Eva Moskowitz and Families for Excellent Schools plan a mass rally in Néw York City on September 30 to promote their goal of increased privatization.
Familes for Excellent Schools is not an organization of poor families of NYC, but an organization of hedge fund managers and billionaires who support privatization.
“Success Academy, the city’s largest and most influential charter network, again plans to flood the rally with its teachers and thousands of students and parents. Success parents are typically asked to take part of the day off from work to participate in the rally. A spokeswoman for the network confirmed students will have a half-day on Sept. 30 in order to attend.”
Mark the date on your calendar if you are a parent or teacher of the city’s more than 1 million students who attend public schools. In accordance with law, public schools are not allowed to close for half-a-day for a political rally.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I can’t click LIKE. However, let this comment show my disgust and dislike for the tricks that Eva Moskowitz and her copy-cat RheeFormers stoop to in their endless terrorist propaganda war to fool as many people as possible.
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This has become standard operating procedure for aggressive charter chains. They flood legislative hearings with children and parents in identical T-shirts to demand more charter schools. At one meeting of the NYC Board of Education, they carried signs saying “close bad schools faster,” to free up more space for charter expansion.
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It may be illegal for the UFT to undertake a rally with its teachers to counter Eva’s sickening rallies, but I think it’s time for some serious civil disobedience. Call for a strike. Ask the teachers to rally opposite eva’s teachers and get public school parents and students to join too! It would be great if that could happen with MUCH greater numbers than Eva’s rally. That said, I’m not holding my breath waiting for a muscular approach from the UFT.
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My favorite video about Eva was produced by the BAT’s (Bad Ass Teachers) Association… it’s called “Unknowable”, and has Eva and charter spokesperson Jeremiah Kittredge responding to allegations of cherry picking:
Here’s BATs’ description of the video:
“UNKNOWABLE?” Charter Schools’ Biggest Voices Unclear About Cherry Picking
Eva Moskowitz asked whether her Charter schools admit the highest needs kids in NYC, she says she thinks the jury is still out, she doesn’t have the information to answer the question in all her travels.
Just as tongue tied is Jeremiah Kittredge, top spokesman for a non-profit that is funded by the Waltons, Moskowitz’ husbands’ group, and hedge-funder backed PACs. Hear him twist up a word-pretzel when asked the same simple question: don’t the children whose parents apply to charters them have major home support advantages?
To date, no one seems to have asked the teachers in the rooms with the highest-needs kids everyday, but we’re still hopeful.
—————–
My favorite part is when asked about how few special ed kids attend charters, Kittredge tries to change the focus to the public schools with the following condemnation:
(at 4:30)
(at 4:30)
KITTREDGE: “Over 50% of New York City public schools serve a less-than-average number of Special Ed. and ELL students.”
Well… uhh… yeah. That’s sort of the definition of “average.” That’s a totally nonsensical and meaningless statement, but said authoritatively by Kittredge, may fool people into thinking he actually made a convincing argument countering charter schools’ dismal record regarding special ed students.
Or the video’s initial Q & A that inspired the video’s title.
In this friendly interview—from Reason TV, a libertarian, anti-union org—the interviewer asks Eva about the selection process
(0:00 – )
(0:00 – )
INTERVIEWER: “Critics of charters argue that schools like SUCCESS ACADEMY are excelling in part because they serve kids that come from more stable homes, with more involved parents than their public school counterparts. Those parents that are willing to take the effort to enter their kids into a lottery, critics say, are more likely to have children who are motivated to get ahead.
“Is there a difference between the parents who decide to go into a lottery? So, you know 18,000 kids apply for your spaces… are the parents of those 18,000 kids somehow radically different than, ya know, the parents who either don’t care or don’t know about lottery schools?”
Why the answer to that question is just “unknowable”, Eva dodges, then blathers about her outreach, then talks about how much parents love their students…. the question being asked of her now left behind in the dust of her obfuscations.
Actually, Eva, it’s quite “knowable”. It’s basic common sense, actually… that requiring multiple steps and applications for a parent to jump through will weed out those parents means you will self-select for a group of kids with parents will be more involved, and whose kids will be easier to educate, and produce your beloved higher test scores.
Eva then defends her “marketing”… … it’s benign and harmless… she just likes informing people about her schools, you know… not mentioning that SHE IS SPENDING MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO POACH STUDENTS… that’s an amount of money that the increasingly de-funded public schools do not possess, and thus, cannot counter with their own multi-million-dollar marketing campaign.
To make this poaching happen, Eva is also using money from NYC citizens and taxpayers… some of whom do not want their public schools wiped out and replaced with Eva’s charters…and who object to the insanely unlevel playing field that this marketing enables in favor of Eva’s privatization of NYC schools.
One more thing: “1-in-9” NYC students are classified as “homeless”.
At Eva’s schools, what fraction are homeless?
Try “0-in-9.’
How did this happen?
Why that’s just “unknowable.”
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Jack, this is such an interesting video. It’s actually scary to see how she doesn’t miss a step when she claims she educates exactly the same students as in failing public schools and how her attrition rates aren’t high at all. If you just take one of their schools like Success Academy Bed Stuy 1, you find the number of economically disadvantaged students declined by 40% between 2nd and 3rd grade. The 2nd grade class in 2013-2014 was 103 students, and only 76 were tested in the 2014-2015 3rd grade cohort. That’s over 25% of the class missing. And what’s worse, if you look at the number of economically disadvantaged 2nd graders who were missing for the 3rd grade test, it’s nearly 40% of the at-risk kids!
There are ways for a truly ethical charter operator to try to figure out why their attrition rates are so high and how to help lower them. With all those millions in donations, why not spend it to make sure the struggling students are made to feel welcome. If you are simply denying there is any problem — that your school is a model for all public schools – then how can you ever improve your school’s ability to teach those at-risk kids? And why the desperation to deny what even the parents at the schools acknowledge is true — they like the school because the difficult to educate kids aren’t there?
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Eva pays herself more than a half million annually in addition to siphoning off another half million or more for propaganda like pulling out the kids in her schools along with their parents to be driven by bus to lobby the legislature in the state capital. That’s where the money went that should have been spent to educate all those kids who were forced out from the no nonsense, inquisition environment of her autocratic schools.
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Apart from Moskowitz’s numbers being incredibly shaky (she tends to compare network wide stats to individual schools in DOE), consider that even if she were correct and her attrition numbers were that low — These.Are.Children.Whose.Families.Sought.Her.Schools.Out.And.Went.Through.Every.Step.Of.The.Process.To.Get.There.
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Daniel Katz, it’s not just that parents seek the school out. I agree that Success Academy has a built in advantage since they are already getting more motivated parents: “if you cannot commit to all that we ask, this is not the place for you” as Eva Moskowitz tells parents! But Success Academy also has a built in advantage in how much they encourage or discourage that motivated parent to enroll their child. NY 1 just ran a piece about a parent whose child won the lottery for SA Williamsburg and she was “tested” and told she’d have to repeat 1st grade instead of going into 2nd. So she didn’t use her lottery win to attend. What kind of test is this and how advanced does a 1st grade graduate need to be to join the class? That’s up to Success Academy.
No one really knows what the attrition rate at Success Academy is because they DO backfill with students who test at grade level in 1st and 2nd grade. It hides those numbers. Not to mention that the comparison “averages” they use to rationalize that so many elementary school age kids go missing almost always includes failing high schools (which obviously have high drop out rates) and never just elementary schools. But there is something off about the Bed Stuy 1 numbers last year — where were the 40% of 2nd graders from 2013-2014 who were “economically disadvantaged”? Were they all held back and that’s why they were missing from the 2014-2015 3rd grade testing cohort? It’s a shame that the SUNY Charter Institute has such a deplorable lack of curiosity about that. Backfilling with kids who are tested and only allowed to enter their rightful grade if Success Academy thinks they will test well on the standardized tests isn’t exactly a “best practice” that Eva Moskowitz ever talks about. Holding back 40% or more of a grade because it takes your inexperienced teachers 2 years to teach them the material isn’t exactly a “best practice” that Eva Moskowitz talks about. Nor does the press. It’s all about joyful rigor but if 40% of the at-risk students aren’t moving ahead each year after joyful rigor, why isn’t SUNY demanding that the school address it?
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But never forget, charter schools are public schools!
/sarcasm
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I went to the U.S. Department of Ed. site and submitted an on-line comment. If Arne Duncan does not condemn the double standard for private and public schools, which are both supported by tax dollars, it is further proof he is the architect of education injustice-America’s shame.
I hope the Depts. of Ed., both N.Y. and U.S., are flooded with comments.
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Why not sue?
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I think that people carrying signs saying, “Let’s open more schools that get to cherry pick,” or “We won’t take your kids if they’ve been in public school too long!” should go ahead and join their rally.
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I taught in the public school system from 1969 through 1998, rewarding, if challenging, years in my profession. From time to time, my colleagues might muse: “If only the three or four defiant or troubled kids in my class were elsewhere, my days would be far less stressful.” However, cherry-picking our students and excluding others should not be possible in a school paid for by the public. That’s why people establish private schools, which have the exclusion option, and that’s why parents pay extra for this privilege. Charter schools have been permitted to exclude some of the children of taxpayers, yet have continued to be granted public funds. This is a question of civil rights. Once again, separate and unequal education in our present day.
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The separate and unequal condition of America’s schools was created, grown, and perpetuated by a school district model that walks arm-in-arm with residential segregation. Separate but equal, which seems to be the ideal of many defenders of the district model (“neighborhood schools!” being their rallying cry) not only doesn’t work, it also happens to be illegal.
Charter school students make up 10% of New York City’s public school enrollment, and merely 3% of New York State’s. If you want to be outraged by something undemocratic, be outraged by the fact that New York City doesn’t have an elected independent school board. 1 million children, including my own, whose families are denied a voice.
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Tim, did you ever read the report by Gary Orfield of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. He says that charter schools intensify segregation even in districts that are already segregated. Charters are more segregated than their host district.
I think NYC should have an independent school board. I don’t know if it should be elected, because in the past, when it was, the turnout was so low that it was easily captured. I am completely opposed to the current form of mayoral control.
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Tim, why does it matter whether we have an “elected independent school board”? When it comes to school, apparently our tax dollars and school property must go to whomever charter school CEO has the ear of Governor Cuomo.
People who defend the neighborhood school model don’t LIE about it. They don’t say that we need to keep neighborhood schools in place because the good test scores at PS 321 and PS 6 and PS 29 PROVE that neighborhood schools are better! Zoned schools are better and I just absolutely provided data that they are. The only way to SAVE public education is to have more zoned schools!
I know I am making the most idiotic argument in the world, but apparently you believe that argument when it comes from the charter school folks. At least the people defending zoned schools don’t pretend that the high test scores at PS 6 are the result of a “secret sauce” that only zoned schools can provide.
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@Tim Many Success Academy schools are not diverse either, so I don’t understand why you keep beating this dead horse.
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Tim always fails to notice that the three District 3 Success Academy schools are terribly segregated, with white kids all clustered in one of the schools – Success Academy Upper West. Which also happens to be where 75% of the students are affluent!
But do you know what is worse? Instead of combining the segregated Success Academy District 3 elementary schools for middle school, as all those public schools do to increase diversity, Success Academy has opened a very special middle school just for the one District 3 school where white students attend and where the majority of students (of all races) are primarily affluent and have college-educated parents. For some very strange reason, the affluent Success Academy students at Upper West in District 3 travel out of district to attend their brand new elementary school instead of staying in their district to attend middle school with the other District 3 elementary schools that – you got it – are mostly poor students.
I can’t figure out what is worse, the hypocrisy or simply the statements that are designed to mislead. Or maybe the fact that the press are stenographers for any outrageous claims about their deep, deep concern for the at-risk children in failing schools despite the fact that so many at-risk kids disappear. But hey, the affluent ones don’t, so I guess it’s all good.
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Beth: when all you’ve got is a dead horse, then that’s what Johnny One-Notes are going to beat.
Keeping in mind: the beatings will continue until morale improves.
😎
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“Tim, did you ever read the report by Gary Orfield of the UCLA Civil Rights Project. He says that charter schools intensify segregation even in districts that are already segregated. Charters are more segregated than their host district.”
Yes, I’ve read the report (several times, in whole or in part), and while Orfield may claim this, he doesn’t actually provide the evidence that would prove it: data showing that charter-going children are leaving better-integrated district schools. In reality, the vast majority of children who attend New York charters are zoned for similarly segregated schools. As Iris Rotberg puts it, “The primary exceptions to increased student stratification [caused by choice] are in communities that are already so highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and income that further increases are virtually impossible.”
“I think NYC should have an independent school board. I don’t know if it should be elected, because in the past, when it was, the turnout was so low that it was easily captured. I am completely opposed to the current form of mayoral control.”
Your position on this continues to baffle me. New York’s last mayoral election was beset by embarrassingly low turnout and a huge amount of influence from special interests, but I doubt very much that you’d suggest that New York City’s mayor ought to be appointed by the governor. And on the flip side, do you honestly think that the school board elections everywhere else aren’t prone to “capture” and special interests? This really isn’t complicated: New York City can and should have the same type of school board and elections as everywhere else in America.
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The Kasich Administration finally had to release correspondence on charter schools because every newspaper in the state demanded it. The Kasich appointees dumped thousands of pages the Friday before Labor Day so it’s taking a while to publish but it’s really amazing how completely “movement” ed reformers have captured state government.
7% of the students in the state attend “choice” schools (charters and vouchers) and Kasich appointees and Republicans in the legislature apparently work exclusively on promoting, marketing and funding charter and private schools.
I’d love to go to the public schools these people supposedly represent and see what they’ve done for public schools- the 93%. Not much, looking at this stuff.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/09/hansen_was_angry_when_sen_lehner_cmsd_breakthrough_opposed_perks_based_on_his_illegal_charter_ratings.html
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What will the UFT do in response?
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Nothing Michael!
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I heard a UFT ad on the radio today.
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Maybe the UFT could close all the schools and put 1.1 million children on school buses and have a rally dwarfing Eva’s. Except it would be illegal for public schools and teachers to do that. More proof that Eva’s schools are not public.
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Here is an article that I co-authored explaining how Success Academy could avoided being audited by arguing that they are not public under state constitutional law.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2656537
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Nothing
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To all Parents who really care for Public Education:
We do not need to fight with bloodshed for our democratic rights in 21st century.
Greedy Business can manipulate and control law makers in order to abuse tax dollars for their own PROFIT, and their children’s continuation of living in luxury and advantages.
PARENTS, American people, can TAKE ONE DAY VACATION = well prepare, well organize, and well stand up for our democracy in PUBLIC EDUCATION BASE = OPT OUT MOVEMENT.
Parent need to exercise their control in Public education for their children’s living in creativity before it is too late. Please watch documentary in all communist, fascist, and dictatorship eras in order to treasure and protect our democratic rights = PUBLIC EDUCATION AUTONOMY within local control and election for administrators from teachers, parents, and students. Back2basic
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Again, why doesn’t Success Academy have to follow NYC Chancellor’s Regulations?
Chancellor’s Regulations
D-130
Personnel may not be involved in any activities, including fundraising, on behalf of any political organization during working hours.
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Because they aren’t NYC DOE schools?
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I’m putting this here so it goes directed to you, Tim. I don’t understand your argument above against neighborhood public schools. If I’m getting your post right, you feel that schools in different neighborhoods of the same town are meant to segregate students?
Is it your belief that, in Newark, for instance, which is a huge city, where the One App was instituted last year to force people across town and into charters is a GOOD thing? Many parents fought that tooth and nail. Who in their right mind would want their kid, who lives across from their “neighborhood” school, to have to get up at 6 a.m. to catch a bus and head across town, far from where they live? This was a logistical nightmare that many parents could not escape last year due to “One Newark.”
People generally send their kids to the public schools where they live, in the neighborhoods or sections of town where they live. I grew up in Newark. I attended St. Aloysious for 5 years, because it was across the street from where I lived in the Prudential apartments, and we were poor. In 6th through 8th grade, I went to Hawkins, which was a little further walk. If I’m not mistaken, there was no tuition–whatever you gave to the church on Sunday (which was like $2) was sufficient in the 1960s. Of course, as nuns went out of style and lay teachers were hired, tuition was needed and raised to pay those salaries, and St. Aloysious has been shuttered now for years, and left to decay. I’m not even sure it still exists or was razed or put to different purpose.
In any event, I cannot imagine my parents, both lower class workers, would have sent me across town to a supposed “better” school, or to an expensive private school anywhere else in Newark or in bordering towns. They were too busy working their crappy jobs to keep a roof our heads and food in our bellies. I know it was a different world then, but I do know that using Newark as an example today, parents were mighty bent out of shape by the One Newark app that took their children out of their neighborhoods and across town in the morning dark and returned them in the afternoon dark.
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It is a non-profit. Non-profits are not supposed to lobby. They are not supposed to be used to promote the political aspirations of their CEO.
Can you imagine if Geoffrey Canada had used tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars each year (often twice a year!) to ship all the students at Harlem Children’s Zone to “rally for more charter schools” for a media event? Can you imagine that a non-profit can use donations to promote the profile of its leader, who just happens to have aspirations to political office? Or maybe that is how Geoffrey Canada likes to use lots of money — so much better than actually buying educational supplies. Maybe I am naive not to realize that ALL charter CEOs promote themselves with the money that could be used on REAL education. Is that what all charter school CEOs do, Tim? Am I wrong to think it’s rare and unusual and frankly, rather repugnant?
By “real education”, Tim, I mean spending it to educate kids who might cost a bit more money! I mean, maybe there is an excellent reason why there were 27 2nd graders at Success Academy Bed Stuy 1 who weren’t around to take the 3rd grade exam last year. That’s over 26% of those 2nd graders missing, and nearly 40% of the economically disadvantaged 2nd graders missing from the 3rd grade testing cohort in 2015. How great would it be if Ms. Moskowitz would spend some of her millions figuring out why nearly 40% of the low-income 2nd graders didn’t make it to 3rd grade at Bed Stuy 1? Naaah, why waste money on those “unworthy” kids anyway, right Tim? Better to spend it on rallies! Hooray us! We really care about at-risk kids and that fact that 40% of them didn’t make it from 2nd to 3rd grade should never be closely examined because we are so certain everything we do is perfect! Let’s spend the money on rallies!
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Donna wrote:
“I’m putting this here so it goes directed to you, Tim. I don’t understand your argument above against neighborhood public schools. If I’m getting your post right, you feel that schools in different neighborhoods of the same town are meant to segregate students?”
If our country’s neighborhoods are highly segregated, and if school assignment is determined by residence, it follows that our schools will be highly segregated as well. A primary motivation for the intentional, planned, government-supported segregation of housing has been to also segregate schools. It is unfortunate (but hardly surprising) that some commenters here feel that this is a non-issue or a “dead horse”—segregated, isolated schools are not only illegal and immoral, but they are the source of the opportunity gap, not poverty or school funding.
“Who in their right mind would want their kid, who lives across from their “neighborhood” school, to have to get up at 6 a.m. to catch a bus and head across town, far from where they live?”
Tens of thousands of New York City families, and not just those with high-school-aged kids, must not be in their right minds, because they send their children to different district schools than the ones they are zoned for. What skin this is off anyone else’s nose escapes me. And I can’t speak to One Newark, but in New York City, any family for whom proximity to home is the top priority can have their child attend an open-admission traditional-district K-12 NYC DOE school located very close to their home. With a handful of exceptions, this is the case in most every political jurisdiction in the United States.
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Tim conveniently fails to address the fact that Success Academy itself proves how wrong he is. Tim, every child in District 3 has the exact same opportunity to attend one of the three Success Academy elementary schools in District 3. Most families apply for K. And yet, the K classes in those 3 schools are highly segregated, with almost all the white AND almost all the affluent students found only in one of the three schools. While the other two schools have primarily poor students of color. If Success Academy cared about “diversity”, it would simply combine those three schools for middle school. Instead, somehow the 5th graders at the one white and affluent District 3 Success Academy are attending a middle school especially for them in very white and affluent District 2! Say what?
Why are all the white and affluent students in Success Academy District 3 clustered in one school and not the other two? Just ignoring the question won’t make it go away.
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Excellent!
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s kick them the hell out of our already overcrowded and underresourced DOE school buildings and stop paying their rent!
Fantastic solution! Thank you!
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I’m not following your comment, Daniel Katz. There is a local zoned option available to every New Yorker who wants one, which should please advocates of separate and equal neighborhood schools. The fly in the ointment is that enormous and ever-growing numbers of families are not satisfied with their default option. This is not confined to charters: some families feel their local school is too traditional and opt for an unzoned progressive school like MSC, Castle Bridge, BNS, or the Central Parks, all of which use the exact same application process as a charter school. Think of the 40,000 children who sit for G&T entrance exams or the 30,000 who sit for the SHSAT.
The choice horse has left the barn, be it charter or district. If you tried to take it away the pushback wouldn’t be quite as strong as it would be if Districts 2 and 3 were rezoned to give all “neighborhood schools” their fair and equal share of at-risk learners, but it would be close.
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Tim, you STILL didn’t explain why the three Success Academy elementary schools in District 3 are segregated both by race (white students in only ONE of the schools) and class (one school 75% affluent (and growning) and the other schools more than 75% poor? I am waiting for your explanation and can’t wait to hear why they are sending ONLY the affluent 5th graders to a middle school in District 2 just for them. Why are white families choosing only ONE school and not the others? And why don’t you care?
Why aren’t the parents of color and low-income traveling a bit to attend Success Academy Upper West? And what is Eva Moskowitz doing to change this? Or if they ARE trying, why are so many spots at the school going to high income students?
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Why are children in a charter school protesting for more charter schools when they have one?
There should be a lawsuit that Success is compelling speech from minors (and even adults ) and that an institution providing a publicly funded service cannot compel its members to take part in such political activity.
While friedrich argues that paying union dues is compelled political speech – what do you call this?
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M: surely you are not suggesting that Eva Moskowitz be denied her “choice” to compel speech from the students and parents and staffs of her schools?
😱
Next thing I know, you’ll be advocating for democracy and fairness and equity.
Sheesh!
What is the world coming to?
😎
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If the UFT/NYSUT and de Blasio had any balls they would offer a massive counter rally. But they won’t – and if they end up with Eva as their next mayor they just may deserve it.
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Money can not buy people with common sense. You can not take anything with you when you go to your grave. karma is extremely real. You have done a massive amount of wicked things and you will face the consequences. Eva Moskowitz, Bill Gates, Micheal Bloomberg, and all the followers of these horrific educational crimes WILL DEAL WITH THE COME AROUND IN BULK. NONE OF YOU!!! AND THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SIMILAR TO YOU!!! OR THE PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE TO FOLLOW YOU!!! WILL GET AWAY WITH THE THIS ACT OF UNGODLINESS. NOBODY GETS AWAY WITH WICKEDNESS IN THE EYES OF GOD. HE SEES AND HEARS EVERYTHING. YOU WILL ALL REAP WHAT YOU HAVE SOWED RAPIDLY.
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I am not big on fundamentalism, having been raised in it, but Chris, you have a point…
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E.M. is determined to make her rally a regular event, re-cycling last year’s Photo Opp NEON teeshirts onto the backs of new students, so maybe it is time to invest in that GIANT, street theatre puppet of Horace Mann.
Enormous shocks of white hair and thick eyebrows descending down over pedestrian heads. His name tag or at least a slogan attached to an exaggerated cravat, reading “Common Schools” or “Put PUBLIC Back In Public Schools” or perhaps an equation “Public Schools ≠ Free Market”.
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With hope, the ACLU, will address unequal treatment under the law. The prohibition of public school student and teacher political activity during school hours versus charter school political promotion, during school time, is unjust.
The use of federal, state and local taxes, for T-shirts, transportation, placards, etc., for the Sept. 30, privatization rally, would add to the travesty.
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Off topic but, IMO, Vanity Fair has followed Time magazine’s turn to serve plutocrats.
In the recent issue, there is an article bashing de Blazio, for his well-founded disdain of the NYC’s right wing rich. Vox reports the top 25 hedge fund managers make double the combined income of all of the kindergarten teachers in the U.S. In a capitalistic system, hedge fund managers would be impoverished because they drag down GDP.
The same issue has a puff piece about Melinda Gates. who has the audacity to quote Emerson, “If one life has breathed easier because you lived, that is success “.
The article should have been titled, Impatient Opportunists. The interviewer didn’t ask one question about Bridge International Academies, not one about the Pearson/Microsoft deal to develop curriculum for copyrighted Common Core and, not one about cherry picking and re-segregation associated with charter schools.
I cancelled my subscription, in favor of real journalism not, pressitute drivel.
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NY 1 just did a story about how Success Academy in Williamsburg tested a student who had won the lottery for a 2nd grade spot and told her she had a repeat a year and go to 1st grade instead. What is truly appalling is that those kids — whose parents are discouraged from sending them (can you imagine telling a 6 year old she has already flunked 1st grade because she just isn’t up to snuff?) Those kids never even enroll, and yet Success Academy still has a high attrition rate. I’m shocked that the media ignores this and just reports the test scores of the much smaller number of students who remain.
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Since NYC schools are under mayoral control (DeBlasio), and since the charters are funded by the NYC public schools under his control, could he cut their funding for the half day that their schools are closed for their rally?
It really should be investigated too, whether there is any coercion for students to participate in the rally, counting on their grades, etc.? Are the teachers of those schools forced to participate in the rally?
Kind of like the rallies in communist countries where a factory would close for the day, and the workers all bused to a rally, given picket signs, and forced to participate in a “rally”, as their job for the day.
The same thing happened in the pro-Deasy rallies in LA–charter schools closed and their students bused to rally pro-Deasy (SFER) in LA.
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Here is a law review that I co-authored that provides an overview of the constitutional battle over New York’s charter schools. This article explains how New York’s charter schools have succeeded in avoiding audits by arguing that are essentially private institutions.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2656537.
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If anyone know the exact time and place of the Sept. 30 rally please post. When I called a Success Academy, I was told that only parents of Success Academy “scholars” are given that information
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