Bloomberg News Social column June 26, 2012
Born to Rise’
Jonathan Gray, Blackstone Group LP (BX) senior managing director, was at the IAC Building last night to fete Deborah Kenny, the founder and chief executive officer of Harlem Village Academies, on her new book “Born to Rise: A Story of Children and Teachers Reaching Their Highest Potential.”
“The idea of kids who live a mile north from my kids and have little educational opportunity feels wrong,” Gray said at the party hosted by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, with Donna Karan, Calvin Klein and Katie Couric in attendance.
Help goes beyond financial. Gray’s wife, Mindy Gray, is a Homework Helper. Jane Och, the wife of Daniel Och, who runs Och- Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, teaches bridge to students.
Tis the season for charter-school books. On June 14, the night of his run in the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Corporate Challenge in Central Park, Daniel Loeb, founder and CEO of Third Point LLC, co-hosted a party for Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy Charter Schools, and Arin Lavinia, its director of literacy. They have written “Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School.”
David Levinson, a real-estate developer, and Simone Levinson, vice chairwoman of the board of the nonprofit Turnaround for Children, opened their home for the event.
Michael Karsch, principal of Karsch Capital Management LP, attended both book fetes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And nary an actual educator in attendance. Who would’ve thought?
They’re too busy groveling for their jobs.
Excuse me. What have educators got to do with education?
Katie Couric might be reachable via twitter. Include her handle when tweeting education issues.
More noise from inside the bubble.
Here’s an article from Kenny in the WSJ a couple weeks ago: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303703004577472422188140892.html
Here’s what I find to be the most salient section of the piece:
“Charters succeed because of their two defining characteristics—accountability and freedom. In exchange for being held accountable for student achievement results, charter schools are generally free from bureaucratic and union rules that prevent principals from hiring, firing or evaluating their own teams.
Freedom without accountability is irresponsible. Like all professionals, educators need to be accountable for the results of their work. Yet accountability without freedom is unfair: How can teachers or principals be held responsible for results if they don’t control decisions about curriculum or teaching methods? Accountability and freedom do not guarantee that a school will provide an excellent education, but they are prerequisites.
A decade ago, I founded Harlem Village Academies, a charter network now consisting of five schools that will soon grow to serve 2,000 students in Harlem. Everything we do is enabled by the charter conditions of freedom and accountability.
Accountability attracts the best teachers into the profession. Smart, driven people want to work in a place that holds them accountable, where they’ll work alongside educators who share their values—first among them, a belief that all children can learn at a high level. It’s exciting to work with talented colleagues who believe enough in their own abilities that they are willing to be held accountable for student learning outcomes.
We give our teachers an enormous amount of autonomy, and that ignites their passion. They feel happier because they no longer have to endure the demoralizing impact of working with people who are lazy, who gossip and complain, or who don’t believe in the potential of the children.”
A few observations. First, she wastes little time demonizing unions. Apparently it’s impossible to ameliorate flawed aspects of some union’s positions while acknowledging the positive ones. Nope. Just smash unions into non-existence.
I couldn’t agree more with her assessment that “accountability without freedom is unfair.” But why, then, does every new accountability measure for public school teachers come with a tightening of bureaucratic handcuffs? In the public school where I teach, much of the “gossiping and complaining” Kenny mentions centers on the burdensome, soul-sucking policies foisted on us. Incidentally, the way Kenny describes it, once the “smart, driven” teachers come to work for her, all that’s left in public schools are lazy, griping ones who hate kids.
Despite evidence suggesting the vast majority of charter schools perform only as well as or worse than their public school counterparts, corporate reformers continue to driving the charter bandwagon, trumpeting them as houses of innovation and creativity while demanding increased accountability and strictures on public schools. If public school teachers were afforded the same degree of autonomy, then corporate reformers would no longer have their product to sell.
Not that anyone reporting on her “miracle” has actually asked any questions, but if her philosophy on the autonomy and supposed respect she give her teachers is true, what does she have such a high attrition rate? What she says doesn’t match was it actually happening. Diane already posted, but read this analysis and what former HVA teachers have to say about the school and Ms. Kenny.
HVA teacher
I was a former teacher at HVA as well and can say that the experience made me leave NYC and never return to the classroom. Overcrowded classrooms and leadership by a woman with no experience in the classroom (Deborah Kenny) led to a frustration and a complete inability to actually teach. They ignored learning support students and treat the students like they are in a prison. Yes, it is effective for a few, but for most, it is everything we don’t want education to be. The teachers come in passionate and enthusiastic, and leave broken. President Bush visited HVA to applaud its work and say it was “no child left behind” in action. The children and teachers were completely left behind…the only ones moving ahead were people like Deborah.
And there is more:
http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2012/06/12/it-takes-a-village/
Sorry for typos…rushing.
Thanks for the link, Linda.
We all need to quit bemoaning the facts around “Why is this happening…? Don’t they understand…?” They know exactly what they are doing and so do we. Time to become proactive. Beat them at their own game. Take control of the narrative. Show up and stand up!
There was just a Frontline investigation into Medicare/medicaid and the for-profit corporatization of dental care for poor people this week. (Here’s a link to the part about kids http://tinyurl.com/78g28d8). I think there many parallels to what is happening with for-profit charter schools. We need to speak up and confront.
Please be specific. I need your advice. Besides reading and staying informed, sharing the information with teachers, colleagues, parents, neighbors, etc and writing to local elected officials, newspapers, what should I do?