In response to “Confessions of a Teacher in a ‘No Excuses” Charter School,” this comment was posted:
Thank you for writing about your experience. I taught at a “no excuses” charter school in Brooklyn for a year. It was the most frustrating and disturbing experience of my life. The ridiculously punitive disciplinary system enforced by a teaching staff of young white recent college graduates felt like a mission to “tame the savages.” The students were forced to lose all individuality and become a white persons ideal of a perfect representation of the black race.
In the end, the school claims that 100% of the student to a four year college. What they don’t tell you about are the numerous students (particular males) that are discarded because they could not be tamed by demerits, detentions and suspensions for speaking without raising their hand or not looking at a classmate when they are speaking or slumping in their chair or speaking out of turn or resting their hand on their chin or talking in the hall.
I have always wanted to tell my story. I applaud you for doing it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is interesting that there are so many people who never liked “no excuses” ideas in the first place, but they somehow end up teaching at just such a school, and then quit after a year and write about it anonymously on Dr. Ravitch’s blog.
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It’s also “interesting” that some readers anonymously mischaracterize a handful of Diane’s almost 8,000 posts on this blog since 2012 as “so many.”
Is that because some readers can’t count or reason, or is it because they are trolls?
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Michael Fiorillo: I don’t say this lightly, but don’t hold your breath waiting for a “better class” of shills and trolls.
The sneer, jeer and smear is right out of the charterite/privatizer playbook. Check under “Advanced Marxist Maxims”—
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
¿? Only the famous one.
Groucho.
😎
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What’s really interesting is how many public schools are getting closed and reconstituted as “no-excuses” charter schools, so teachers who would rather not work in such environments but who still have to pay the rent have a horrible choice to make.
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WT,
“60 Minutes” showed, last night, what the posted comment describes.
It should concern all of us that the Gates, Tudor Jones and Loeb children don’t attend similar schools. I fear their offspring will develop affluenza and destroy the lives of people who live in my community.
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Hoo-boy… I can never decide whether to be more disturbed or bemused (darkly bemused?) by people who equate enforcing basic standards of discipline to racism. Many blacks rightly take great offense at the notion that there is something “black” about acting uncivily or refusing to obey the rules. I can’t see Carver, DuBois, Douglass, or Cosby endorsing such a view. The paternalism evidenced by those who wish to excuse bad behavior is the true “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Not defending the “no excuses” approach per se, but just find the commenter’s attitude reprehensible.
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You obviously haven’t read DuBois. Cosby, like Obama and Clarence Thomas, tends to forget that he’s black – money does strange things to a person.
And, yeah, you are defending the “no excuses” approach per se.
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“tends to forget he’s black” Oh, please.
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Yes. Meaning that he tends to think that he’s actually accepted by the elite establishment. The reality is that he’s just accepted as a useful idiot who’s willing to spout the elites’ “boot straps” lines. If he were ever to actually press for racial equality, he’d discover very quickly just how “accepted” he really is. Ditto Thomas and Obama.
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“basic standards of discipline”
These are not basic standards: slumping in their chair or speaking out of turn or resting their hand on their chin or talking in the hall.
I used to teach at a very posh public school.
The parents (wealthy, highly educated, mostly white) would have had a fit if any faculty member had attempted to punish their kid for slouching or talking in the hall. The parents would have revolted if we had attempted to put any such rues in place.
If those kids blurted out in class it was because they were so engaged and excited about learning.
If they rested a hand on the chin they were bing pensive.
There is nothing reprehensible about objecting to the kind of discipline that would never be tolerated in a high end school.
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Well again, my comment is not a defense of the specific policies of these schools. Rather, it is pushback against the broader idea that trying to enforce discipline is somehow racist if the students are minorities. Kids in these schools typically come from very low-discipline environments, so it’s a bit understandable that schools would feel the need to be stricter than they would have to be with kids who respond positively to authority figures.
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“…that trying to enforce discipline is somehow racist if the students are minorities.”
Nice strawman. Try to find someone who has actually said that. Thanks.
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Jack,
Never, ever, in my teaching career heard anyone say or suggest that we should not enforce discipline.
I was going to call this out as a straw man argument… Dienne beat me to it!
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Jack T: Per your statement
“Kids in these schools typically come from very low-discipline environments, so it’s a bit understandable that schools would feel the need to be stricter than they would have to be with kids who respond positively to authority figures.”
What kids typically come from very low-discipline environments? What kids respond positively to authority figures?
Over zealous discipline cuts the heart and soul out of a child’s education and life. There are times where some adults hide their bullying attitude, lack of self-esteem, and/or lack of competence as administrators by claiming “no excuses”.
Demanding compliance does not engender respect or true discipline. We should be teaching and modeling discipline. We should treat our students with respect and understanding. I know it is difficult, I knew it when I picked myself up from the floor after a student angrily shoved me.
Before that student was suspended and had to leave the building we had a mediated discussion. I did not yell or carry on but listened and then spoke to and with the student. By modeling how to behave and allowing the student to explain their course of action my administrators and I are engendering self-discipline.
As a high school teacher I believe modeling and encouraging self-discipline is the most important gift I can give my students as they mature into young adults.
The student I spoke about is now self-correcting their own behavior. It takes consistency, a solid routine and basic rule structure based on courtesy and civility. It’s not rocket science and I see “no excuse” not to work on building students’ self-discipline.
Just a thought…..
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Ah yes, the civil rights pantheon of George Washington Carver, W.E.B. Bu Bois, Frederick Douglass and … Bill Cosby?
You’re kidding, right?
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Just tried to come up with a modern, un-politically controversial person who tends to espouse the sorts of ideas in this area that those great men of the past did. Nothing more than that.
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Jack Talbot,
Fair enough as to your intentions, but two points:
First, your historical analogy is mostly incorrect.
I know nothing of G.W. Carver’s politics. However, let’s assume they corresponded perfectly with those of Booker T. Washington, who founded the institution where Carver spent his career, Tuskeegee Institute. Even granting that, it’s false to imply that W.E.B. Du Bois – who, by the way, was a pariah at the end of his life because of his unrepentant political leftism during the Blacklist era – and Frederick Douglass had an ideology anywhere close to that of “No Excuses For Those People” charter operators.
Whatever their thoughts about personal responsibility and accomplishment, Douglass and Du Bois would have grounded them in a radical critique of race relations and political economy in the US, topics phobic-ly avoided by Washington and Bill Cosby alike.
As for being non-controversial, Cosby is far from it, and for things he’s said on precisely these matters. For, while Cosby was criticized for avoiding racial topics early in his career (which just happened to correspond to the Heroic Years of the civil rights movement), ten years ago he raised a stir by giving a speech validating virtually every stereotype of Black social pathology. Project forward a few years, and you could hear the same stereotypes, this time with “soaring” oratory, expressed by Barack Obama when addressing Black audiences.
Below is a link to Cosby’s highly-publicized “Pound Cake Speech,” given in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Bd. of Ed. Read it and see if it doesn’t pre-figure some of the premises and underpinnings of many urban charter schools.
It’s also been called “The Ghettosburg Address.”
http://www.eightcitiesmap.com/transcript_bc.htm
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BTW, very interesting (and telling) that you left off MLK. He would definitely have seen “no excuses” for exactly what it is.
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Dienne: “And, yeah, you are defending the ‘no excuses’ approach per se.”
What you said. Complemented by the following comment by Ang.
Ang: the ‘rules’ in the ‘no excuses’ schools remind me of nothing so much as, well, read the comment by TC below.
Schools should not be a euphemism for training young people of any race/ethnicity or SES or whatever in docility and low-level skills. It should not be a euphemism for inculcating the kind of “grit” and “determination” that enables servility.
Let’s try another ‘no excuses’ tack. Smaller class sizes—as small as they need to be. Classroom aides to assist every teacher—no exceptions. Counselors and school psychologists and PE coaches and fine arts & performing arts instructors—as many as are needed. Since the very existence of the US economy and society and security are at stake, when it comes to funding—
No excuses. Whatever it takes.
Don’t agree? Lack the persistence necessary to ward off an existential threat to the US of A?
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
😎
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“Let’s try another ‘no excuses’ tack. Smaller class sizes—as small as they need to be. Classroom aides to assist every teacher—no exceptions. Counselors and school psychologists and PE coaches and fine arts & performing arts instructors—as many as are needed. Since the very existence of the US economy and society and security are at stake, when it comes to funding—”
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE!
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“Let’s try another ‘no excuses’ tack. Smaller class sizes—as small as they need to be. Classroom aides to assist every teacher—no exceptions. Counselors and school psychologists and PE coaches and fine arts & performing arts instructors—as many as are needed.”
What’s interesting to me about this proposal is how truly extraordinary it is. The sentiment isn’t; I hear it expressed all the time, in different ways. But taken seriously, as a proposal, it is utterly extraordinary. Imagine if someone ran for governor, or for mayor of a major city, with *that* as a signature policy position. With an actual number for how low class sizes need to be. With real cost estimates and a plan for how to finance it. I would say to myself, well, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen.
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FLERP,
once upon a time we had a governor in GA who ran on a platform of more $ for schools, more $ for higher ed, lower class size, special services and and other similar things .
His mother was a teacher.
He did a lot for GA schools
Then he went nuts.
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Ang,
Okay, I’ll bite. Who was the governor? Did he literally or figuratively go “nuts?”
Did any of this relate to his improving schools?
An inquiring and clueless mind wants to know.
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Hi Ms Cartwheel,
Zell Miller.
He was a dem.
Yes, he did a lot for GA schools.
The go nuts referred to his late switch to the VERY angry wing of the repub. party.
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Ah, I am now enlightened. Thank you!
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Floyd Red Crow Westerman sang about his experiences growing up: “You put me in your boarding school, made me learn your white man rule, be a fool.”
Resting the hand on the chin, puffing up cheeks with air? This crosses the line into making fools of people.
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‘No excuses’ is the slogan of the Marines. This is simply a way to try to turn schools into boot camps!
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Here is a perspective that’s at least somewhat tethered to reality (eugenics. really.): http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2014/04/if-kipp-is-so-bad-what-does-that-say.html
I strongly reject the implication that minority parents living in our nation’s hypersegregated metropolitan areas are applying to charter lotteries because they have been duped, because they are misinformed, or because they are shills. It could very well be that these parents would be thrilled to be able to choose a middle ground between so-called no-excuses schools and a zoned schools with chaotic learning environments and a long history of dismal performance. But thanks largely to brutal, unrelenting, and ongoing segregation, these families usually don’t have that choice.
The culture at John Dewey-approved schools like Sidwell, Dalton, New Trier, New Canaan, etc. is also probably closer to “no excuses” than many people realize. Maintaining high expectations is simply a lot less bumpy when you don’t enroll any at-risk children and your school is located in a safe, secure community.
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“No excuses” is not about high expectations – quite the opposite, in fact. Places like Sidwell expect that their students can and will behave respectfully and engage in their own education. When students “misbehave”, they obviously just need a subtle reminder or perhaps it means there’s something on their mind that they need to discuss with someone or get some other positive, personalized intervention.
“No excuses” schools assume that the (mostly minority) students who attend are a bunch of uncivilized animals who have to be trained with rewards and harsh punishments (which, as an aside, is not even a good way to train animals, but I digress). The only way to get “respect” from these barbarians is to earn it through immediate reinforcement with fear-mongering techniques.
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Love this.
And absolutely correct in my experience.
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Dienne: bullseye!
And the way to inculcate obedience-inducing fear amongst the students is to do the same with the teaching staff. And let the administrators feel some of that management-by-contempt too.
You now have an essential element of the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$ aka BBC Vanity Projects.
Of course, such is not the case for the genuine centers of teaching and learning where the self-styled “education reformers” of the “new civil rights movement of our time” send THEIR OWN CHILDREN. Dienne has mentioned Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama].
But let’s leave out the enablers of the “creative destruction” of public schools and get right to the head honchos.
Take Bill Gates [Please!] and his experiences at—and presumably those he wishes for his own children who also attend—Lakeside School.
Link: http://www.lakesideschool.org
And most surprising of all [?] not a whiff of Commoners Core!
But I do detect a strong odor of hypocrisy…
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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BTW, maintaining “high expectations” is also a lot easier when classes are capped at 24.
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“chaotic learning environments and a long history of dismal performance.”
Somehow I do not think this type of environment is as common as the movies and the imaginations/fears of white folk gentrifying a neighborhood suggest.
I now work at a “dangerous school with dismal outcomes”.
That concept comes from the recently arrived neighbors, aided and abetted by the media and education “reform” propaganda. The idea even spreads (unfortunately) to some of the newly arrived immigrants who “hear” that this is a bad school.
PS: the school is neither chaotic nor a dropout factory. It is poor, and full of ELL’s and very recent immigrants.
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I can’t speak to the “imaginations/fears of white folk.” My impressions are formed by college readiness rates for the traditional zoned schools and districts from which NYC charters draw most of their students; from reading a variety of NYC teacher blogs; and, most importantly, from reviewing actual teacher responses on NYC school surveys (here is a sample; see page 18 in particular): http://schools.nyc.gov/OA/SchoolReports/2012-13/Survey_2013_X080.pdf.
When 25% or more (sometimes way more) of the teachers in a building say crime and violence are a problem; that order and discipline aren’t maintained; and that students are frequently harassed and bullied, it’s difficult for me to believe that “media and education ‘reform’ propaganda” are to blame. The response rates probably understate the problem: administrators are notorious for applying pressure to staff to fill out a positive survey.
I’m not disputing whether traditional district schools serving hypersegregated zones are facing immense challenges. I wish the conversation were about what can be done to improve these environments (and before you talk about money, I’ll remind you that NYC spends just about $25,000 per student). In the interim, it is hardly surprising that charters are an attractive option to parents, and I can’t think of anything more offensive than telling a parent zoned for the school like the one I linked to above that they must send their kid there and work to “fix” it.
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You’re right, it’s not the job of public school parents to “fix” a struggling school.
That’s the job of the Mayor who controls the schools – as the previous Mayor did for 12 years, longer than any child now in any public school cohort – and the people he puts in place to manage them.
Rather than fix those struggling schools, the Mayor undermined them further by siphoning resources to privately-managed charter schools and turning over public facilities to them.
Given that context, the needs of families in those communities and the political manipulation of those needs can co-exist quite easily.
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Tim,
“I can’t speak to the “imaginations/fears of white folk.” …Who are gentrifying a neighborhood.
Lack of context and intent in a clipped quote.
Not cool.
I know nothing about the survey you posted. How it was conducted. Who responded. Etc.
Perhaps it is great, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. From my experience the only respondents who take this type of survey seriously (or take it at all) are those with an ax to grind.
But that is just my experience.
And no, it is not for the parents to “fix” a school. It is the job of the mayor, school board and district office to give those schools the resources they need to improve and place principals and administrators that can run the schools in a safe and secure fashion.
Failing to do this makes a frightened and misinformed public easy to manipulate into believing no excuses type charters will save their children.
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My experience working in Texas Title I Schools in areas of “difficult circumstances and poverty” has been to observe an “attitude’ of “fear” among school administrators. There seems to be a distorted belief that managing “tough” children who have grown up in environments of chronic “traumatic” stress need more authoritarian “control” and “domination” using punitive management styles of “Behaviorism” punishment and reward. Most often their methods resemble the “Skinner Nazi Management Style”.
Where is the “common sense” needed for these school administrators to recognize that these children need respect and validation, in addition to consistent positive role modeling from their teachers and school administrators. Children who have lived in chronic traumatic stress are highly sensitive to their teacher/caretakers behavior. They often do not trust or respect adults or authority figures because they were never given that opportunity.
They respond best to respect from adults who can validate and accept them for their unique worth and capabilities, along with consistent positive expectations and modeling.
Children who have suffered trauma and learned skills to survive in chronic traumatic stress do not need more “bullying”, they need understanding from teachers who have empathy, not callous detachment. Bullying is the last thing they need. This “delusional’ attitude of stereotyping and scapegoating children is damaging, and destroys their best potential for future success.
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Dystopian?
Heart of Darkness; 1984; Hunger Games; Schwarze Padagogik; Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing; Abu Gharib; Common Core……..
If it quacks like a duck……..
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Speaking of punitive disciplinary systems, I wonder how many students are arrested inside KIPP schools, and how that compares to the rates in neighboring district schools.
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Without looking into the matter, I’d guess very few. Any who might be in danger of getting arrested were probably long ago expelled for not walking on the painted line or for having their shoes untied or other such abominations.
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Yep
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FLERP,
Aren’t KIPPS middle and elem. schools.
Are many children under 13 actually arrested at any school?
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Had one recently taken out in handcuffs for bringing a knife to school -10 years old..
I am my kids biggest fan but they have a lot of problems coming in the door and in such large numbers that firmness is often necessary. Even a kinder has been known to say “f*ck you!” And yes, I know it’s the environment at home but they are at school to learn and learning where one can behave one way and where one needs to behave another will do a lot for making a more productive citizen. Civility must be modeled, taught, preached, and sometimes coerced, gently or otherwise. We need to provide a warm welcoming environment for our students but we must also have control.
Let the tarring and feathering begin, but not before you have spent a day doing my job.
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The point of these “No Excuses” charter schools is to brainwash kids into accepting a life of 10 hour workdays where you must keep your mouth shut and toe the line. What I find interesting is that that majority of these “No Excuses” charter schools serve primarily minority students. Now, one could say this is a function of institutionalized racism. However, the fact is that the fearsome 1% who run these charter schools must realize that minorities are still just that. (Minorities) The majority of kids in public schools are non-minorities. If the true goal of the “No Excuses” charter school is to prepare kids for a lifetime of drudge work, they need to focus on indoctrinating everyone. I think it is just a short matter of time before the charter school fascists start trying to set up in middle class neighborhoods. Just wait and see. Slave labor has no color or financial marker in this day and age to the 1%ers.
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“However, the fact is that the fearsome 1% who run these charter schools must realize that minorities are still just that. (Minorities) The majority if kids in public schools are non-minorities.”
Not by much, and not for long. And if “non-minority” means “white” to you (which it seems to, although there are plenty of minorities in middle class neighborhoods), then NYC’s public schools are 14% white.
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As I mentioned Flerp, it is not about brainwashing minorities. It is about prepping the 99% to be willing to work 10 hour days for peanuts. The best way to do this is to get kids used to it when they are young. It does not matter what color they are. What matters is that they will do what they are told, when they are told and keep their mouths shut. My point in my above post simply states that the current charter school “CEO’s” have been focusing their efforts in inner city neighborhoods. If these charter folks really want to tame the masses they are going to do what every other company does and diversify and branch out. (That means setting up shop in more middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods. REGARDLESS of what ethnic background it may consist of)
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I may have misunderstood why you find it interesting that the schools you refer to mainly enroll minority students.
If the main motivation for charter school operators is to prepare students to work as drones, they’re wasting their time. The regular public schools already do an excellent job at that. It’s where I learned.
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I see a lot of what is wrong with education right here in the comments. Michael you are very bright, but the way you present your thoughts is not a welcoming approach to a conversation. Yeah, you know a lot, but you barely know how to speak to people. It seems like most of the people here are invested in education, which is great because at least you’re reading. What I think would have been much more impressive is a dialogue where we build each other up and try to establish an understanding for all on the danger of “no excuses”. Instead there is “that’s not what this is about” or “DuBois wouldn’t have said blah blah blah”. When your students don’t understand a concept or misconstrue a theory do you bang it over their head until they fear to say anything else on the topic? That’s just what went down here. I can talk about DuBois, Merton, Mead, Rousseau, and countless other sociologists/theorists… But would it advance the goal to improve education??? I’m going to go out on a limb and say MLK, DuBois, Cosby, Obama, and countless others mentioned would not endorse a dialogue that is so stifling it is just an echoed monologue. Dialogue like this is also why so many people leave education… It is difficult to tolerate the adults involved in education.
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Wow. Quite a statement! How is it that a supposedly well funded charter school makes its teachers buy their own classroom supplies? Regardless, I can’t imagine the horror of this classroom for anyone really interested in teaching. And when was AL actually supposed to teach anything in the first place? Seems like she was supposed to spend most of her time monitoring behavior.
I agree that the system here is really about control, not education. Sick-making.
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