Over a number of decades, some fabulously wealthy right-wingers and the think tanks they support have determined to convince African-American families that privately managed charters and vouchers would “save” their children from “failing” public schools. If you are very rich and you don’t want your taxes to become outrageous, then it makes sense to persuade people who have little that poverty is just an excuse for bad teachers. Forget about poverty. Why should our society invest hundreds of billions of dollars in restoring our infrastructure and creating good jobs for everyone willing to work, when it is so much less costly to get people angry at teachers and public schools? Who cares if we spent two trillion (with a T) on war in the past dozen years? Why waste time imagining what half of that would have done to reduce income inequality in this country? So the right-wing think tanks adopted the views of their founders and their funders, which was that the 1% are job-producers, and they must not have higher taxes. Nope.
This is the background to the nasty confrontation between teacher Patrick Hayes and Dr. Steve Perry of Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Perry brought his message about how poverty doesn’t matter, how kids are hurt by their teachers, and how they should be in charter schools and they should get vouchers to get away from teachers’ unions. South Carolina doesn’t have teachers’ unions, but that is beside the point. And of course, he talked about the miracles at his school in Hartford.
It is somewhat startling to think that African American families in South Carolina might take up the cause that once belonged to White Citizens Councils in the South, supporting vouchers to avoid desegregation.
Here is an audio file of the event.
Patrick Hayes had the effrontery to challenge Dr. Perry. Dr. Perry referred to Hayes as a Satan and a blogger (yes, a blogger!).
Well, read it for yourself. And ask yourself what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., might say today about those who say that poverty doesn’t matter, that vouchers are necessary to escape public education, and that unions are the enemies of oppressed minorities.
Someone has been hoodwinked. But let’s not talk about hoods in South Carolina.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Speaking of frauds, when you read “Doctor” Steve Perry’s doctoral “dissertation”, you notice that the people who wrote it for him appear to have used place-holders for Perry’s hometown and original college, probably intending that he would replace them with the correct names. But he never bothered. So the document says that he grew up in “Anytown” and attended “Lexmark University”. I’m not kidding. What a fraud.
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A fraud, yes. And then some. But a fraud with the ability, like Trump, to whip up a crowd of low-information people to act against their own self interest. A very dangerous fraud.
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gfbrandenburg,
Can you please post a link to Perry’s “dissertation”, hopefully one that doesn’t require a membership to read.
TIA,
Duane
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Try this:
Click to access umi-umd-1459.pdf
Or just google Andre Perry dissertation.
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Thanks!!
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Jonathon Pelto’s “Wait, What” blog has many, many articles about Steve Perry. He has zero credibility anymore in CT, which is why he’s always on the road now.
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I always wish the real vitriolic anti-public school stuff from “the movement” would get out into the general population, because obviously state lawmakers would have trouble explaining these bizarre attacks on public schools and teachers, since the vast majority of their constituents attend public schools and politicians and state ed leaders are, in fact, public employees.
You really hear a whole different story from ed reform politicians when they parachute into our school gyms for a photo op and to express their undying love and affection. One of Governor Kasich’s reps came out to my son’s school at the beginning of the year and I didn’t hear a word about “government schools” or how much we all loathe labor unions.
There’s this weird…disconnect between what they say to one group and what they say to another in ed reform circles 🙂
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Chiara: your description is sober, realistic, understated…
And exactly why I write that the main pushers and beneficiaries and enforcers of self-proclaimed “education reform” engage in—
Double standards. Double think. Double talk.
And they are perfectly comfortable with the yawning gap between their words and their deeds.
It’s just when we point out the hypocrisy that they start foaming at the mouth about us being “shrill” and “strident” and refusing to engage in “civil conversations.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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KrazyTA
December 8, 2015 at 2:23 pm
Chiara: your description is sober, realistic, understated…
I was at the ceremony, event, whatever it was and I really felt like standing up and saying “hey wait a minute- this isn’t the way you guys talk when you’re pushing charters and vouchers at the statehouse. What gives?”
Ohio’s public schools go from nightmarish hell holes filled with angry unionists to wonderful examples of local “values” depending on where these clowns happen to be standing. It’s bewildering! Thank God their constituents never hear what they REALLY think, huh? If the truth got out they might lose their jobs.
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I wish it mattered but it may not. The Obama and Kasich Administrations are getting ready to privatize Youngstown. They’re doing this although Ohio has a 15 year track record with charter schools, and this is a fact:
“When comparing Mahoning County charter schools – the charters with the greatest percentage of its students coming from Youngstown, as well as the most obvious starting place to expand Youngstown’s charter footprint – with Youngstown, what becomes clear is that even the state’s lowest performing school district (according to the Ohio General Assembly) overwhelms its local charter competitors.”
It simply doesn’t matter. They want a privatized district so they’re putting one in.
This game is rigged. I’d like to say public schools shouldn’t play a game that is rigged because they will not win, but it’s not like they have any choice.
http://www.10thperiod.com/2015/12/charters-fixing-youngstown-data-say-not.html
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“[T]here is nothing new under the sun.” –Eccl. 1:9 NIV
IMHO, Dr. Steve Perry embodies the “African Compradore” pathogen of old.
Consequently, Dr. Steve Perry fits in nicely among the corporatist-minded “school reform” and “school turn around” reactionary kind of thinkers who concentrate on getting rid of what they don’t want. Lacking is the wisdom to know, let alone to even consider, that their reactionary way of thinking will not necessarily get them what they do want and very likely will get them worse than they already have. For Dr. Steve Perry, and others like him, if there were no “bad teachers” and “roaches,” then there would be no Dr. Steve Perry. In other words, Dr. Steve Perry must maintain an insidious and vicious relationship between himself and “bad teachers” and the “roaches” in order for his life to have meaning as a modern-day African Compradore.
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” Who cares if we spent two trillion (with a T) on war in the past dozen years? Why waste time imagining what half of that would have done to reduce income inequality in this country?”
Let us see, one Trillion Dollars, 12 years, about 40 million poor families. If we distribute one Trillion Dollars to them it come out to be about $2080 per family per year. I do not see much reduction of income inequality from this concept. I doubt that this will change the schools and the poor family logic used to defend status quo in public schools.
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How did you go from two trillion to one trillion? And, seriously, you don’t think poor families having an extra $4,000 per year would make a difference? Seriously? (And, frankly, it would be more than $4,000 ultimately, because poor people, unlike defense contractors, spend all their money, thereby providing a boost to the overall economy which would benefit everyone, including the poor people above and beyond the initial $4,000.)
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Raj,
If we had spent one trillion on poor families, at least no one would have died in Fallujah for nothing.
It may not have helped, but it would not have hurt. At least, do no harm. Two trillion on wars didn’t help, did harm.
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Wait a minute. I missed the part that said hand $2000+ to each poor family. I didn’t realize that that was the accepted manner of dealing with income inequality.
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A tragic tale of self-proclaimed mathematician who cannot see beyond his nose due to his MATHtechtomy skills that ironically put him in the Chetty’s chestnuts fan club.
Welcome to the Rich Cultural Blind club!
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Diane,
Just to be sure that everybody understands, I never supported the two wars and the associated spending.
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Two words: poverty pimp.
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Interesting. I have no first-hand knowledge of the charter schools situation in South Carolina, and here are my thoughts.
1. Assuming that the data quoted by Patrick Hayes is accurate, I think he is correct and Steve Perry runs a poor quality charter school.
2. I agree that it is reasonable to compare performance of the charter school against the district schools by analyzing its test scores, then adjusting, weighing them, based on the differences in the % of the SWD, ELL and low income students in this school vs district average.
3. In fact, I used the same approach in trying to figure out, what would the Success Academy test scores would look like, if it had the same % of SWD, ELL and low income students, as the nearby schools, and here is some data on a few SA schools. As an example, let’s take the 3rd grade Math results:
Success Academy Harlem 4 – 95% of students passed, M241 zoned school – 10%
SA Harlem 5 – 94%, zoned school PS123 – 9%
SA Bronx 2 – 95%, zoned school PS55 – 10%
SA Bed Stuy 2 – 89%, zoned school PS59 – 3%
Most SA schools has somewhat fewer SWD, ELL and low income students, compared to the zoned schools, but nowhere enough to justify such a disparity of scores.
So yes, I agree that Steve Perry’s charter school seems pretty poor, and, using the same criteria, Success Academy seems to be pretty great.
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What do you think the comparison would look like if the district were able to kick out all their low scorers and make them go to SA?
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[What do you think the comparison would look like if the district were able to kick out all their low scorers and make them go to SA?] Dienne, this is kind of the question I am trying to answer – how do you fairly compare the data?
When you and Diane Ravitch imply, that, given the same student population, Success Academy’s test scores would be identical to the scores the nearby zoned schools, I say that it is mathematically impossible.
SA takes all the kids that apply, limited only by a random lottery (because demand exceeds the supply), but, of course, there is self-selection (the parents have to be interested enough to do their research and find out about SA).
After that, student attrition is 10% a year, and many of those leave just because their parents move. So, if SA Harlem accepts a cohort, similar to the students that attend the zoned P.S. 149 Sojourner Truth, but let’s assume that the bottom 30% of the families, zoned to PS149, never learned about SA, and we guesstimate that the selection bios filtered out the bottom 30% of the students, that never ended up at SA. With that, SA Harlem 1’s 3rd grade math test score of 93% should be adjusted down 30% to 65%.
After that, attrition is only 10%, so getting from the 65% down to PS149’s dismal 13%, SA would have to kick out way more students, than it actually does, so this proposition is mathematically impossible.
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What Dienne said, but not just “kicking out”- instituting a discipline policy that ensures only your most compliant students and involved parents remain. If you ask a Moskovite the answer may be similar to Perry’s “Students and parents know as well, and if they don’t like it, they can get out, too. Not every school is for everybody…”
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Unfortunately, Success Academy has that minor issue of their “little test-taking machines” being unable to test into the selective NYC high schools, calling into question the validity of those 3rd and 8th grade test score results.
That’s what happens when you treat children like test-taking machines in a repressive atmosphere, Yuri: it limits the number of hoops they can jump through.
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[Unfortunately, Success Academy has that minor issue of their “little test-taking machines” being unable to test into the selective NYC high schools, ]
Michael, I have looked into this in detail when I was considering Success Academy as one of the options for my child, and I didn’t see a big controversy here.
As I understand this, specialized NYC high schools require the knowledge of some material, that is simply not covered in regular middle school curriculum, and requires extra prep on top of what students learn in middle school.
Success Academy’s goal is to get all of its students accepted into college, which is a much lower bar, than getting them into the super-selective high schools, so I am not particularly surprised, that the first cohort of the SA middle schoolers from SA Harlem 1, who came mostly from low income families of color and who didn’t specifically prep for the specialized high schools, didn’t get in.
So, P.S. 149 Sojourner Truth, the zoned school for the area, where SA Harlem 1 is located, has only 13% of its kids pass the 3rd grade standardized test in math last year, whereas at SA Harlem 1 that number was 93%. Saying that they didn’t get into Bronx Science or Stuyvesant, is like blaming Success Academy for giving them an A education instead of an A+.
What would be problematic, is if top SA students, whose families planned and prepped them for specialized schools, found their foundational knowledge, provided by SA, to be insufficient for top high schools. In a few years, we will find out the answer.
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[That’s what happens when you treat children like test-taking machines in a repressive atmosphere]
Michael, I have a son at Success Academy. SA has an open-door policy, so a parent can show up unannounced and sit in on any class, which I used more than once. I come from a family of educators, and all of us agree, having seen the teachers in action on multiple occasions, and having talked with other parents, that the rumors about “repressive atmosphere” are highly exaggerated.
Why would I want to put my child into a school, that has a “repressive environment” or is a “test factory”, unless I personally confirmed that not to be the case?
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That’s a neat trick, deflecting SA’s failure to get its students into the selective high schools (which Eva’s PR machine would have made to to tout widely) by saying that it’s all about getting them accepted into college, years hence.
What will you and Eva say when those students crash and burn in college, as KIPP’s do, because SA insists in turning children into “little test-taking machines,” who are bewildered when their SLANT skills, embedded so strenuously, no longer have the same in a college setting.
That’s the problem, Yuri, with treating children like Pavlov’s dogs (who were probably treated with more respect and compassion than SA students): they can only respond to prescribed types of stimulus, and are otherwise lost.
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[That’s the problem, Yuri, with treating children like Pavlov’s dogs (who were probably treated with more respect and compassion than SA students): they can only respond to prescribed types of stimulus, and are otherwise lost.]
Michael, I obviously will not change your mind here. I have a child at Success Academy, I am very involved and care deeply about the quality of education he is getting, as well as the amount of fun he is having at school.
I agree – children should not be treated like Pavlov’s dogs, and your suggestion that SA treats them in that manner is not born by the facts, as I know them firsthand.
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I understand from other posters that the character of particular SA schools is dependent upon the population form which they draw. It has been reported that their campuses in more well to do neighborhoods bear little resemblance to the more rigid programs offered in schools that draw from less economically stable communities. I do not know NYC, but I gather it would be important to identify the population of the school.
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[the character of particular SA schools is dependent upon the population form which they draw. It has been reported that their campuses in more well to do neighborhoods bear little resemblance to the more rigid programs offered in schools that draw from less economically stable communities.]
2old2teach, I understand that there is some difference in the way, how strictly the rules are applied, based on how generally well behaved (or not) a given class is.
And, I am sure, that there is some variability in the expertise of principals from one school to another.
But the curriculum is standard across all schools and teacher training is standard.
So I am sure that there is some variability of the culture being on the more relaxed or the more stricter side of their already pretty strict baseline, from one school to another, but i don’t buy that some schools have “little resemblance” to others.
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Sorry, written in a rush, paragraph two should read, “… which no longer have the same currency in a college setting.”
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How, then, do you account for the huge discrepancy between your descriptions and the many reports, in the media and elsewhere, of SA’s repressive and authoritarian environment?
The New York Times, not known as an opponent of charter schools and so-called education reform (and often a stenography service for those same interests), published a devastating description of those very practices. How would you refute them?
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[The New York Times, …published a devastating description of those very practices. How would you refute them?]
Michael, I will give you my opinion, for whatever that’s worth.
1. I very clearly remember The New York Times editorials, supporting on the invasion of Iraq in 2003 at the time, together with most of the mainstream of the Democratic party. I has always been against that, that’s why I remember it so well. I lot has been written about the state of our mainstream media, I am sure you read it all.
2. But, secondly, I find that the New York Times reporting has been well researched and spot on on most of the facts, and it’s generally not been as black and white as you seem to portray. They usually cover the good, as well as the bad (happy to discuss in detail).
Where I disagree with the New York Times, is not on any facts, but on their view on the proportion and the ratio of the positives vs the negatives at the Success Academy. Also, they give voice to a much higher percentage of SA parents, who are dissatisfied with SA, and a lower percentage of the parents, happy with the school, leaving an incorrect impression of the widespread parent dissatisfaction with the school.
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And, just to be clear, there is a number of positive reports in the media about Success Academy. A more informative ones that I like are here:
http://educationnext.org/what-explains-success-academy-charter-network/
http://educationnext.org/success-academy-strong-content-curriculum-keys-success/
Unfortunately, Success Academy now is part of the political football, with Republicans are generally being for it and many Democrats – against. I find that to be unhelpful because, once the “politicking” starts, everyone argues their broad worldview using SA as their proxy, and the actual details about the merits of SA school don’t matter much.
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Yuri, what would help is a few videos of full SA classes. They don’t seem to be available.
I don’t think the divide between people who approve of the SA methods and those who don’t is not political, but probably cognitive-cultural; the divide is between people who prefer a nurturing environment and those who prefer a structured, authoritative one.
For nurturers, seeing 5 year olds wearing ties, puffing up their faces so they won’t interrupt the teacher, walking quietly in single file during breaks is disheartening.
For nurturers, a submissive, obedient and fearful kid is worrisome.
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[…divide between people who approve of the SA methods and those who don’t is not political, but probably cognitive-cultural; the divide is between people who prefer a nurturing environment and those who prefer a structured, authoritative one…]
Mate, thank you for the thoughtful comment. Here is my personal opinion.
I am a nurturing parent, and I want a nurturing school environment for my child, but I also want for it to be academically rich and challenging, as well as not being disrupted by a student with major behavioral problems (since we are talking general ed population here).
In my neck of the woods, you can perhaps get that in the citywide gifted school at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, which is very hard to get into (G&T 99 pct + lottery), and it has progressive educational style of teaching, soft touch, no disruptions (through selective admissions). But that school has 60 seats for the entire borough.
Looking at the remaining options, Success Academy, even though it has more structure and discipline, than most schools, it also has an extraordinary rich curriculum, including:
– daily science starting from Kindergarden
– a field trip every 2-3 weeks
– high-end, custom designed curriculum for reading and math
– 2 teachers in the classroom
– chess starting in K
Personally, I would prefer for the rules and discipline for my well-behaved child to be more relaxed, but I also know that relaxing them might allow a poorly behaved child to hijack the classroom and affect my child’s learning – this is general ed, remember?
But also I find that the rules and their implementation aren’t at all heartless and simply become second nature for the kids, but I supposed that reasonable people can have differing opinions on that, as long as we don’t slide down to caricatures.
Frankly for me and my child, the long, 9 hour day is a bigger issue than the rules, but it is manageable.
I can look for some videos – full videos showing how “corrections” and positive “dojo points” are given out are hard to come by. SA should really release one. I can of course describe what I saw.
Hope this helps.
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Have you had any bad experience with other schools? Millions of kids (including my two kids) have been attending or graduated from public schools without any memorable disruption.
On the other hand, over disciplining, insanely long school day are *certainty* at SA.
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Mate, the right balance of the pros vs the cons are for each parent to evaluate, that is an individual decision
I did not have a negative experience with a traditional public schools, nor do I believe in bashing or blaming them.
I have heard from a lot of parents I personally know, that academically stronger kids are often bored in the classroom, and the differentiation by academic ability with one teacher per class is limited (except in emerging reading classes). And the quality of the gifted programs in NYC varies greatly.
The quality of the curriculum at SA is out of this world – it’s the main attraction, so boredom at SA is unlikely. And SA’s culture of frequent communication and working closely with the families is a good fit for involved parents, like myself.
Disruptive behavior from one child in the class – that’s a risk, I know people who had that.
I am not clear where you are going with this line of questioning. I sent my son to SA because i wanted him to have a rich and engaging school, where he can learn a lot, not be bored and have fun. It worked.
The reason I post here, is not to claim that Success Academy is the best school under the sun, but to bring a first-hand witness perspective to the discourse, that is often is lacking one.
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I see. For some reason, I thought, you were trying to decide whether to take your child to SA.
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[For some reason, I thought, you were trying to decide whether to take your child to SA.] This is my son’s second year at SA.
I appreciate your thoughtful comments – I think that parents should be able to have a respectful conversation with each other, even when they disagree.
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Mate, this video is not perfect, because it’s a school’s promo, but it gives a little glimpse into the school, and you can glean a thing or two from it.
By the way, more than half of the school footage on this video came from my son’s school, so it shows our actual classrooms, our kids, teachers and the principal.
http://virtualtour.successacademies.org/tour/#our-culture,inside-success-academy
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Yuri, I think your bringing up the invasion of Iraq is a red herring, especially since it was not just the Times editorial board that touted the war, but the extremely deceptive reporting that underpinned those editorials. Remember Judith Miller?
Unable to refute the recent Times reporting about SA, which, unlike Judith Miller’s “reporting” about Iraq, cut against the grain of the paper’s editorial board, you then say it’s matter of emphasis, and that other writer’s have prasied SA.
Regarding those points, first, the reports of “got to go lists” and repressive Skinner Box practices at SA were devastating, and you have been unable to refute them. I take that to mean you either don’t object to them, or want people to gnore them, or both.
Second, the importance of the Times’ article was not just that it was the Times, but becasue it marked a departure from the usual sycophantic echo chamber that passes for news coverage of education reform and charter schools, where lazy and uninformed reporters channel so-called ed reform talking points. Moskowitz and SA have been the beneficiaries of that professional malpractice for years, and largely continue to be.
Weak tea, indeed.
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Michael, I am not interested in a contentious debate. If you don’t like my New York Times & Iraq example – fine, ignore it. The point I was making was that the New York Times, just like any other major national newspaper, while having a fairly high standard for fact-checking, is not immune to problems like following political winds, marginalizing political outliers etc… This is hardly a problem unique to the New York Times, and many media critics will agree with me, but we are getting off on a tangent.
I don’t understand why you would expect me to refute every SA critique out there – I am not an SA spokesperson, nor do think that SA can do no wrong.
I gave you my personal opinion, based on my personal, direct knowledge of the school. You disagree with it. Fine, to each their own.
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The write up by Hayes is funny. He doesn’t get discouraged easily, does he?
Here is Perry in Memphis. He came down here from CT to give his higly qualified opinion about Memphis teachers: they suck. I fixed the link to jump ahead to the good stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEgQNVyVTuE&t=8m20s
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Got blocked from following him on twitter a couple years ago I think. Got involved in an exchange with him and @citizenstewart (similar tone/narrative as well as teaching experience). Stewart might have blocked me recently as well. As long as you stay within their comfortable blame-zone, you’re good.
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Mate, thank you for the link to “the good stuff” -I had scanned the original link of the 2hr+ audio and gave up.
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What would the zoned schools scores be if SA did not take students from them? Suppose we knew what the zoned schools scores would have been if they kicked out the low scorers and ELLs and SWDs. Maybe the scores would look pretty much the same. Especially if the zoned school concentrated on test scores. When schools were tracked in the old days, there were high-scoring classes and low-scoring classes. It seems that all that charters have done is move the upper tracks to another building. That could be a good thing safety wise but may mean nothing academically.
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That’s exactly what is happening. Money-backed and policy-endorsed tracking. I thought that stuff was bad, and in fact public schools are being pushed towards full inclusion in the least restrictive environment (the regular classroom). This “choice” thing should be counter-intuitive in the mind that can support full inclusion for everyone else’s children.
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