone is terrified to stand up to her. She is like the bully whose parents are the richest folks in town.
  
  I hope this mother sticks to her guns. I re-watched the interview and nothing that was said by the child was untruthful. He gave general information about what actions can cause “infractions” (wearing the wrong color shoes). Later on, he talked about how terrible he felt after being suspended over and over. He talked about “losing his temper”, which his mom acknowledged. And according to the records, it’s true, he did lose his temper.
  
  It’s shocking that now telling the truth about something on camera is something that people on here seem to be claiming means you lose your privacy to all your school records.
  
  However, I’m glad to hear that because George W. Bush talked about things he did at school and so have other Presidential candidates. Apparently, that means his school can release any private information about all of them. At what point does mentioning anything about your school on camera mean that all your school records become public, I wonder?
  
  Reply
Tim says:

October 23, 2015 at 2:28 pm

I should probably wait for FLERP to weigh in, but in the Gonzaga decision the Supreme Court ruled that individuals can’t sue institutions or individuals for FERPA violations. The possible threat of losing Federal funding is the only penalty that the law provides.

Further complicating this, I think, is the fact that the parent has openly discussed her child’s disciplinary record and his experiences at Success, even if she’s left out the specifics.

This past March 12, the UFT sponsored and coordinated a day of rallies outside NYC DOE schools. A neighborhood news blog covered the rally being held outside the Earth School, a co-located K-5 lottery school of choice on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The parent featured in the John Merrow report was quoted at length regarding her child’s experiences at Success:

“I spoke with Fatima Geidi and her son, [redacted], (who is in third grade at the Earth School), about their experiences. [Her son] had been at a charter school, Success Academy, for a few years and his mother said she was fed up with the lack of teaching and proper learning at the charter school.

“She felt that her son was taught only what was necessary to take and pass standardized tests, not to think critically, or for himself. That he was, essentially, a test score and that the charter school was a test-prep center. And enrolled in public school her son (who has special-learning needs) now has social studies classes, something he wasn’t taught at charter school. She was particularly irritated that Cuomo failed his own standardized tests (the Bar) four times but mandates that public school funding should be cut on underperforming schools.”

It’s odd that she spoke at length about Success without mentioning the suspensions, particularly since the very next day she was part of a press conference with the city public advocate to talk about her child’s, I’m, suspensions: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/parents-furious-shoddy-treatment-special-needs-children-charter-schools-article-1.1289019.

This is a travesty all around—Success needs to take down the letters immediately. This is a child we’re talking about here! Merrow needs to stop hiding behind retirement and PBS’s producers and publicly apologize for what was nothing less than a catastrophic failure to observe journalistic ethics 101. And while I would hate to discourage parents from advocating on behalf of their kids or for what they perceive as the best interests of other kids, this should serve as a cautionary tale about the potential risks. You can accomplish whatever it is that you want to accomplish without compromising your child’s privacy.

Reply
- NYC public school parent says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 2:54 pm
  
  I don’t recall anything in John Merrow’s piece where Mr. Merrow said that this child was suspended because he didn’t tuck in his shirt. The point of that was that those were some of the issues that could create suspensions.
  
  I also think that if you read the teachers’ reports that Ms. Moskowitz made public, you see a very inexperienced teacher not at all recognizing a cry for help from a very young child and misunderstanding how to help him. That, to me, is what is most reprehensible about Success Academy. They have a boatload of money to help children like this child — whose mother, despite the very nasty things that Ms. Moskowitz implied about her – obviously cared about her child and kept him in a school for 3 years where they pretty much did everything they could to make him feel that “misery” that Success Academy thinks is the “secret sauce” to high test scores.
  
  It’s how little they helped this child that is most appalling. They wanted him gone and he is certainly gone. But they could have used their resources to TEACH the child, even if he would never get a 3 on the state math exam.
  
  Reply
  - Donna says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm
    
    They have a boatload of money with which to pay Eva. Why does she need 8.5 million or is that billion from her friend, with taxpayer cash coming in?
- Dienne says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 2:55 pm
  
  Once upon a time you were critical of Moskowitz and SA. Even you seemed to realize that she was a bad actor who was making charters in general look bad. But the last several months it’s like she can do no wrong with you. Closing schools to hold mandatory political rallies – no problem. Publishing a child’s private disciplinary history – well, maybe she shouldn’t have, but his mother started it after all. *Shakes head sadly*
  
  Reply
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 3:32 pm
    
    I have found that for so many pro-charter folks, the ends justifies the means. So they are desperate to overlook every despicable act that a charter operator does as long as the test results are good and more charters are established. That’s when I became anti-charter because I used to think they were terrific ideas. But people like Tim ruined them for me. He and people like Eva Moskowitz refuse to be honest about how many students are not being served by these “high-performing” charters. The fact that the students that cannot be educated there are far more likely to be low-income minorities makes what he and Eva Moskowitz do far more reprehensible.
    
    Jus think how much good could be done if Tim and Ms. Moskowitz admitted that despite their millions in donations to subsidize the education of at-risk kids, they are failing up to 50% of them. And given that the 50% of kids Success Academy fails — each and every one — has a parent willing to sign them up for a chance for a better school and commit to everything Success Academy asks of its parents, that is an abhorrent success rate. Because a good percentage of the kids in failing schools don’t start out with that advantage in life and Success Academy never even has to try with those kids. And yet Eva Moskowitz has the chutzpah to pretend to care about them and attack the schools that DO try with those kids.
    
    So the fact that Success Academy is unwilling to use its resources to try much harder with the at-risk kids who don’t respond to their inexperienced teachers — well that is something that I do not understand. And I understand even less what makes a person claim exactly the opposite — that any child who doesn’t need a placement in an expensive special ed school can be turned into a scholar if Success Academy’s teachers and program were used. And I understand least of all why people like Tim keeping insisting it is all true.
  - Tim says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 3:42 pm
    
    I know. I used to say that Success shouldn’t get a single renewal or new charter until they began to accept new students in all grades, and now I feel . . . exactly the same way.
    
    I think a lot of people — Merrow, the parent, whoever helped put them together — were thrilled to have a telegenic, bright kid to tug on the heartstrings and give the piece an emotional center. I wonder if any of them stopped to think whether it was good for the kid.
  - Dienne says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 3:53 pm
    
    So, seriously, your only issue with Moskowitz/SA is the backfilling thing? Personally, I’d say, while I’m not thrilled with that aspect, it’s the least of Eva’s sins. If I squint hard (and maybe drink heavily) I can understand the logic of creating a “culture” that would be hard for an older kid to get into, so I at least understand her reasoning, even if public schools aren’t allowed to do it.
    
    But closing schools so that kids who are already in charters (and their parents) are forced to go advocate for more charters? Demanding to have free space in already overcrowded public schools? “No-excuses” humiliating “discipline”? Suspending and expelling kindergarteners? Retaliating against a 10-year-old by releasing his 6-year-old disciplinary records? Those are some sick, twisted things, especially for a woman who claims to be “saving” poor minority children “stuck” in “failing” schools.
  - Tim says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 4:31 pm
    
    Yup, as the state charter school law is currently written, that’s pretty much my only beef. They are schools of choice; collocation is an inevitability in New York, and while some schools are overcrowded, many others are not; and while there are many people who claim Success does this or that, no one provides evidence of it to legislators, law enforcement, or state education officials. We can’t cherry pick when it comes to due process.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 4:10 pm
    
    Tim, you have the CHUTZPAH to worry about the kid being on camera? And you don’t care one bit about all the children — one quarter of them — being suspended by their charter school at age 5 for doing those things? You don’t care one bit if they are made to feel “misery” until they leave — as long as there is another better behaved and more academic child to take their place?
    
    I’m sorry, but that truly makes me sick. I expected better from you. I admit I was wrong.
- NYC public school parent says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 3:49 pm
  
  Tim, I also think your attack on John Merrow is appalling. Nothing you have said — nothing — has contradicted the main point of the story, which is that “some” Success Academy schools (I know, not Upper West, where middle class kids are treated very nicely) has very high suspension rates for 5 year olds.
  
  The fact that Eva Moskowitz is desperately trying to distract people from this story by trashing the one child and parent who were willing to come forward does NOT negate what John Merrow reported. And if you weren’t such an apologist for Success Academy and actually cared about at-risk kids, you would not be asking Mr. Merrow to retract anything. Eva Moskowitz suspended 36 out of 136 5 year olds in one school. That is 24%.
  
  Tim, you are allowing Eva Moskowitz claim that those 24% of 5 year olds were all as violent as she claims this child was. Is THAT what you are trying to do? And you don’t have a word of criticism about Eva Moskowitz slamming all those children? If you had a heart, you’d actually be grateful to John Merrow because if Eva Moskowitz is called out on these kind of practices, she might actually stop using them! When you try to scare off the reporters from covering this, you just give Eva Moskowitz carte blanche to treat 5 year olds in any way she wants if they aren’t “fitting” with her program. And if you honestly support the way she treats the kids who may be a little tough to educate, fine. Most parents will pull them from her school earlier, but if they are truly as deluded by people like you and buy in to her rhetoric, they will keep them at the school — as this parent did — for 3 years until all the “misery” her child is suffering finally makes her see the light. Is that what you support? And if so, why?
  
  Reply
- AlwaysLearning says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 4:08 pm
  
  Educators should not share information about students to third parties to protect FERPA rights. If the parent wishes to share information about their student that is their choice.
  In the case of FERPA I am not certain that individuals can not be held responsible. Afterall, what relief would any parent have if any educator decided to go public with confidential information
  
  Reply
  - Spoonbill says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 8:17 am
    
    Teachers shouldn’t even take pictures of their students and post them to social media. That’s the level of privacy they deserve. Even if many of the facts about this child were already disclosed, that doesn’t discharge an educator from his/her professional ethics.
- FLERP! says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 4:55 pm
  
  No need to wait on me. Correct, no private right of action for FLERPA, I mean, FERPA violations. Possibly there could be a defamation claim. But that would have to be based on the falsity of the disclosed information, not the disclosure itself.
  
  Reply
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 11:06 pm
    
    Tim asked: “What was it that Success said that wasn’t true?”
    
    FLERP, I’m asking you since you seem to be a lawyer: “What was it that the child and his mother said that wasn’t true”? Does a child give up his privacy rights if he says something truthful on camera?
    
    I hope this lawsuit continues all the way into discovery.
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 11:33 pm
    
    As far as FERPA is concerned, I don’t think the child had any privacy rights to give up in the first place. Not the kind of rights that can be directly vindicated by a plaintiff in a civil action.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 11:41 pm
    
    Also, are you saying that it would be fine for colleges to release the academic records of Presidential candidates? Because no private right of action could ever be made, and as long as the records were accurate, it’s fine?
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 12:40 am
    
    No. Sometimes things that are not fine happen to us and we can’t force the person who did it to pay us millions of dollars. It’s been happening to me a lot lately.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 25, 2015 at 2:25 pm
    
    FLERP!, to clarify — you aren’t taking issue with people who state that Eva Moskowitz broke the FERPA law – you are conceding that it is entirely possible she did break the law – you aren’t going to say one way or another.
    
    But what you are saying is that the only people who can punish her for that violation of law or even decide that it IS a violation of law, is the SUNY Charter Institute? Otherwise, if SUNY allows it, she is free to post any negative information about any child she pleases? And IF SUNY’s position is – assuming they have no problem with this — that it is fine?
    
    The non-lawyers at SUNY Charter Institute who have never once ever investigated a single complaint against Eva Moskowitz** are the ONLY people who can decide if there is a violation? Or is there another government body that can decide that?
    
    ***If you define “investigation” as “we will ask Eva Moskowitz and she will tell us and we will believe everything she says no matter how outrageous” then you might insist that SUNY Charter Institute will “investigate”.
  - dianeravitch says:
    
    October 25, 2015 at 3:14 pm
    
    NYC public school parent,
    
    As I understand FLERP, Eva may have broken the law but there are no consequences. FLERP, correct me if I am wrong.
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 25, 2015 at 4:28 pm
    
    There may be consequences, but they would come through the administrative procedure. I believe the procedure requires the parent file a complaint to the federal DOE (or whatever sub-office handles complaints). Then the feds would investigate. If the feds found a violation, they would require corrective action at a minimum. I also assume that if the violation is particularly egregious or systemic, or if the school will not comply with the required corrective action, the consequences could include the withdrawal of federal funding. It’s certainly not a process geared toward the immediate gratification of complainants.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 26, 2015 at 1:00 am
    
    Thank you FLERP! and Diane. Given that, it’s commendable that in 99% of the cases, schools refrain from retaliating by releasing negative information in their records to attack any student who criticizes them. Imagine what Horace Mann might have found. Or Poly Prep. Or Stuyvesant.
    
    I suppose most school administrators have some ethical standards. Others have no compunction against destroying any critic, even if he happens to be a young boy.
- LeftCoastTeacher says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 6:19 pm
  
  Nice try, Tim, but you’re not going to, via misdirection and stigmatization, stop this Success Academy PR nightmare from snowballing all the way to the bench. Individuals have every right to discuss publicly their views about their own children. If they do so, that does not release school employees from their legal responsibility to keep private the data of minors. (I look forward to Congress legislating the mandated privacy of test score data, long overdue, as well. It’s not as complicated as my litigator friends like to make it seem when we practice arguing.) The Gonzaga case does not preclude lawsuits for slander and libel. Laws are meant to protect people from injury by other people, and you know that. The plain, simple fact of the matter is that Eva made a series of mistakes, is going down, and the sooner her rats jump ship, the better their chances for survival.
  
  Reply
  - Tim says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 6:24 pm
    
    What was it that Success said that wasn’t true?
    
    If Success made a false and defamatory statement, what actual harm did it cause?
  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 6:31 pm
    
    Looking forward to discovering precisely that when Eva doubles down on her bets, continues her rant against “crazy talk”, and winds up in court. Might have something to do with a seven year old lifting a desk over his head, but I am confident that we shall see…
  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 6:40 pm
    
    Oh, I forgot to answer your question specifically. The harm it causes has to do with college and other school applications, job applications, and general neighborhood gossip.
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 8:09 pm
    
    Not very easy to prove damages like that, especially when you may have to factor out any damages attributable to the information about the student that the parent had already publicly disclosed.
    
    The truth of the disclosures is by far the biggest problem. If they are true, there is no case. If they are largely true and a little bit false, there may be no damages. If they are entirely false — which the parent does not seem to be arguing in her letter — then you still have to deal with the prospect of waging a battle that will end up causing even more private information to become public. I hope the parent is not being advised to file a lawsuit, for her sake and especially her kid’s sake. And I hope Moskowitz makes that decision a little easier by taking down the letter, although I wouldn’t hold out much hope there.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 8:34 pm
    
    Do you know what the nastiest thing about what Eva Moskowitz did? She is so used to bullying her way to anything she wants — witness how she is trying to bully John Merrow right now. But she is bullying a 10 year old kid and the only reason she is doing so is because she is angry that someone said she suspends so many students.
    
    She DOES suspend an outrageous number of 5 year old students. She isn’t even denying it. So since she can’t deny it, she has chosen to distract the discussion by “proving” that the one child willing to go on camera was a horrible violent child. It’s clear he is not the evil being that Eva Moskowitz wants us to think he is. And no one except Tim actually believes that 24% of the 5 year olds at one Success Academy school were violent children doing terrible things.
    
    But that doesn’t matter. Because Eva Moskowitz cares far more about herself than any 5 year old child. And if she needs to destroy a 10 year old child in order to convince the public that every one of those 32 young children she suspended out of a small group of 132 kids “deserved” it because they were just as violent she is more than happy — extremely happy — to do so.
    
    And that people on here encourage her and cheer her on like Tim does shows exactly what Tim’s agenda is. I agree with him that it may be “legal” just as making a child feel “misery” and telling him he can’t leave his seat so he pees in his pants is “legal”. Tim is absolutely right. And Tim believes that as long as you can get away with something legal, no one should dare to question that. I’m sure he is pleased that a so-called “educator” hopes to teach that to a new generation of children! If you can get away with it, do it, as long as it helps you it doesn’t not matter at all who you hurt! so heartbreaking that people like Tim support it wholeheartedly.
  - Lloyd Lofthouse says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 8:48 pm
    
    Tim,
    
    Just because there is a law or the lack of a law and something Eva did and still does might be legal that doesn’t make what she does right.
    
    For instance, why did the colonists rebel against King George and the British Empire when what the kind was doing was “legal”.
    
    What happened:
    
    The colonists did not like being taxed for things that had always had free. They immediately began a boycott of British goods.
    
    Now it was the king’s turn to be furious.
    
    King George wasted no time in sending soldiers across the Atlantic to make sure the colonies were behaving as they should.
    
    Soon, what is perhaps the most famous of the causes of the American Revolution came to pass. A young ship owner brought over a ship full of taxed tea from Britain and declared he would see it unloaded …
    
    I think it is time for the second American revolution, and Tim will probably be a loyal royalist and wear a red uniform when he join’s Eva’s royal hedge fund army funded by a few of her loyalist hedge fund billionaire buddies who already own the governor of New York State that acts like a king.
    
    The only difference between King George, Cuomo and Eva is a couple of centuries.
  - AlwaysLearning says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 8:58 pm
    
    Another twist in all this mess is the rights of the teachers whose personal narratives of this student’s behavior was shared with an outside third party. Did the teachers involved give consent to have these accounts shared?
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 11:03 pm
    
    FLERP! what do you think the lawyers for this woman could learn from discovery? How far into the SA records could they go (children’s names redacted, of course)? Could they find out how many kids in her low-income schools were suspended and eventually left, even if it wasn’t the same year as the suspension? (It’s not clear that this child — who stayed for 3 years — left until a year or more after his suspension.)
    
    Furthermore, I do not understand how any lawyer could think that simply an appearance on a tv show period means that a child gives up his right to privacy.
    
    AT NO TIME during the interview did this child or his mother ever say “Success Academy suspended ME because I didn’t tuck in my shirt.” He gave general information about the things that are called “infractions” at Success Academy. He never said that HE was suspended for not having the right color shoes, he said that those were “infractions” at Success Academy.
    
    Much later in the interview, the child talks about being suspended “for losing his temper” — which is entirely true and certainly implies he could have been violent. There was NEVER a time when this child or his mother said that he was suspended for anything other than what he was suspended for — losing his temper which viewers are perfectly aware probably includes throwing or hitting.
    
    If you look at the interview again, you will see that neither this mother nor her child ever said anything that would justify that Eva Moskowitz NEEDED to release his records to the public. It’s shocking that anyone would justify it here nor focus on whether it was technically “legal” or not. The child was suspended because he acted out, just like the records showed.
    
    The story was about ALL the many, many students who, age 5 years old, were given suspensions. The fact that Eva Moskowitz would try to destroy the life of a young child to terrorize any of the many children who are suspended from school is truly appalling. Does that woman have an ounce of integrity? How scary that she is modeling young children to be just like her, and that SUNY approves.
  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 1:17 am
    
    Of course, FLERP, this family is being advised at this time to file, not litigation, but a cease and desist letter in the hopes of ending Eva’s attack before litigation is brought. But if Success Academy persists in light of this request, there will be a strong case against them. They are being politely reminded of federal law and asked to stop. The family just wants be left alone, and if the court is the only way to get justice, well, Eva is being given every chance to avoid it, but it must be done. The family has nothing more to fear, as what is said in court can more private than what is said to the Newshour. The family has nothing to prove, except that the charter school is publishing personal information about a student. That is an act that, in and of itself, could cause damage to the child’s wellbeing in present and future.
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 11:28 am
    
    Again, left coast teacher, there is no case under FERPA. If the claim is defamation, there is no case, much less a strong case, if the statements were true. Eva Moskowitz could leave the letter up on the Web for ten years and it wouldn’t change that element. If the statements are true, it would be a difficult case.
  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 1:37 am
    
    And, by the way, I’m an English lit and composition teacher. Think what real lawyer could do.
  - AlwaysLearning says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 7:28 am
    
    There are also more protections for confidentiality under IDEA if a student has an IEP, a 504 plan or medical diagnosis.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 25, 2015 at 9:18 am
    
    Very confusing FLERP — are you saying that any school can now publicly post nasty records about any child and there is no recourse? Or can they only do it to children if their parents every say anything critical about them?
    
    I think you are saying that if Horace Mann decides to post every nasty record about every person accusing them of looking the other way when they were sexually abused by a teacher there, no one could stop them and it could remain up as long as they wanted. It seems like an odd thing to insist is the case.
    
    So, can a school do this to any child they decide is rather annoying, or can they only do it to a child if their parent criticizing the school? And absolutely nothing can be done?
  - FLERP! says:
    
    October 25, 2015 at 11:28 am
    
    I can’t explain it any better without writing a treatise. Under FERPA or analogous statutes, recourse comes from the relevant government agency applying sanctions, not the individual seeking money damages. The individual’s recourse is under common law.
- Beth says:
  
  October 24, 2015 at 11:39 am
  
  @Tim – Previously you had wondered why more former SA families had not reported their stories to the press, but then when someone actually comes forward you blame the victims and the reporter. Really?!? You charter fanatics are the biggest hypocrites, but I guess that is a redundant observation.
  
  Reply
  - Tim says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 4:16 pm
    
    Beth, whatever families decide to pursue with respect to the media is up to them. Anyone who has any proof of Success violating state education laws, IEPs, and the like must not keep it to themselves, but should report it to the state education department, the SUNY Charter School Institute, and their elected officials.
  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 5:33 pm
    
    Success violated that child’s privacy. Look at the interview and tell me one thing that the child or his mother said that was not true. Is it ALL the truth? As long as it isn’t all the truth, the school is free to release all private records?
    
    That would mean that Stuy is now free to release all of Eva Moskowitz private records from her time there. She made lots of claims, but she never took them to the state authority so she gave up all her privacy expectations.
    
    Or do only 10 year old children get their records released and not Eva?
- Jack says:
  
  October 24, 2015 at 2:48 pm
  
  Tim,
  
  Good to see you again,
  
  Louisiana teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider highlights an important aspect of this situation that others, including myself, have thus far missed.
  
  https://deutsch29.wordpress.co…
  
  ( an excerpt from Schneider’s article appears at the end of this post)
  
  The behaviors of this Success Academy child in question indicate that the child suffers from some disabling condition or learning disability—ADD, ADHD, oppositional defiance disorder, etc. As such, the child needs specialized care and attention. A specialist has to be brought in to identify the innate problem. Based on that and other input, a program, including an I.E.P. mandating an on-going plan of intervention, must then be implemented.
  
  None of that goes on at Success Academy.
  
  Eva’s only brilliant response to the child’s disability is for her and her staff to suspend, suspend, suspend. She and the others in charge at SUCCESS ACADEMY apparently believe that doing so will just magically “suspend” the child’s innate disability out of existence, as in days of yore, when witches would be hired to cast spells to drive out the demons that caused a child’s troubling mental condition… many of those conditions are what we in the modern world now identify as autism, ADD, etc.
  
  Indeed, based on prior comments to the press, the folks at SUCCESS ACADEMY don’t even believe in the concept of “disability,” or that there is such a category known as “special ed,”. Nor do the believe in bringing in specialists, or in implementing IEP’s.
  
  Or perhaps Eva does believe such innate deficiencies exist, but doesn’t deign to take those unfortunates on … dumping them back into the public schools for those folks to handle. This, in turn, places heavy financial and manpower demand on those public schools, as special ed. kids require highly-trained, highly paid special ed. teacher, a small class size or student-to-teacher ratio, etc.
  
  Essentially, Eva views children in general as commodities… valued on two criteria:
  
  1) cheapest to educate — no expensive special ed kids draining your budget
  
  AND
  
  2) potential for high test scores — again, the special ed kids are unable to deliver those.
  
  According to one staffer, she responds to kids in any low-test-score-causing hardship, including those based on disability with the following comment:
  
  “SUCCESS ACADEMY is not a Social Services agency.”
  
  Eva Moskowitz is on the same page with recently-departed Secretary of Ed. Arne Duncan. To both of them, there’s no such thing as “special ed.” In her opinion — as expressed by one of her top administrators (JUST BELOW) — is that what the traditional school approach categorizes as “special ed,” is nothing more than a lack of “maturity” as a result of “mama” failing to her her job. Those whose fail to “mature” — or have the effects of poor parenting reversed — under Eva’s system are kicked out… err… “counseled out.”
  
  This is from PAGE 5 of the 2010 NEW YORK MAGAZINE story on Eva and her schools:
  
  http://nymag.com/news/features…
  ————————————————-
  “At Harlem Success, disability is a dirty word.
  
  ” ‘I’m not a big believer in special ed,’ (SUCCESS ACADEMY’s instructional leader) Fucaloro says. For children who arrive with individualized education programs, or IEPs, he goes on, the real issues are ‘maturity and undoing what the parents allow the kids to do in the house—usually mama—and I reverse that right away.’
  
  “When remediation falls short, according to sources in and around the network, families are counseled out. ‘Eva told us that “the school is not a social-service agency,” ‘ says the Harlem Success teacher. ‘That was an actual quote.’
  
  “In one case, says a teacher at P.S. 241, a set of twins started kindergarten at the co-located HSA 4 last fall. One of them proved difficult and was placed on a part-time schedule, ‘so the mom took both of them out and put them in our school. She has since put the calm sister twin back in Harlem Success, but they wouldn’t take the boy back. We have the harder, troubled one; they have the easier one.’
  
  “Such triage is business as usual, says the former network staffer, when the schools are vexed by behavioral problems:
  
  ” ‘They don’t provide the counseling these kids need.’ If students are deemed bad ‘fits’ and their parents refuse to move them, the staffer says, the administration ‘makes it a nightmare’ with repeated suspensions and midday summonses.
  
  “After a 5-year-old was suspended for two days for allegedly running out of the building, the child’s mother says the school began calling her every day ‘saying he’s doing this, he’s doing that. Maybe they’re just trying to get rid of me and my child, but I’m not going to give them that satisfaction.’ ”
  
  “At her school alone, the Harlem Success teacher says, at least half a dozen lower-grade children who were eligible for IEPs have been withdrawn this school year. If this account were to reflect a pattern, Moskowitz’s network would be effectively winnowing students before third grade, the year state testing begins.
  
  ” ‘The easiest and fastest way to improve your test scores,’ observes a DoE principal in Brooklyn, ‘is to get higher-performing students into your school.’ And to get the lower-performing students out.”
  ———————————————
  
  Teacher and blogger Mercedes Schneider further underscores this in her analysis of the PBS piece on Eva and her Success Academies:
  
  https://deutsch29.wordpress.co…
  
  ————————————————–
  
  MERCEDES SCHNEIDER:
  
  “Here is my question for Moskowitz:
  
  “If the student had a history of (as his mother describes) ‘outbursts” and meltdowns’ and he had already displayed such behavior at school, then why would Success Academies allow this student to participate in an off-campus excursion?
  
  “Such seems to be a poor choice given that the SA teachers/administrators appear to have no specific plan in place for (note the pun) successfully diffusing the student’s outbursts. Thus, the faculty/administrative decision take the student into an unfamiliar setting (a field trip) without a proven behavior plan was foolish.
  
  “Third (and related to the second observation), in all of her efforts to publicize the student’s behavior file in an effort to exonerate her schools, Moskowitz includes absolutely no evidence that Success Academies attempted to discover what might trigger the student’s outbursts/meltdowns in order to formulate a plan of action to help the child learn to manage his own behavior, thereby promoting his own social health (and, by extension, the social health of his classmates and teachers).
  
  “In short, Moskowitz’s point in her letter to Merrow was to defend her schools, not to actually help the child.
  
  “Following her offering details from two incidents, Moskowitz places blame back on student and his mother, even as she offers nothing by way of trying to help student and mother to understand and manage the student’s behavior:
  
  – – – – – – – – – –
  EVA MOSKOWITZ: “Incidents like this occurred on a regular basis. Frankly, it was only by applying a very lenient standard that this student was only suspended eight times over nearly three years in our schools. …
  
  “As you can see, the situation here was challenging not only because of the child, but because of his mother as well. We often find that in the end, while we can succeed with almost any student, if the parent is not willing to work with us, that makes things much harder.”
  – – – – – – – – – –
  
  “Again, Moskowitz offers no evidence of having tried to understand what might have prompted the student’s outbursts/meltdowns.
  
  “It could well be that ‘the very structured environment’ and ‘very high academic and behavioral expectations’ of which Success Academy Prospect Heights principal Monica Komery speaks might be too much for some students.
  
  “The farthest that Moskowitz will go is to ‘put up with’ students like Jamir Geidi, even for years. Beyond repeated suspensions, Success Academies has nothing to offer the Jamir Geidis who enter SA’s ‘very structured’ halls.
  
  “The ‘success’ only comes if those pesky suspended-and-suspended-again students are molded into a Moskowitz-forged image.
  
  “If not, they must go.”
  
  Reply
NYC public school parent says:

October 23, 2015 at 2:48 pm

Success Academy has already responded saying they are legally fine to do so because the student and his parent “lied”. Frankly, I watched that show and there was no lie — I never heard the child or his mother say that the only reason he suspended was because of having his shirt untucked. Neither did John Merrow. The report said that it was possible to suspend a child for these things, not that this particular child was suspended for those things. The report made clear that 24% of the 5 and 6 year olds at one school were given suspendsions and that not being in a ready to learn position a few times is something that could have triggered those suspensions.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah for Ms. Moskowitz to be critical of that kind of reporting.

After all, the main defense that Ms. Moskowitz uses to defend herself in her two long letters — aside from attacking a single child whose mother went public — is the reporter Beth Fertig. Beth Fertig looked at the attrition rates at charter schools over a single year – from 2010 – 2011. That particular year, Harlem Success Academy 4 “only” had attrition rates of 15% and network wide the average was less. Ms. Moskowitz has made Beth Fertig her main defense. And there are much better data out there than this single reporter’s data which somehow Ms. Moskowitz does not want to use? I’m rather shocked that Ms. Fertig — who is still an education reporter — has not reported on the updated data about attrition rates at charter schools. The NYC Independent Budget Office reported on that data this past July 2016 — only a few months ago — although that seemed to be completely ignored despite it being far more comprehensive than looking a single 9 month period.

In that data, the Kindergarten children from 53 charter schools, including 4 Success Academy schools, were tracked to see how many left over the ensuing years through 5th grade. 26.5% had left by 3rd grade, another 22.5% by 5th grade, so 49.5% of the entering cohort was gone. Why didn’t Beth Fertig follow up on that, I wonder, since that is far more comprehensive attrition data? Why didn’t Eva Moskowitz use that data as her source instead of cherry picking Beth Fertig’s 3 year old story that used 4 year old data over a 9 month period? I truly hope other reporters will follow up and see just what the Success Academy attrition rate for Kindergarteners in those schools really is. The data is there for any reporter to use – I hope they use it. Or perhaps this parent’s lawyer will request it from the IBO.

Reply
- NYC public school parent says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 3:06 pm
  
  ^sorry for typos above. The IBO report was July 2015. It is available here:
  
  Click to access school-indicators-for-new-york-city-charter-schools-2013-2014-school-year-july-2015.pdf
  
  Not surprisingly, Ms. Moskowitz also refers to an earlier IBO report in her letter and completely ignores this one. This IBO report hides the attrition rates of the oldest 4 Success Academy schools — which all have high percentages of low-income minority students — by not listing those 53 schools separately and merely providing an “average”. But the IBO most certainly has the attrition rates for each of those schools and can provide it to any reporter who asks. That will tell us the TRUE attrition rate at Success Academy. And we can compare each of their first 4 schools to the other 49 charter schools and see if Success Academy’s harsh discipline and suspension rules correlate with a much higher attrition rate than the other charter schools with good test scores. (Obviously, those charters with failing academics will have students leaving so comparing that rate of attrition with Success is pretty silly.) Anyone care to take bets?
  
  Reply
Lloyd Lofthouse says:

October 23, 2015 at 4:52 pm

I think it is obvious that Eva thinks she is above the law, that it does not apply to her and what she does with her Suspension Academies. After all, several hedge fund billionaires are supporting her with propaganda and million in funds.

It would be nice to see them all end up in court and then in prison.

Reply
- West coast teacher says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 5:14 pm
  
  I would think if one were truly concerned about children, one would go ahead and evaluate the child for LRE and provide it at one’s charter or by funding the service at an appropriate site as the charter at which I provide services does.
  
  The actions of some charters tells me their primary concern is for students who are motivated and problem free. These are the students who would perform well anywhere. It is not the charter.
  
  What the charters need to admit is that they are deliberately limiting the students they will serve. This is probably good for the students who are motivated and problem free but could be accomplished in a public school that allows self-selected tracking/clustering.
  
  The bottom line is not student success. It is who gets the tax money for teaching: the teacher or the school operator?
  
  The know-nothing reformers have, perhaps, inadvertently tricked the uninformed public, but they are receiving the economic benefit. And the public is receiving the teacher shortage as well as a limited education.
  
  Reply
  - Zorba says:
    
    October 23, 2015 at 8:57 pm
    
    I don’t believe for a minute that the “know-nothing reformers have, perhaps, inadvertently tricked the uninformed public.”
    The “reformers” knew, and know, exactly what they were and are doing. Tricking the public and the current educational establishment has been part of their game plan all along.
  - caligirl says:
    
    October 24, 2015 at 3:31 am
    
    The original concept for charters (Shanker) was to help students who were difficult to educate. Were there ways to reach those students with some alternative ideas that worked ? How could we support and educate those students that were not making it in traditional settings ? The whole idea and concept was to help the most difficult and neediest students. How did we get from there to what we have now ?
Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene says:

October 23, 2015 at 5:41 pm

In a just world Eva Moskowitz, dressed in a day-glow orange jumpsuit, would be frog-marched in shackles to the dock at The Hague for her crimes against the poor.

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Sharon in NYS says:

October 23, 2015 at 6:07 pm

The parent also needs to file a complaint about the violations with NYSED and SUNY, if she has not done so already.

I had not thought about the libel issue, but there might be a case for it.

Reply
- Lloyd Lofthouse says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 6:16 pm
  
  Imagine the multi-million dollar settlement that Eva’s hedge fund backers would pay off to get this out of the media ASAP. Then the mother could move to Seattle and send her son to the same private school that Bill Gates attended and his children attend,.
  
  Reply
- Sharon in NYS says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 8:34 pm
  
  Heck, Lloyd, even with a smallish settlement, she could afford move Upstate to my community or surrounding ones where our housing costs are relatively low, where the public schools would provide her son an excellent education, and where their FERPA rights would be totally respected.
  
  Reply
SomeDAM Poet says:

October 23, 2015 at 10:00 pm

What Moskowitz has done and said since the interview is far more damaging than the interview itself.

And if she actually believes that most people (particularly parents who were thinking about sending their kid(s) to Success Academy) are going to approve of her violating the privacy of a ten year old kid to prove a point, she ain’t too bright.

Reply
- KrazyTA says:
  
  October 23, 2015 at 10:32 pm
  
  SomeDAM Poet: well put!
  
  And what this thread and other like it on this blog prove is that the rheephormsters rightly fear and loathe discussing actual issues and particulars about their so-called creatively disruptive innovations.
  
  They do much more than embarrass themselves: there is is a 98% “satisfactory” [thank you Mr. Bill Gates!] chance of certainty that they gravely wound the sacred cause of $tudent $ucce$$.
  
  Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks…
  
  😎
  
  Reply
NYC public school parent says:

October 24, 2015 at 12:49 am

Thank you, this is excellent and I admire Mercedes ability to express what was so wrong with the entire incident.

“Moskowitz recalled, as well, Stuyvesant’s intractable failings. With an outrage that seemed barely abated by time, she described an alcoholic physics teacher who dozed through class, ceding instruction to an especially talented student, and endemic cheating on exams, caught by the cameras of her yearbook staff. “I thought it was my moral duty to show” the evidence “to the administration,” she said. “They were very adamant that they would investigate. They didn’t.” (NY Times 9/3/2014)

By the way, I think the above statement means that Stuyvesant High School is free to release any and all Ms. Moskowitz’ academic records to the media. At least, that seems to be what Ms. Moskowitz thinks.

Reply
Sharon in NYS says:

October 24, 2015 at 12:05 pm

How to file a complaint against NYS charter schools:

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/psc/complaint.html

Reply
Benten says:

October 24, 2015 at 4:41 pm

I read that originally, and I thought the poor physics teacher could be ver easily identifiable.

Reply
Jack says:

October 31, 2015 at 6:58 am

Here’s a video of Eva Moskowitz’ press conference (Friday, October 30, 2015) in response to the latest “Go to go” list controversy.

Boy, those Success Academy principals — like Candido “Go-to-Go-List” Brown speaking here, and the ones in the background — sure to do cry a lot.

This maudlin display reminds me of Jimmy Swaggart’s tear-filled mea culpa back in 1988:

This Success Academy press conference is just plain weird, and does not move me in the least. I mean, seriously. Does Eva and her handlers really think that, outside of Success Academy’s insulated cult, this such a grotesque spectacle will have any positive effect on the Success Academy image?

Embedded in this event is their simultaneous fabrication of victimhood:

( 01:11 – 01:31 )
CANDIDO BROWN: “Someone on my team, who is not a part of that meeting, sent the email to the network because he knew that what the meeting produced (the “Got-to-Go List”) went against our (Success Academy’s) policies.”

Actually, Principal Brown, that person sent it precisely BECAUSE he/she believed — nay… BECAUSE THEY – KNEW – — that the “Got-to-Go List” was precisely reflective of, and consistent with Success Academy policies. This is despite Eva dismissing all of such accusations as “crazy talk”, and hearing Eva, in multiple letters, deny the existence of such practices, with Eva, in effect, saying over and over… it’s all lies. If what you say is true, prove it. Show us the proof! But you can’t, because there is no proof… and on and on…

Well, Eva. You asked for it, and now you’ve got it.

Yet now that the public has the proof—that you formerly insisted did not exist—your response is this clumsy, transparent attempt at misdirection where you order this principal to appear at a press conference, and, reading a script you prepared for him, do the full-on Jimmy Swaggart tear-fest?

What-ever.

Even still, some of what Principal Brown says is nevertheless revealing;

( 00:54 – 01:55 )
CANDIDO BROWN: (In creating the “Go-to-Go List” then kicking out 9 out of the 15 on the list) “I was doing what I thought that I needed to do to fix a school (unintelligible… “where it not to my whole charter… ” or something.. I can’t make it out, JACK).”

Principal Brown, that begs the obvious question…

What influences from above, starting with Eva herself — explicit or implied, direct or indirect — led you to the point that you were thought that implementing a policy of kicking out certain undesirable “Go-to-go” children — complete with an actual “Got-to-Go List” — was what “I needed to do to fix a school?”

Tearful as your performance was, for you to claim that all of this “kicking out” and “Got to Go List” stuff came about in a total vacuum — originating wholly with you and not in anyway due to influences from above you, including from Eva herself — does not pass the smell test.

This implies the unlikely scenario that, independent of you, Principals at several other Success Academy schools with sky-high attrition also acted totally on their own and kicked out hordes of children, with again, no pressure or influence from above, or from Eva herself — explicit or implied, direct or indirect.

Such a claim strains credulity. Eva is truly Nixon-like in this scenario, with her claim of rogue agents acting on their own, and not in any way responding to a culture or environment that she herself created.

Given Success Academy’s dictator-like management style, can a typical Success Academy principal or other official act on their own this way?

Below are some quotes from the Glass Door, a site where former Success Academy teachers were and are allowed to vent, without fear of Eva, and where they know Eva could not censor their comments:

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/08/citizen-jacks-compendium-of-teacher.html

Here’s a sampling that corroborates the notion that Principal Candido Brown did not act alone, and that others above him, including and especially Eva, bear the majority of the responsibility:

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “The (Success Academy) organization runs on a cult of personality that revolves around pleasing (Eva Moskowitz), which makes me skeptical that they can truly scale this model of education.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “(Success Academy) Leaders rule through fear and intimidation.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “Students are pushed out of the school if they exhibit any negative behaviors or if their data is low. In either case, management will meet with the family to tell them that this school is ‘just not the right fit for them’.

“If that doesn’t work, they will suspend the child ad nauseum or even push them down into a lower grade, so that their exhausted parents give in.

“It’s absurd that this school is publicly funded when it does not serve the population it purports to serve. It is honestly more a school for gifted students than a school working to close the achievement gap.

“I include this in my review because it contributes to the low morale of the school – your students whom you love are constantly being kicked out.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: — Also, (Success
Academy leaders need to, but do not) “value the children, who are told they don’t belong at our school.

“If we can’t help them, what are we doing in the education business?”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “Teachers openly MOCKED 6-year-olds with learning disabilities, telling them they would not want to see them in the same grade again next year (i.e. held back, JACK) because they were neither smart, nor hard working, and hopefully would not be their student again — (and say this) in front of the entire classroom.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “The feedback (from superiors) is ALWAYS negative, without any sense of ‘you can do it’ or ‘we can do this together’… (instead) it’s ‘Get your f*cking sh*t together!’ ”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “Teachers are kept in constant fear of surprise visits and sample collections for evaluation.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “(Eva Moskowitz’) direct inferiors are constantly insulted, sent to run on impossible tasks, validated for their submission to her, or ridiculed / fired if not. I had extreme difficulty maintaining any hard boundaries — much less soft ones — during my time there. The literacy team is stressed out beyond belief; they put so much work into what they do, but it is never good enough. It was incredible to watch.

(Success Academy and its leadership resembles) ‘THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA’ — except not funny and you actually can damage hundreds of kids lives in the process.

“Any advice will fall on deaf ears because hers is a method that works well. Google ‘sick system’ and you will find Success, in its shiny, primary colored glory.”

FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER: “When you are leader and you constantly complain about the incompetencies beneath you – well, the apple never falls far from the tree. The culture starts at the top.”

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