Andrea Gabor signed up to tour a Success Academy charter school in the Bronx. She was accepted, but shortly before the big day, her invitation was rescinded. When she inquired why, she was told that the tour was limited only to principals of other schools.
So, I was dismayed when, on December 4, three days after my original acceptance arrived, Jaclyn Leffel, the director of New York City Collaborates, which was helping to organize the tour, rescinded my invitation. “In reviewing our guest list, I did see that you are currently not leading a NYC public school. This workshop is specifically designed for people in elementary school education. Unfortunately this event is only available to principals at this time. Thanks so much for your interest!” wrote Ms. Leffel.
The only problem was that to register for the event, you had to include your title and affiliation, which in my case is the Bloomberg Chair of Business Journalism at Baruch College/CUNY. It was crystal clear from my affiliation that I was not a New York City principal. Moreover, I knew that not everyone on the tour was a current principal.
So I responded to Leffel, pointing out these discrepancies, and asked that she reconsider. She responded that she would not. I followed up with a request that she include me in another tour. Again, she responded cordially to let me know that another tour would be organized in February, but has not yet responded to my request for more information about the date and location.
All this is especially puzzling since New York Collaborates is an organization that seeks to “encourage public conversation and on-the-ground partnerships between district and charter schools.” (emphasis added by me.) Nor is this the first tour organized by New York Collaborates; previous tours also have included non-principals.
Clearly, the “public conversation” at Bronx 1 was not intended to include anyone who might be the least bit critical of the charter sector. Incidentally, New York Collaborates is “spearheaded” by the New York City Charter School Center and New York City Department of Education, and receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Nor was there much partnering between district and charter schools at the Bronx 1 tour. All but one of the educators on the tour was from the charter sector. Via email, I asked Ms. Leffel about this and she responded: “We had a 50/50 signup.”
If half the registrants were from public-school, this of course raises the question: Why was the guest list for this collaborative opportunity so heavily stacked in favor of charter schools?
So Gabor relied on the report of a friend who was accepted for the tour. The group of 28 was allowed to spend only five minutes in each classroom. They were very impressed with the provisioning and the happy children. The children sat quietly, hands folded, and their eyes tracked the speaker. The principal of the school told the group that she considers the school to be part of the progressive education movement.
If the schools are proud of their work–and clearly they are–why don’t they open their doors to other educators more frequently?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These are happy students? Reminds me of swaddled babies, or images of drugged citizens in Brave New World! Are they allowed to raise their hands–or only if they do so while not waving them wildly?
Two words: Potemkin Village
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Potemkin+village
Potemkin village n.
Something that appears elaborate and impressive but in actual fact lacks substance: “the Potemkin village of this country’s borrowed prosperity” (Lewis H. Lapham).
Tour is known as a dog and pony show.
Also known as a pageant.
They had them galore in Potemkin Villages during the Soviet era in Russia.
And the reports were positively glowing!
Oops! Forgot to add: during the existence of the now-vanished Soviet Union.
Apparently Rheeality Distortion Fields don’t actually affect, er, reality.
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Rheality Distortion Field is (posited by Rheality Distortion Field Theory) is just an extremely localized field that only affects the things in it’s very immediate vicinity.
It’s very much like the field governing quarks inside a proton The field results in a very strong force between the quarks keeping them very close together and keeping them from escaping to the outside world. Just as it is impossible to find a lone quark “out there” in the world at large, it is also impossible to find a lone reformer.
They are forever confined by the Rheality distortion field.
SomeDAM Poet: wow!
I never knew that things had advanced beyond this foundational cage busting achievement gap crushing maxim: “I distort, therefore I rheephorm.”
My head is still spinning…
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Five minutes! Maybe the union could ask for a similar limit for teacher evaluation in the city public schools.
When I taught in the Bronx in 1969, I kept the door open for visiting parents to drop in at will, as long as there was no disruption to the lesson.
Of course the SA children did as they were trained. They are selected for that ability.
My mother went to her grandparents on Sundays after church and was expected to sit on a straight-backed chair the few hours the adults visited. She was seen and not heard.
She chose not to raise her own children in this manner. I am not so sure my brother would have complied.
“The principal of the school told the group that she considers the school to be part of the progressive education movement.”
“progressive education movement” Another instance of the bastardization of language that the edudeformers are so well known for.
A silent progression of students with cheeks puffed and hands behind their backs over a cliff is still a “progressive movement”
Yes, progressively insane!
This model of education is simply not sustainable.
As a 11-year veteran of title one schools, I can only shake my head.
Then I wish someone would inform my local public schools. There’s a chance we might not be able to continue private progressive school financially, so I went back and visited our local public school. There were taped lines on the floor for the kids to follow, silently, cheeks puffed, arms wrapped around themselves. They were all in uniform and I was proudly informed how they enforce that (and the walking on the line thing) – students lose their “Scholar dollars” for any infractions, such as being out of uniform or not walking silently on the line (they can also gain “scholar dollars” by being helpful, etc.). The principal also proudly informed me that they’ve implemented PBIS this year and explained – almost giddily – how it works. I looked at some of the worksheets the kids were doing which I couldn’t distinguish from any similar test prep SA might be doing.
I also talked to a sub at my daughters’ school who also subs in the suburb next door (which is somewhat more affluent and up and coming) and she says it’s the same there. I’m sorry, but if this is what public school is going to look like, I’m having a hard time supporting it over charter schools. I guess I’ll have to sell the house and live in a cardboard box to afford the private school because whether public or charter, I cannot inflict kind of “discipline” that on my children.
That’s truly heartbreaking. ..
We like to bash on this kind of charter school, but it’s not uncommon for “regular” public schools to be similar in their approach to discipline. Educators, yes, even educators, are often unaware of alternatives to the “behaviorist” model of discipline/education, and are often ignorant of alternatives. It’s how a lot of teachers are trained, and what is known and expected by our culture.
Then you have teachers who buy in, even when they feel it’s not right — or as Duane would say, Going Along to Get Along (GAGA). Still, it’s difficult to not pity the teacher who is simply trying to survive.
It’s a cultural problem, not a charter school problem. Our entire society is wrapped up in a bad view of how to treat children, and for various reasons, the bad approach is intensified in school settings and then considered OK. Dienne, I hope you can figure something out for your own children. If you would like to talk more about this, please email me at EdDetective@gmail. Maybe I can help you figure out an alternative.
A ‘normal’ childhood depends on where you live and when you’re born.
“Social anthropologists ask questions about how childhood, and the role of children, is seen within the communities they study, rather than how it fits into Western ideas about childhood.
“By doing this they seek to avoid imposing outside ideas onto people with very different understandings of the world or of making value judgments on other people’s ways of raising their children.
“While Westerners might take exception to eight-year-old girls working or to twelve-year-old girls marrying, within their own communities such activities are seen as a normal and positive part of childhood. Indeed, seen through the eyes of non-Westerners, many ‘normal’ Western childcare practices are seen as extremely bizarre and possibly harmful to children.
“Placing children in rooms of their own, refusing to feed them on demand, or letting them cry rather than immediately tending to them, are viewed very negatively in many societies and lead some to think that Westerners don’t know how to look after children properly.”
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/different-cultures-different-childhoods
I am drawn to the field of Psychology because within it there have been great attempts to study human nature and nurture across a broad age and culture range. From what I’ve studied, we have come to understand some basic principles for how people do (and don’t) develop in healthy ways — no matter where or when they were born. It may be acceptable to a particular culture to put 8 year olds to work in horrible knitting factory conditions, for example, but that doesn’t make it right or desirable from a human health perspective. I would argue that the extent to which our own people are psychologically ill is around the extent to which our culture is committing malpractice in teaching and raising its children.
In educational psychology, we get a better idea of how people learn as it is related to health, and how those two elements are highly correlated. Low health, low learning potential. Good health, high learning potential. Health is strongly derived from environmental factors that affect the psyche, including the “hidden messages” we send with our actions and policies.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/beyond-discipline-article/
(now that’s REAL “progressive education” — hmm, but it’s the opposite of success academy?? and still on the other end of the scale when compared to my own “regular” public school?)
The whole issue of discipline and what in “normal” and reasonable to expect from a child is complex and filled with assumptions.
Is it normal and reasonable for kids who are five, six, seven, and older to sit at a desk most of the day and deal with information in one form or another? I seriously doubt this is a reasonable thing to expect. Just because a child has the cognitive development for certain academic activities doesn’t mean that’s all they they should do. In this setting many “normal” kids will act out, despite what their income and social/emotional development may be. Yet this is increasingly the narrow definition of academics in mainstream, core aligned, education.
So, some misbehavior can be attributed to wrong expectations and poorly designed instructional models.
But, in my experience, much of the inappropriate, disruptive behavior that happens in the class room is due to factors outside the class and are of a nature that teachers and schools are not designed or resourced to deal with.
Zero Tolerance and PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Support) models are different in philosophy, but both are attempts to deal with challenges that don’t exist in middle income public schools, or private schools.
I’m not necessarily advocating either, but I am suggesting that they are in response to a very real and abiding feature in low income schools.
Personally I would support a model for learning that puts front and center the social and emotional development of children. These deficiencies are often disturbingly extreme, and often undermine a schools learning culture.
Jonathan said: “Personally I would support a model for learning that puts front and center the social and emotional development of children. These deficiencies are often disturbingly extreme, and often undermine a schools learning culture.”
I would argue that is easily the most important thing from K-8. In 9-12 it should be at least half as important as anything else. Trying to make kids into “scholars” when they don’t have their basic needs met (or childhoods fulfilled) is doomed to failure, yet we do the same thing over and over and expect different results = one form of insanity.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Why doesn’t Eva Moskowitz open the doors of her autocratic, opaque, for-profit corporate Charter schools to all educators who want to know more about the alleged success of this very profitable charter chain?
Lloyd Lofthouse: since the shills and trolls for privatization and charters and such claim that charters are the “rising tide that lifts all boats” because they are that most wonderful of creatures known as ‘helpful’ competition that engages in innovative practices that traditional “big gubmint monopoly” schools are in such dire need of copying and emulating, then they should throw the flood gates open and invite Andrea Gabor and Diane Ravitch and a host of others to tour tour tour.
Let the “shrill” and “strident” voices of negativity be overwhelmed by the cage busting achievement gap crushing miracles of 21st creative disruption/innovation in education! To do otherwise is to deny the existence of said wonders and beg the very simple question—
Is there anything worth watching there?
Hmmmm…
Thank you for your comments.
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P.S. Anyone that thinks that five-minutes observation in a high-stakes classroom tour will reveal anything substantive—I hold my tongue so as to not violate the quite sensible “Rules of the Road” on this blog.
P.P.S. I can just see folks like Andrea Gabor and Diane Ravitch pointing this out and asking for more time at unscheduled moments—as rheephormsters would say, just another example of those not heeding Peter Cunningham’s heartfelt plea for “civil conversation.”
Yawn…
“Anyone that thinks that five-minutes observation in a high-stakes classroom tour will reveal anything substantive—”
My kids would become absolute angels when a suit walked in the door. You would think that anyone of them would be a perfect candidate for SA. After they left, the questions flew, and they became normal kids again.
To honestly know what’s going on in a classroom, the observer should stay for at least one full period if not an entire school day and then return on other days. Instead of walking in and out in a few minutes, the observer finds a seat in the back and keeps mouth shut and observes. The observer should be free to come and go and visit any classroom without reservation.
The problem is that touring a classroom only tells you about the students who stay. It tells you nothing about how many students have left because the system doesn’t work for them. Especially when talking about charter schools (or private schools) where the public schools are obligated to take in all of their students who don’t fit.
You can’t have any legitimate measure of a pharmacological drug’s effect if you don’t closely examine how many patients dropped out of the study and only look at the ones who remained. Especially if it turns out that the drug company conducting the study was encouraging the patients for whom the drug was ineffective to drop out.
But when it comes to educational research, we do exactly that.
If anything makes me sad, it is that these so-called educational researchers have been so ill-educated that they don’t realize that. Or perhaps they do but the big grant money that is pro-charter makes them forget.
We should all be wary of the day when scientific studies are also swayed by the big money drug company grants that will reward researchers that ignore the obvious to find only the most positive effects of a drug going to market.
It’s true that no one really knows what’s going on in a classroom but the teacher who is there full time, and the day is already here when scientific studies are swayed by big money. But big money doesn’t control all the scientific studies yet because scientific studies take place all over the world in many countries that the big money has trouble buying. There are so many scientific studies going on, that big money can’t keep track of them all.
NYC public school parent: your above comment is exactly why I frequent “Diane Ravitch’s blog A site to discuss better education for all.”
Thank you and others for their thoughtful observations on this thread.
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I warmly recall the day a stranger, an older man, visited my special education class. The Adult Assistant was helping her wheelchair-bound client with a history lesson utilizing the special computer, two students were working together on an Algebra assignment. A third was engrossed in a book he was reading, and I was leading a student in making inferences. Others worked independently, quietly.
The visitor was Superintendent Cortines. And I never had another day like it.
Happy children who disappear from the school at alarming rates- as do their teachers, why spread this nonsense?
“Progressive Education Movement” After I read that, I figuratively fell off my chair and rolled on the floor in roaring laughter.
Autocratic, dictatorial education movement based on the Soviet Unions Gulags would be more appropriate, and how do we know those children were happy when they were only observed sitting quietly, with hands folded, and their eyes tracking the speaker?
How does Eva define happiness—doing what she wants exactly the way she wants it done? This was an example of children being turned into obedient automation. Wait until these children reach adolescence and become rebellious and start to question why they were treated that way.
“They were very impressed with the provisioning and the happy children. The children sat quietly, hands folded, and their eyes tracked the speaker. ”
Happy children sitting quietly, hands folded, and eyes tracking the speaker? Happy children?
Threatened?
Coerced?
Obedient?
Maybe, but happy?
Trained “scholars” rhymes with dollars = they are like silent tiny prisoners. They don’t know any better; they are groomed to be obedient and question nothing. They are so young; what do they know? They know that if the step out of line their parent(s) get a phone call, and they are pulled out of school, or made to wear the dunce shirt, or stand facing the wall, or some sort of punishment. Hey, if you burn your hand a few times, you learn to keep it out of the fire and get with the program. Those kids with true behavior issue, or learning disabilities, are thrown out of there faster than you can say “saint Eva.”
Gabor must have been added to the “Got to Keep Out” list.
If she were allowed in, SA might not be able to turn students around (tongue in cheek).
A circus act is not so much a source of pride as it is of revenue.
I left this comment on the author’s posting but doubt it will appear:
I wonder what a “sense of urgency” is and why it seems to be a good thing in the writer’s mind. Does a sense of urgency entail having first graders make meaning out of an ambiguous text? I’m not even sure a six year old’s brain has the capacity to do this? It’s interesting that the wonderful block area is used for presumably more “urgent” academic purposes. It would seem to me that a child building a tall tower and having it fall over and over again would begin to learn that hard work doesn’t always lead to success. Who knows – they may also learn to take another route — and all this without having a group of teachers planning for hours how to get this learning accomplished and then figuring out that all of their machinations lead to artificial outcomes.
The same reason why big corporations restrict the press from going into their factories, mines, and oil platforms…
Welcome to schools as businesses.
Who knows what’s really going on in ANY school? How many reporters are allowed to roam the hallways of any school and pop in unannounced in any classroom? I wish more were allowed to do this –then truths like this would get out: that most public school teachers are working very hard. Also: that many classrooms chronically suffer from the behavior of an unruly minority of students. Education journalism has always suffered from the Potemkin village effect. Principals, not just SA principals, can always filter what outsiders see.
This is true, but I am unaware of public school principals who claim to have discovered a secret sauce that allows them to achieve remarkable test results with any at-risk kid who wins the lottery.
I would certainly want to look closely at what those best practices entail to make sure that ridding yourself of low-scoring kids wasn’t part of the package. If it is, then it really doesn’t matter what kind of curriculum you use, does it?
This might explain some of the behavior of some of those chronically unruly students: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshUDa10JYY&feature=youtu.be
Dienne, I grapple with the unruly boys in my eighth period class every day for the sake of girls like these. They say they want to learn about Japanese internment camps and other important facts about our history. I want to teach stuff like this. But there are always kids who would rather play around or destroy the class for their own amusement than learn anything. And please do not infer that I am offering up staid, dry lessons. We do act outs, food demos, art, hands-on activities, etc. I am routinely praised for making history fun and interesting. Engaging lessons will grab the majority, but there’s often a handful that cannot be seduced by the lessons and will exert their formidable energies in ways that make it very hard to teach the ones in the room who do want to learn. The biggest censor or obstacle to kids’ learning is often other kids.
Is there a reason why Professor Gabor didn’t attempt to schedule a tour for another time? Success gives tons of tours to prospective parents, teachers/educators, and even interested members of the general public.
Here is a summary of a different Success tour from a researcher and ed school professor: http://morganpolikoff.com/2015/12/11/my-visit-to-success-academies/
Here’s what Success Academy didn’t mention in its tour of Bronx 1:
In 2013-2014 there were 84 third graders in their school. In 2014-2015 there were 68 4th graders. Sixteen 3rd grade children — or 19% — disappeared from the cohort by 4th grade testing time. Maybe they were the ones who “got to go”.
Any researcher worth his salt that ignores that kind of attrition rates should not call himself a researcher. When nearly 1/5 of the students disappear and test scores increase dramatically, most legitimate researchers would show just an ounce of curiosity of about why so many 3rd grade students went MIA. Of course, if you don’t really give a darn about those 3rd grade students because you figure they are poor and probably unworthy and don’t deserve a spot in the charter school anyway, then you would be someone like Morgan Polikoff.
Tim, I will pass along your suggestion
I really enjoy it when you comment, but I wish there was some way I didn’t have to open five email comments in a row and find that it is just a notification that you have reblogged a post. Diane, can’t you just give drext727 a blanket approval?
2old2teach, drext727 doesn’t need my approval to reblog posts. for some reason, that message pops up automatically. i don’t know why.
i delete his reblog notices whenever I see them