It appeared to be a routine event where Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy charter schools, could give her pitch for the fantastic test scores of her schools. But in the audience were some disgruntled parents who asked tough questions. Eva defended her policies–which she called “no nonsense nurturing–such as suspending very young children who can be surprisingly violent.
“The charter school chain Ms. Moskowitz runs—which receives city tax dollars and often shares space with district public schools but is privately managed and does not employ unionized teachers—greatly outpaces regular district schools in terms of standardized tests. But it has also been the subject of scrutiny from those corners Ms. Moskowitz listed, with critics saying that the success is due to the schools not educating the most difficult students, weeding out struggling children, and using harsh discipline including frequent suspensions.
“It seems to have endless fascination with the media,” Ms. Moskowitz said of her school’s success. “There’s sort of a relentless gotcha effort: where’s the catch?”
“Of course, Ms. Moskowitz said there really wasn’t one. The chain’s high performance is due to engaged teachers who make children “fall in love with school,” holding adults accountable for the performance of children; rigorous academic standards—and letting students fail sometimes; and innovation.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is among the first cracks in what seemed like Success Academy’s invincible armor: parents and kids are rebelling, next the money from hedge fund managers will dry up, and then the young people will stop accept their scab jobs. Success Academy will be history by 2020 – read about it here! http://bit.ly/1OqJlfL
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It’s her outrageous claim that so many of the Success Academy lottery winning 5 year olds in her low-income schools are violent that makes me ill.
It’s the fact that so much of the public doesn’t blink an eye when she justifies giving so many of those supposedly “violent” 5 year olds suspensions — over 20% of them are suspended at some of the low-income Success Academy schools — that makes me realize how appallingly racist this country is. Ms. Moskowitz uses that racism to justify her policies — somehow when it comes to her schools that have low numbers of at-risk minority children and majority of middle class (often white) children — low suspension rates follow. I suppose if you believe that white middle class kids are just not as violent, as some of the white middle class parents in her school who defend her seem to believe, then you don’t have a problem believing her claims of how violent those 5 year olds are. They need to be suspended over and over again.
When people defend her on here, I don’t know if they understand how racist they are. There are 5 year olds of all races who may act out and maybe even, at times, be violent. But it is RARE. However, if you support Eva Moskowitz’ contention that so many violent 5 year olds of color happen to win her lottery, then I understand why you support her.
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“It’s her outrageous claim that so many of the Success Academy lottery winning 5 year olds in her low-income schools are violent that makes me ill.”
Didn’t Eva make the silly claim that one of those five-year-olds whom she suspended had actually picked up a desk and threw it at a teacher?
This was brought up here, whereupon Tim tried to defend or explain Eva’s claim by saying that the new state-of-the-art desks used at Success Academy are actually lighter than traditional desks.
Huh?
That back-and-forth is here somewhere (December 2015), but I don’t have the time to find it. I have to go teach.
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The fans of Success Academy believe every word that comes out of Eva Moskowitz’ mouth. If she claims 20% of the 5 year olds at her school do violent things they believe it. If 20% of the 5 year olds have the strength to pick up a desk and throw it at a teacher, then they do that. And those same fanboys of Ms. Moskowitz also believe that those kids just come in violent and stay violent despite all Success Academy does to “help” them.
Again, it is possible that ONE 5 year old child acted out violently. ONE. Not one out of every 4 or 5 children who win the lottery in schools with high numbers of low-income minority children. And not one out of 100 in the schools that have mostly middle class white kids.
When that happens, you have a school that has a philosophy to make a struggling 5 year old child feel as much misery as necessary to get him to leave. Judging from the very high attrition rates of the at-risk children who win the lottery at age 5, most of the time this works before they are so traumatized by the humiliation that they act out and can be “suspended” based on their violence. Apparently, at some of the Success Academy schools, 20% of the parents didn’t “get the message” that their child should be withdrawn and they needed to suspend those kids over and over again to convince the parent to “do the right thing” and get the child the heck out of Success Academy because Success Academy wanted that child to disappear.
If suspending them doesn’t work, or the child is impervious to the humiliation and doesn’t act out enough, Success Academy just holds them back repeatedly. Someone should be looking into how many kids are spending 4 years at Success Academy and not making it to 2nd grade. Or 3rd grade. Forcing a child to repeat Kindergarten twice, 1st grade twice, and then telling a parent their child will remain in 1st grade if they stay at the school is another way that Success Academy rids itself of the kids who aren’t their kind. The oversight is terrible and SUNY Charter Institute have never shown any interest in seeing how many children are held back, not once, but over and over again.
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Unbelievable, yet all-too-typical: when challenged by current or former SA parents about the abuse suffered by their children at the hands of her untrained, intimidated temps, Moskowitz said they need to improve their level of “customer service.”
Yeah, just like the people in Flint, Michigan.
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Greedy and MEAN! Customer service? OY! “Service” is NOT for the students and teachers, but ONLY $$$$$ … PROFITS. SPIN, SPIN, SPIN.
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If student readiness for a particular skill has not been assessed it can lead to high frustration levels from the student. Everyone does not learn in the same way, nor does everyone come with the same skill set to learn. A 5 yr. old has only 60 months of life experience to draw on and every child’s experience is different. Parents need to ask what the school is doing to address the skills gaps they may be causing the frustration level to rise. Here is a resource for parents:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-readiness-resources-john-mccarthy
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One of the most powerful ways to eviscerate the claims of the most zealous promoters of, and beneficiaries of, self-styled “education reform”—
Put them in front of cameras and recorders, in the sort of public space where they don’t control the kinds of questions they are asked and are unable to cut off discussion when it doesn’t serve their purposes, and let them try to explain the unexplainable.
A “gotcha” effort by bad people?
[start excerpt]
As for discipline—highlighted in the New York Times and on PBS Frontline—Ms. Moskowitz said she simply had “a fundamental disagreement with a lot of our critics.” She said even very young students can be dangerous—and suspending them was a matter of safety.
“The truth of the matter is safety is the number one reason parents want out of the district schools, and we believe that our first obligation is for the safety of the children,” she said. “There’s no learning that can occur if we aren’t able to guarantee that. So we have a no-nonsense, nurturing approach to discipline.”
She argued that parents who had complained about the discipline at Success just didn’t want to accept it when their children had done something wrong.
“I know there are a lot of journalists in the room, and when you get those sources, you just have to be a little skeptical,” she argued.
But in addition to journalists—including the Times’ Kate Taylor, whom Ms. Moskowitz later name-checked—some of those sources were in the audience as well. One rose to ask Ms. Moskowitz about one school’s “Got to Go” list, a list Ms. Taylor wrote about that included students one principal sought to get out of his school. The woman asked if Ms. Moskowitz had apologized to the parents of the children on the list.
Ms. Moskowitz said the principal had been reprimanded and that she had personally apologize. But the woman at the microphone then told Ms. Moskowitz her name was Shanice Givens, that her son was on the list and that she’d gotten no apology.
“My son was number three,” she said.
[end excerpt]
Click on the link embedded in the posting for the above and more.
First, she literally admits she doesn’t know what to do with hard-to-teach children except throwing them out in a no-nonsense fashion while nurturing the remaining ones. Pretty sweet pedagogical approach, no?
Second and more importantly, where’s the $tudent $ucce$$ in having to engage in no-holds-barred back-and-forth on her eduproducts? All it does is produce an unprofitable “gotcha moment” where she is proved to be a liar—but then again, how surprised can anyone be that she (literally) doesn’t know how to apologize?
Lastly, how dignified can a superstar of rheephorm be when her pants are on fire?
😎
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“I know there are a lot of journalists in the room, and when you get those sources (i.e. parents complaining about S.A.), you just have to be a little skeptical.”
TRANSLATION
“To the journalists out there: Parents complaining about S.A. suspending 1-out-of-4 five-year-old students for allegedly being so violent that they pose a threat to their classmates … well, those parents are either disgruntled liars, or lousy parents, or both.”
At the time she made this comment, she did not know that some of those complaining parent “sources” were in the audience of this event.
As a result, Eva got then caught in a lie.
OBSERVER:
“But in addition to journalists — including the Times’ Kate Taylor, whom Ms. Moskowitz later name-checked — some of those (complaining parent) sources were in the audience as well. One rose to ask Ms. Moskowitz about one school’s ‘Got to Go’ list, a list Ms. Taylor wrote about that included students one principal sought to get out of his school. The woman asked if Ms. Moskowitz had apologized to the parents of the children on the list.
“Ms. Moskowitz said the principal had been reprimanded and that she had personally apologized (to all the parents).”
“But the woman at the microphone then told Ms. Moskowitz her name was Shanice Givens, that her son was on the list and that she’d gotten no apology (from Moskowitz).
“ ‘My son was number three (on the Got-to-Go List),’ she said.”
—————————–
Ooops! Liar, Liar.
Pantsuit on fire.
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“Angry parents”
Sounds like a good idea for a smartphone game. A takeoff on Angry Birds.
Parents launching number 2 pencils at the Moskobeast, Arneanderthal, Billociraptor and other creatures of the “Reformozoic Era”
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“Customer service.” Because charters are a plan for business, not a plan for education.
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It appears that ms m has no versatility as an educator. Obviously, she can only teach to a selected group of students. Why she deserves public money for not being able to teach the public only a corrupt politician could answer.
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NY Times, 1/22/2016: Success Academy Founder Defends Schools Against Charges of Bias
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“It seems to have endless fascination with the media,” Ms. Moskowitz said of her school’s success
Wow. Is this something a person grows into, or are they trained…or is it something your born with?
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Public schools in well-off neighborhoods routinely get rid of disruptive students, and that doesn’t seem to cause a lot of outrage from the crowd, so critical of Success Academy.
It is mostly the public schools in low income areas, that often allow one or two disruptive kids to hijack the education of the entire class of students. Is that fair?
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Yuri,
I have not heard of any public school in low-income areas boasting that they were the best! the best! If Eva stops boasting, she will get less criticism. Honesty requires frank disclosure about suspensions, expulsions, attrition, teacher turnover, etc. We never hear this from Eva.
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Yuri, wow, do you have any actual data to back up your claims about the fate of disruptive students in well-off and low-income areas?? It seems to me you are spouting nonsense based on uniformed assumptions.
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Diane, “dishonesty” is a strong word – once moral indignation starts, accusations start flying and thoughtful dialog ends.
But you have a point, all sides exaggerate and cherry-pick the facts, that support their points of view – that is just human nature. Eva is guilty of it, and you and I and others do it.
I think you exaggerate when you write “we never hear [data on student attrition, teacher turnover or student suspensions] from Eva” – a lot of that data is publicly available (I can post the links).
Dishonesty? Of course not, you are just trying to make a good argument, but I hope you get my point about staying clear of “emotionally potent oversimplifications”.
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I try to steer clear of emotionally potent language. But I also try to be honest. If you catch me boasting, please let me know.
I repeat, if Eva stopped boasting about her sky-high test scores, people would stop wondering and questioning how she did it.
Pride goeth before a fall.
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Yuri N, I admit to being one of the posters who uses the word “dishonest”. I just don’t know what else to call it when I hear people implying that Success Academy just gets rid of “one or two” very disruptive (or as Eva Moskowitz says – “violent”) Kindergarten and first graders when the attrition rates at Success Academy show that is not the case. More than 20% of the young children suspended is not “one or two”. And if so many young children are constantly disrupting Success Academy Kindergarten classes (but only in low-income schools), then Eva Moskowitz has had years to figure out how to work with those kids in separate classes. The purpose of suspending a 5 year old over and over again is simply to convince his parents to pull him from your school, period. If Success Academy truly believed that child had a serious psychological problem, they would go through the same hoops that public schools go through to deal with it.
Your notion that public schools in well-off neighborhoods “routinely get rid of disruptive students” is the kind of dishonesty I am talking about. No, they don’t. The suspension rate for 5 and 6 year olds is almost nil in most public schools. And as was clear from when Eva Moskowitz released the private records of the “violent” child — part of his acting out came when he was struggling to do work that was obviously beyond him and he was made to feel misery as if that would turn him into a scholar. (Things like having to have your F graded test out so you can be humiliated.) There is a difference between working with a struggling child and humiliating him until he acts out. Just because once in a while humiliation works to improve a child’s behavior does not mean it does exactly the opposite with even more children. Most parents understand this and I have to believe that you, too, realize that even with your own children or nieces and nephews they don’t respond to humiliation the same way. Part of teaching is not to just cherry pick the ones who do but to figure out how to teach them all. At least, teaching in PUBLIC school. If Eva Moskowitz wants to use her millions to open schools for poor children, why wouldn’t all the billionaires happily support her, and she can get rid of anyone she chooses. But the privilege of running a charter school is teach the very kids you might find too troublesome to teach. Not getting rid of them.
If Eva Moskowitz, from the first, had used her money to keep children and teach them — even in smaller classes for the many violent and disruptive 5 year olds you think win their lottery — then I would have some admiration for her. But since she seems to value high test scores above all, any child who isn’t helping toward that goal is simply expendable. And that is not right.
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Troll alert
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When someone disagrees with you on the issues, that does NOT them dishonest or a troll.
But yes, I am aware, that current political discourse on education has been polarized and toxic, in part because people often assume bad intent or bad character on the part of those, with whom they disagree.
There is major recent work on the causes of this polarization – Jonathan Haidt’s “The Righteous Mind” and Arnold Kling’s “Three Languages Of Politics”. I hope you take the time to familiarize yourself with it (especially Haidt) – he writes, among other things, about the dangers of assuming a position of moral superiority, as well as about the reasons for respecting those whose views differ from yours.
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Yuri,
You won’t find a blog with a higher level of civility than this one. Most refers are experienced teachers and parents who don’t like privatization of their children’s public schools. They don’t embrace people who slam teachers and public schools. They don’t like those who are biased in favor of charters that are backed by billionaires and that treat children like little test taking machines.
If you went on an abolitionist website in 1855 and defended slavery, you would not get a warm reception. Forgive the anachronism. I liked the metaphor is
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[From Diane: Yuri, You won’t find a blog with a higher level of civility than this one.] Diane, you do realize, that I was replying to one poster, who just called me a “troll”, and another, who has been calling me personally dishonest for months, on this and many other boards? The overall, general level of civility of this blog isn’t in question here.
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Yuri, when you comment on a blog dedicated to “a better education for all,” your pro-charter comments receive a poor reception. You should expect that. I am sure other readers wonder why you so aggressively defend privatization and what many here see as harsh treatment of children.
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Diane, I am against privatization of public education, and I believe in better education for all, but I do understand the confusion.
In fact, as I wrote earlier, I find such over-politicized generalizations as “privatization of education” unhelpful – they often muddy the waters by being 60% true and 40% inaccurate, and that 40% tends to derail what are otherwise legitimate points.
Personally, I find civil and intelligent discourse between regular folks of different views important, because it can help sharpen positions, build understanding and find common ground, particularly among well-meaning parents. This is why I occasionally encourage people to be respectful and take the high road with their comments, rather than resorting to insults.
Recent social research showed, that those who claim high moral ground for their positions and lack of integrity for whoever they disagree with, often have diminished capacity to objectively analyze the facts on the ground. In the words of Jonathan Haidt, “morality binds and blinds” (see his interview with Bill Moyers here: http://righteousmind.com/ ).
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Yuri,
I welcome discussion and debate. But understand we discuss and debate how to defeat Goliath, and you come into our camp ground to caution that we are wrong about Goliath. He may be big, mean, and filthy rich, but underneath his gruff exterior, he is a nice fellow. Open the gates of the city and let him in.
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Well, Diane, I have a child at a Success Academy school. I am very involved with the school, and I can assure you that the school has little resemblance to the way it is often characterized here. Now that is a direct eyewitness account.
I do question the factual basis of some of your assertions, because I find you to be, on occasion, stronger on political narratives and weaker on specific facts.
On the other hand, if you find this input unhelpful, perhaps you can announce, that anyone who supports even a single charter school, is unwelcome here, and I will move on.
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Thank you, Diane.
When people post blanket statements such as “…mostly the public schools in low income areas, that often allow one or two disruptive kids to hijack the education of the entire class of students…” I do not discern the hallmarks of an open mind wishing for an intellectual discussion. Such statements insult the children in our public schools and the people who do the hard work in them daily. There are blogs for those comments and commenters. This isn’t one of them.
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Yuri N you sound like the Republicans who complained that the Democrats were being “mean” and “divisive” when they pointed out the dishonest arguments the Republicans were making.
I respect people who make honest arguments, even if I disagree. I don’t respect people who use dishonesty to convince people of things that aren’t true for some “higher goal”.
That’s why I always think of the Bush Administration’s dishonesty about Saddam Hussein having WMD when I think about how Success Academy presents itself. A decision was made by those in charge to mislead the American people because hey, getting rid of Saddam was a good cause so what did it matter whether we are purposely exaggerating what we know to be true in order to get support for it.
And I understand that pro-charter folks, too, condone a lot of misleading rhetoric for that “higher purpose” of providing a better education for some kids.
The problem is that in both cases, there are OTHER people who pay the price for that higher goal and the terrible things done to them cannot even be addressed because of the dishonesty. And the problem is that there is usually a reason that the people being dishonest are lying, and that reason is usually because it benefits THEM. The lies are rationalized by the pretense that this is for a higher cause (getting rid of Saddam) and it turns out that politically those lies also helped direct money and funding to places that they should not have been directed and where much of it was wasted but everyone was afraid to question why. “Do you want the terrorists to win?” “Don’t you care about those poor kids stuck in failing schools?”
I haven’t read Haidt but I doubt a legitimate scholar would have approved of the Bush Administration’s lies and attacked the people who pointed out their dishonesty.
I always think of George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” and his criticisms of statements like this:
“‘While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.’
In other words, “while freely conceding that some no-excuses charter schools exhibit certain features that may cause a few special needs children to leave, we must, I think, agree that the rigorous education that the remaining children are allowed to partake in has been amply justified by their concrete achievement”.
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NYC public school parent: well said.
Speaking just for myself, and gauging by their comments on this blog, I don’t think the supporters of Success Academy have a clue about how they come off in a open and honest discussion.
For example, when asked directly if closing schools to mobilize staff, students and parents in political demonstrations and arm twisting is ethical or fair [actual public schools can’t do that], there is either silence or the “explanation” that it was part of that day’s “civic lesson.”
😱
So they resort to laying hold of all sorts of personal diversions and accusations for which they themselves are the perfect examples.
Thank you for keeping it real.
Not rheeal.
😎
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Yuri, I know you are referring to me as I sometimes respond to you by noting your dishonest statements defending Success Academy.
What Sarah Palin and Donald Trump say things that are patently untrue, is it okay to call them out on it in your world? Or is that being mean? What is it you find acceptable when someone with a lot of power and money behind him spouts lies? You imply that they are all really good people motivated by good causes, just like Gov. Palin and Mr. Trump. So let those lies stand and don’t call them “dishonest” because hey, they are just misleading folks a little bit. What’s sad is you truly seem to think “both sides do it” and I suppose you condemn Bernie Sanders for being no different at all than Donald Trump. In your world view, we need to be polite to both of them and never call them out on their lies because they mean well. And if you see no difference between the dishonesty of Palin/Trump and the so-called dishonesty of Sanders, then I can see why you feel the need to defend any criticism of Ms. Moskowitz. I assume you do the same with any criticism that Palin/Trump could ever have anything but the best motives and calling them “dishonest” is not acceptable to you.
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NYC public school parent, you are raising a good point.
Politicians and paid pundits tend to be knowledgeable and often have hidden agendas.
Average parents, on the other hand, generally don’t have hidden agendas, and when parents with different views jump on each other’s throat, that is bad for society, because that means, that neither listens to the other, assuming that their side is 100% accurate, while the opposition is 100% wrong.
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NYC public school parent, to me, when talking with regular people, it’s a little bit like talking with your neighbors – criticism is OK, but attacking integrity or motivation is below the belt.
So, to me, “inaccurate” or “wrong” are ok, while “dishonest” (i.e. intentionally inaccurate), when directed to a fellow parent, is toxic (unless you can prove bad intent) – the other person will just stop replying to you.
You routinely (and incorrectly) assume the worse about people with whom you disagree. If you tone down your personal attacks, you will soon discover, that, in addition to disagreements, there is also quite a lot of common ground between parents like you and like me.
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Yuri,
Many readers of this blog assume you work for Eva Moskowitz. You don’t like the way peri olé respond to your comments. This is a pro-public education blog. Think of yourself as a Boston RedSox fan at Yankee Stadium, or a Yankee fan at Fenway Park. Don’t expect to find many sympathizers.
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This past week has been touted as School Choice Week. We know that parents at charters are often required to “contribute” in some way to the schools they choose, by volunteering or donating services. I can’t help but wonder whether some parents have taken on the duty of using social media this week to defend the philosophies and talking points of the CEO’s behind the charters.
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Diane, if this is your way of asking me, if I work for Eva Moskowitz – I do not, directly or indirectly, in any way, shape or form, so let’s please not get paranoid.
When I read a personal attack addressed to me, I will comment, that when personal attacks replace evidence, the intellectual quality of the discourse suffers. It’s much easier to say “troll”, than put forward a coherent argument, which is why personal attacks are widely discouraged in the social media.
When I read unfair criticism of the school my son attends, the school that I have an intimate, direct and detailed knowledge of, I take is as my basic civic duty to offer my perspective.
You could use this opportunity to source new information from me and ask, for example, which of the SA criticisms resonate with me more than others, based on my child’s experiences, etc…, and I will be happy to answer. But, instead, you imply, that anyone who supports even a single charter school is unwelcome here. If you keep it up, you might end up with an intellectually vacuous echo-chamber of folks, who don’t go through a regular exercise to ensure, that their narratives continue to reflect the facts on the ground.
How often do you find a Success Academy parent with an intimate knowledge of the school, who is a political Progressive, and who is also patient and willing to talk with anti-SA folks and take some abuse, stroll onto your blog?
Don’t you don’t see how this can actually benefit the quality of this blog?
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