Observers–most recently, John Merrow on OBS Newshour–have long wondered whether Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter schools were getting high test scores by weeding out low-performing students (scholars).
Kate Taylor of the New York Times learned that the elimination of unwanted students is practiced assiduously in some (perhaps all) SA charters. She even learned that one of them maintained a “got to go”list of unwanted students.
The SA schools have rigid behavior rules. Those children who do not obey without hesitation don’t belong. This is the Secret of Success.
Weeding out students who “misbehave” or who are likely to get low scores is not just a behavior management strategy or a way to boost assessment results. It is a philosophical and political stance that accepts inequity as an unalterable condition. It accepts that some children cannot be “saved.” It is a strategy to select out the “deserving few” for special attention while ignoring the fate of everyone else.
See: Why God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own is Not a Worth Education Policy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-camins/why-god-bless-the-child-t_b_5118915.html
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.”
Success Academy claims it “doesn’t have the resources” to provide special ed services.
WHAT A PACK OF LIES! Look at its fundraising, look at its sweet no-rent deals, look at Eva’s salary! Un-be-lievable!
Eva must hate – hate – HATE Kate Taylor, after this article, and the one earlier this year.
From Taylor’s perspective, I’m wondering if this was information she had that was left out of the earlier article, that, perhaps, Eva’s denunciations and denials after the John Merrow piece came out, provoked Taylor to put this out there.
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.”
If the privatization movement succeeds in eliminating all public schools, who will educate the kids on the “Got to Go” list?
Sadly many probably want them in privatized prisons.
I hope the follow up article is about the SUNY Charter Institute which has known about the very high suspension rates of very young children at Success Academy for years, and has ALSO known about the very high attrition rates of low-income children (whether or not they were actually suspended). Not one word of concern. Not one attempt to see whether all those kids were in schools for severe special needs children, as Eva Moskowitz’ seems to claim, or were in regular public schools.
SUNY never asked the obvious question: “Since we gave you a charter for a school for at-risk children and you find so many of those children who entered at K don’t “fit”, could it be something about your school and not those children?”
Nope. Instead, SUNY let her simply drop priority for any at-risk kids! And of course, happily gave her not one, not two, but three elementary schools in District 2 Manhattan – one of the richest and whitest districts in NYC. (They were embarrassed when some parents did a Freedom of Information request and learned that there were empty seats in their first two District 2 schools, so the third has yet to open, but not because of any SUNY oversight. They were happy to make sure she had three — I suppose having another school with few low-income students would help those overall suspension and attrition rates which are shockingly high ONLY in certain low-income Success Academy schools.
But the real bad actor here is SUNY Charter Institute, which has utterly failed to do a bit of oversight. Unless “we asked Eva Moskowitz and she said all those 5 year olds deserved it” is oversight. Why aren’t reporters getting SUNY on record as to how they could keep awarding new schools by the dozens without looking carefully at the practices of the earlier schools.
The sponsors are a missing piece of the puzzle. I think it’s odd how they’re never contacted when there’s questions about a charter school in my state. The entity is sometimes named but no individuals are ever named and quoted.
I think it’s a real hole in the regulatory system. There is supposed to be some public or quasi-public people or person who answer for these decisions, and they’re always…absent.
I know they identify students who will have trouble on the tests and they come down extra hard on those students. They push them and push them until they break. I have a friend whose son was suspended for dropping a pencil while walking between classes. They said it was disobedience. She had to leave work to come in and pick him up and then missed work for a day. She seriously thought they wanted him out due to his dysgraphia.
It was brave to report and publish that piece.
Agree! And look at the comments! I am so heartened that so many people get it–charters and “reform” are scams.
I’m really surprised this was even published, but am glad it was. Enough children have suffered because of the greed of charter and reform profiteers.
Just more proof Eva is no teacher. Whatever happened to “love me when I am lest loveable?” Students don’t need to be tossed aside ; they need teachers and schools who stand by them especially when they are struggling.
SA just got itself placed on the got to go list.
This is a welcome bombshell. The readers’ picks in the comments section are mostly terrific. It would be nice if this and the SC incident paved the way for an intelligent, dispassionate and fact-based conversation about the real and serious problem of kids who, for whatever reason, are not in the least inclined to learn and whose anti-social behavior chronically degrades the learning environment of other kids.
We (Substance) and others reported this from Chicago in detail about the “Noble Network of Charter Schools” here five years ago, and reported about it before that. I interviewed the two mothers who came forward here the same way the parents quoted in The New York Times about “Success Academy” have come forward. The students who were ruined here in Chicago by that policy a decade ago are still out there and may still speak about it. But on Wednesday October 28, 2015 despite all the evidence about this corruption, the Chicago Board of Education voted to expand two charter schools in Chicago — Noble and KIPP.
George,
On her site, Campbell Brown just posted an article (read: infomercial) extolling the wonders of the Noble charter schools:
https://www.the74million.org/article/on-leadership-mike-tonya-milkie-raising-the-bar-for-11k-high-needs-chicago-students-at-noble-network
Again, they disabled the COMMENTS section on this piece, but not on other articles.
Someone anonymously posted this comment on the Perdido Street blog last night:
“My ‘Got-T-Go’ list:
1) Eva Moskowitz
2) MaryEllen Ellia
3) Meryl Tisch
4) Andrew Cuomo
5) Arne Duncan
6) John King
7) David Coleman”
Love it. Well, at least Tisch and Duncan are headed out the door -though I’m sure they’ll end up in some other comfy spot that is feathered with piles of cash. Of course, that’s how members of the ruling class tend to take care of each other. Unlike teachers and their students, they are “too big to fail” -despite the fact that these scoundrels have wreaked havoc on public schools, hurt our children and squandered billions of taxpayer dollars.
Well, maybe Andy-boy Cuomo will be headed to jail one of these days. We can hope.
This was in the NYTimes too:
“The question facing voters is whether to oust a polarizing school board that has championed charter schools, performance-based teacher pay and other education measures supported by conservatives.”
I don’t know- is it awkward for DC Democrats that they run against the Koch brothers but are supporting exactly the same agenda as the Koch Brothers in Colorado?
Aren’t voters going to notice this? I mean, maybe not, maybe if they completely avoid their K-12 record they can get away with this, but I don’t know if they can count on complete dishonesty for another “cycle”. At some point voters in some of these “swing states” might figure it out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/29/us/school-board-recall-vote-in-colorado-tests-conservative-policies.html?src=me
It should come as no surprise to anyone that such a list exists within the Success Academy factory model of education that is designed to manufacture high test scores rather than educated students. Test scores are the final product, students are merely the raw material used to produce it. That is why they try to use only the type of raw materials that will best allow the efficient production of test scores and reject any non conforming raw materials that could slow the production line or diminish the quality of said product.
I found this in the comments and thought it worthy of being excerpted here.
“But the question remains: What are we to do with 20% of our population who cannot – for whatever reason – fit into a traditional school structure?
Charter schools do the opposite of what they were originally formed to do. They take the cream & crow about their results.
As a public school teacher who regularly gets ‘rejects’ from charter schools at all times in the year, I feel for the majority of kids who want to learn. There is a serious problem no one wants to talk about–that many kids are disenfranchized from their educator because public schools *must* educate everyone, & states penalize schools that suspend “too much.”
HOW shall we serve the ‘bottom’ 20% no one wants? We must educate them. Dumping them in pool funded public schools is not a solution *at all*.
My solution: reverse the process. Have charter schools deal with the ‘rejects’ of the public school. Come up with innovative, outside-the-box solutions to educate these most needy. Then the public schools could educate those who want to learn.”
Jon Lubar, that’s EXACTLY what charters were supposed to do in the first place, take the students who were the most difficult to educate and come with new, innovative ways to do so.
Instead “innovation” really meant “no excuses” with all that that teaching philosophy entails.
Jon, aside from charter teachers unionizing en masse, nothing would drive the billionaire patrons of charters schools away faster than your proposal.
This just in from Eva Moskowitz, declaring that this notorious list business was “an anomaly”:
We absolutely NEVER have done this any other time except for this one time when we got caught. All the other times we haven’t gotten caught, it certainly didn’t happen because I give you my word. I can assure you that other principals did NOT have “Got to Go” lists. They had “Lose the Louts” lists, “Reject the Retards” lists, “Deep Six the Dummies” lists, “Amscray the Albatrossesay” lists, but absolutely no other principals in my network has “Got to Go” lists. And you can believe me because I never lie, and I’m always right.
Reading through the comment section of the New York Times article, it is interesting to note how many people compared Success Academy’s suspension policies to those of private schools. Curiously, though few questioned how a school which calls itself a public school and receives public money could function like a private school.
As Eva Moskowitz said in her press conference today: “We believe in having honest conversations with parents about what is in the best interests of the child. We believe that is very different from pushing out the students…” Sounds exactly like what a private school dean says.
“Yes, parents, please ignore this gun I’m holding to your child’s head. It’s strictly in the best interests of your offspring, I assure you.”