Fatima Geidi is the parent of the boy who was featured on John Merrow’s PBS broadcast about the harsh discipline policies at Success Academy charter schools. She writes here that parents should stop being afraid of Eva Moskowitz, the founder and boss of Success Academies, a charter chain of 34 schools.
I have been contacted on several occasions by current or former teachers at SA charters, and they always ask me to keep their names a secret. Even those who have left are afraid. Curious.
After Fatima’s son appeared on television, SA posted his disciplinary record online. The mother said this act violated her son’s privacy rights, as guaranteed by a federal law called FERPA ( Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). She complained to the US ED. After a lengthy delay, SA finally removed the boy’s confidential information from its website.
When Eva appeared at a law school forum, Fatima was one of several former SA parents who questioned and challenged her.
Fatima writes:
“I had a chance to question Moskowitz at the law school event. I told her she abused children’s rights and gas-lighted the network’s parents. Moskowitz said she thought her schools “have a really high level of customer service.”
“Although my exchange with Moskowitz was less than satisfying, I showed my son the video of the speech and my questions. He thanked me for fighting for him and other children, adding “I want to be like you when I grow up.”
“That was reward enough for me.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So the resolution of her FERPA complaint was Eva eventually took down the student’s discipline record? I’m sorry, but where is the accountability?
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Come on 2o2t, you and I both know that accountability is only for the peons who get to shoulder not only the blame for things that they MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE but also the blame for the things that the Ubers HAVE DONE!
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Yeah, I know. If someone gets nicked, it is always some poor underling who was put there to take the hit.
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Agree. This could becom the basis for a lawsuit, a demand for disclosure of privacy policies at SA….if they exist anywhere on paper.
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FERPA doesn’t allow for individual private action against schools and school districts. The federal DOE may investigate to see if the school has policies or practices in place that jeopardizes student privacy.
The parent could pursue a defamation case, but that would be extremely tricky. The parent was willing to reveal snippets of the child’s disciplinary record in a nationally televised report, but she used FERPA as a shield to avoid an examination of the entirety of the record, leaving viewers with the impression that the child was suspended multiple times solely for things like not having matching socks. John Merrow was delivered a blistering rebuke by PBS’s independent ombudsman for only presenting half the story and not allowing Success to respond on the record: http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/blogs/ombudsman/2015/10/26/a-high-stakes-schoolyard-fight/.
It is also important to note that Merrow did not support his claim that Success intentionally targets academically low-performing children (i.e., children who do not/will not score well on state tests) and gives those children extra suspensions in the hopes of getting them to withdraw. Kate Taylor’s much more substantially supported reporting of the “got to go” list reveals a different picture. One of the children on the list was in fact identified by Success as being academically gifted.
There aren’t any winners here–Success made a lousy decision, and I suspect that the parent got some awful advice from a union front-group that is desperate to dig up dirt on charters. All the adults involved, especially the reporter, forgot what would be best for the child.
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Tim says: “All the adults involved, especially the reporter, forgot what would be best for the child.”
I think what is clear is that all the adults involved, especially the administrators at Success Academy, forgot what would be best for the child.
Tim somehow believes that a reporter covering this issue was harmful to a child. On the contrary, this reporter coming forward is the ONLY reason that SUNY is going to bother to investigate this. SUNY has had this information for many years, and always laughs it off — it’s funny! LOL! Kids getting suspended and empty seats but Eva Moskowitz tells them they are all violent so LOLOL! No need to investigate!
Thanks to John Merrow, the parents who watched Eva Moskowitz attack a 10 year old child by releasing carefully selected records to make him look like a VIOLENT 6 year old who needed to be in a special school for violent children decided to go public with Kate Taylor. Taylor had a previous article which was attacked by the same people now attacking Merrow. But when Success Academy used the unprecedented move of actually trying to slime a 6 year old child for daring to go public — THAT truly reprehensible action finally made those parents mad enough to let their names be used. Yes, Ms. Geidi’s son made the ultimate sacrifice, but without Success Academy making it clear exactly how they treat anyone who dares to question them, this would still be going on and got to go lists would still be the practice at every Success Academysschool except the ones who have middle class parents who are treated with dignity instead of condescension.
It is so revealing that Tim thinks that the reporter was the worst actor here! Revealing and very, very scary. “Especially the reporter” he says — not “especially the administrators at Success Academy”.
By the way, the best evidence that Ms. Geidi is telling the truth about Success Academy releasing the records to make her child look the most violent is that the SAME child is happily learning at a regular public school where he isn’t terrorizing other children as Eva Moskowitz made sure to tell the world is what ALL the violent children she suspends do. Shame on anyone who thinks the “bad actor” was the journalist who made it stop and not the people who have been doing this to 5 and 6 year old children for nearly a decade.
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NYC public school parent: what you said.
And the proof that the sneer, jeer and smear is the weapon of choice for rheephormsters? Making hysterical accusations but not disputing the obvious: that the mother made the best choice for her child by putting him in a public school.
I am honestly embarrassed by the transparent servility on display.
😎
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Oh please, Krazy TA!
Don’t you know that Tim is shill and a jerk at his puny best?
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Krazy TA, you raise an immensely important point.
When this parent made the decision to send her child to Success Academy Upper West, she was living in East New York, Brooklyn (“Parents furious over shoddy treatment of special needs children at two charter schools,” New York Daily News, March 14, 2013.). Per Google Maps, the center of the East New York neighborhood is a 44-minute one-way drive (without traffic) to Success Upper West, and a whopping 1 hour, 15 minute one-way trip on mass transit (assuming no delays, missed transfers, etc.).
This family was willing to have their small child spend 2.5 to 3+ hours commuting every day rather than sign up at either the traditional public school they were zoned for, or at any of the numerous under-enrolled traditional public schools in their part of Brooklyn. Things must be pretty rough at those schools.
At some point the family relocated to the Lower East Side of Manhattan (per the bio linked to her opinion piece for WYNC). District 1 is an all-choice district, where students have to actively select a school rather than be assigned one on the basis of street address. Happily, this family was able to select a school that fit their child’s needs, and the child is excelling: http://evgrieve.com/2015/03/east-village-students-parents-and.html
Thanks again for this compelling, essential reminder about the power and importance of parent choice.
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Tim, thank you very much for the compelling, essential reminder that “choice” means that if your child isn’t a good student, a charter school will “choose” to make him feel as miserable as he needs to feel in order to get you to “voluntarily choose” to withdraw him. I could not have put it better myself.
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NYC public school parent: what you said.
What do you call someone that chooses to put his own foot in his own mouth time after time in order to put rheephorm in the worst light possible?
The gift that keeps giving.
😎
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KrazyTA, if the dishonest supporters of privatizing public schools really believed in “choice”, they would be extremely critical of charter schools like Success Academy who weed out (by reprehensible methods) the children they do NOT choose to teach. (far too expensive, you know)
If your child isn’t going to be easy to teach — well you “need not apply” and if their pre-enrollment meeting doesn’t scare you off and you are deluded enough to believe that the “choice” is up to you and not the charter school — then you get people like Tim promoting the lie that your child was far too violent to deserve the education.
Tim — and other pro-charter folks — have never said a word of criticism against Success Academy. On the contrary, they jump through hoops to promote the lie that all those little at-risk 5 and 6 year old children who are suspended are just extremely violent.
“Choice” is just a word that privatizers use. It is meaningless unless your child is inexpensive to teach — that’s why charter schools like Success Academy that “choose” only to educate the students who will score high on tests aren’t opening more schools where the wait lists are longest and instead are opening where the families are richest. Remember, Eva Moskowitz told us that very affluent District 2 Manhattan needed a 3rd SA elementary school BEFORE there was even a 2nd school in some of the poorest neighborhoods of NYC! And remember, the SUNY Charter Institute believed every word she said! Because Success Academy seemed to have run out of the kind of students they “CHOOSE” to educate in poor neighborhoods long before they have run out of students whose parents choose them. But hey, lots of those students in District 2, right?
Is there an honest person in the charter school movement? I’d like to see one. Instead, we get people who enable the most dishonest purveyors to keep making small children feel as if it is all their fault. The fact that they do this far more often to at-risk minority children is just nasty.
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[After Fatima’s son appeared on television, SA posted his disciplinary record online.] If I recall correctly, Fatima Geidi made inaccurate statements to the media about the details of her child’s disciplinary infractions, downplaying their severity.
I am not a lawyer and don’t know, if, when a parent opens the door and discusses a disciplinary matter with the media, that it would automatically waive the child’s right to privacy in that matter. That is for lawyers to decide, but it is clearly not a one-sided, no-brainer situation, as it’s portrayed here.
And John Merrow of PBS Newshour exacerbated this situation, when he gave Fatima Geidi an opportunity to describe her version of events, but did not afford Success Academy an opportunity to respond. See the critique of this Newshour segment by the PBS Ombudsman here: http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/blogs/ombudsman/2015/10/26/a-high-stakes-schoolyard-fight/
We will know the legal answer once the FERPA complaint is resolved.
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Yuri N., I challenge you to cite ONE instance in John Merrow’s report where “Fatima Geidi made inaccurate statements to the media about the details of her child’s disciplinary infractions, downplaying their severity.”
This is from the transcript of the report:
“JOHN MERROW: Jamir’s mother told us he was suspended three or four times his first year for LOSING HIS TEMPER…….OTHER PARENTS told us their young children were sent home multiple times for infractions like not paying attention or for getting out of their seats to look at the bulletin board.”
“JOHN MERROW: Jamir’s mother withdrew him from Success Academy after two-and-a-half years. Now 10, he just began his third year at a public school that approaches discipline differently.
FATIMA GEIDI, Parent: Yes, Jamir has had meltdowns. Yes, he has anxiety. Yes, he’s cried. Yes, he’s had outbursts. But guess what? The school says, fine, you need a break. You’re going to go help one of the secretaries in the office. You are going to shred paper. You are going to go water the plants. You are going to do something helpful. When you are ready, you will come back. And guess what? He is getting his education.”
Yuri N., you are grasping at straws to try to pretend that Ms. Geidi “downplayed” what her son did just so you can justify the fact that Eva Moskowitz tried to paint a child as a violent hellion because she could not deal with the FACTS in John Merrow’s report:
“MERROW: Suspension rates at Success Academies are almost three times higher than the city’s K-12 public schools, even though 70 percent of Success Academies are elementary schools.
What does a 5-year-old do that warrants an out-of-school suspension of one day or multiple days?
EVA MOSKOWITZ: Well, using sexually explicit language. It’s very upsetting….
MERROW: ….The 44 suspensions at this school were issued to just 11 kindergartners and first graders. One child was suspended 12 times. Eventually, the family withdrew the child. At another Success Academy, 101 suspensions went to just 32 students.
EVA MOSKOWITZ: ….. I OFTEN have parents say to me, my child never punched the teacher. I say, well, but you weren’t there.”
Yuri N., there you have it from the mouth of the woman you admire so much and believe can do no wrong. She says her students OFTEN punch the teacher when they are 5 and 6 years old. OFTEN. And the rest of those 5 and 6 year olds are just using sexually explicit language. There is something about being at a Success Academy Kindergarten class that Eva Moskowitz swears means that those children OFTEN punch their teachers. Does your child’s SA class have 5 year old children OFTEN punching their teacher? Of course not, but hey, the kids Ms. Moskowitz suspends over and over and over again go to those Success Academy schools that are primarily low-income minority kids, so you don’t question it.
When I read Success Academy’s middle class white parents like Yuri N. posting to convince us that so many children of color whose parents are motivated to seek out the best schools for them are VIOLENT and using SEXUALLY SUGGESTIVE LANGUAGE I am truly disgusted. No wonder Eva Moskowitz is the darling of Donald Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and all the other right wing Republicans who could not admire her more. Shameful.
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Want to know how crucial out-of-school factors are in learning what is most important?
The last two paragraphs of this posting.
Ms Fatimi Geidi taught her son, by example, something that a high-stakes standardized test can never measure.
😎
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I taught for 41 years in a public high school in Connecticut, and not once did I ever hear what we were doing referred to as “customer service”.
Sadly, a very revealing phrase.
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Everything is put in a commercial context. Everything. If it doesn’t fit a private sector frame they just jam it in that frame anyway.
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Yes, I choked on that phrase, too.
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Does that make teachers customer service reps?
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OMG! I found the video of the Ms. Gehdi (along with others who did so earlier in the program) confronting Eva, and it’s more intense than I thought.
Indeed, this is an instant classic in the whole corporate reform movement, and the fight against it..
It’s either HERE:
http://nyls.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/a383f1d9713a49c49cddb999e631de8d1d?playFrom=3383&autoStart=true
OR HERE:
http://www.citylandnyc.org/complete-video-the-131st-citylaw-breakfast-with-eva-moskowitz/
“COMPLETE VIDEO: The 131st NYC City Law Breakfast with Eva Moskowitz.
“On Friday January 22, 2016, the Center for New York City Law at New York Law School hosted the 131st City Law Breakfast. The event speaker was SUCCESS Academy’s Eva Moskowitz.”
The “Perry Mason Moment” of the forum starts here at about 41:58.
Watch how the moderator Ross Sandler, a New York City Law School professor moderating this event, goes to bat for Eva when Eva is criticized. Earlier, at the beginning of this video, his introduction to Eva was so fawning and gushing you may think that he was describing Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Later, Eva faces the heat from an angry Success Academy parent, who asks if Eva had ever apologized to parents whose children were harmed by being placed on the infamous “Got-to-Go List,
After Eva says she has indeed apologized, this parent, Shanice Givens, points out to everyone in the room that Eva just lied. She’s one of those parents, and Eva never apologized to her.
Hell is then unleashed … from Givens toward Eva… and then from moderator Ross Sandler towards Givens.
This is some truly riveting footage — an instant classic in the whole corporate education reform controversy.
http://nyls.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/a383f1d9713a49c49cddb999e631de8d1d?playFrom=3383&autoStart=true
OR HERE:
http://www.citylandnyc.org/complete-video-the-131st-citylaw-breakfast-with-eva-moskowitz/
TRANSCRIPT —
( 41:58 – 43:03 )
———————–
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “Good morning, Eva. How are you?”
EVA: “Good morning.”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “Hi. You didn’t shed any light on the ‘Got-to-Go List.’ Uhmm… I just want to know. Did you privately or publicly apologize to the any of parents that were affected by it.”
EVA: “There’s been an enormous amount of coverage. I see Kate Taylor (the NY Times writer who penned the Got-to-Go List article) in the audience. There were two stories on it, and yes, I … I did (apologize). The (Got-to-Got) list existed for three days. As soon as it came to our attention — which was within about 24 hours of it being produced — the principal was brought into the school and severely reprimanded for his actions. I have personally have done many parent meetings at Fort Greene (Success Academy School) … uhh … because of that mistake.”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “Hello. Sorry. I just wanted to say. My name is Shanice Givens- ”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: “Wait, wait.”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: ” And my son was Number Three on the list.”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: “May I- ?”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “My son was Number Three (on the Got-to-Go List) and I NEVER got an apology from Ms. Eva.”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: “May I ask you to be courteous?”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “I just want to say that she just said that she – ”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: (turning away from Given to the other mic)
“We’re on this side now.”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: ” – publicly said something, and she NEVER said ANYTHING to me. My son was Number Three.’ ”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: “Madame -”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: (to Eva) “And you said that you ‘loved children so much’ ?
Yet you STILL allow Mr. (Candido) Brown to teach?”
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: (to some technician) “Turn her microphone off!”
PARENT SHANICE GIVENS: “He has wronged sixteen children and -”
(Given’s MIC CUTS OFF)
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: “This is not the place. This is an academic institution. We’re having a conversation. We’re going to this side (the other microphone) now.”
—————–
There’s a whole mess o’ wrong goin’ on here.
I don’t get the rationale of “This is an academic institution.” as justification for silencing this woman, and killing her mic. Shouldn’t an academic institution be a place for vigorous debate where all sides are allowed to offer their opinions.
To be accurate, Sandler should have said, “This is an academic institution in which only those who, like me, heap unqualified praise Ms. upon Moskowitz, will be allowed to speak.”
Immediately following this, a well-dressed pro-Success Academy parent — Thomas Lopez Pierre (sp?) mentioning in his remarks that he’s a candidate for NYC City Council — starts off with gushing praise for Eva and what Success Academy has done for his son. He even spouts the “My son was trapped in a failing school” line.
In contrast to the parent criticizing Eva, Ross Sandler lets Pierre (sp?) run at the mouth while Pierre effusively praises Eva & Success Academy.
Standing beside Eva, Sandler nods and smiles as if to say, “Now, that’s more like it.”
However, that same parent, in mid-speech, then surprises everyone, and does a total 180. He goes on the same attack as Givens for Eva’s exclusive admission and expulsion policies. The moderator Ross Sandler again intervenes.
( 43:57 – 44:04 )
———————–
THOMAS LOPEZ PIERRE: (polite tone) “With that said, I’m a critic of you, Ms. Moskowitz. And here’s the reason why. You have failed to provide every public school student who wants to attend Success the opportunity, and until you are able to serve ALL of the kids who want to get into your wonderful charter school, Success will not be a ‘success.’ Thank you. ” (walks away from the mic)
EVA (clearly frazzled): “Thank you. I do have a lot of critics, and it comes from a variety of places … and that’s … uhh … part of the … wonderfulness … of New York- ”
The douchey moderator Sandler swings into action again, saying,
MODERATOR ROSS SANDLER: (visibly irritated)
“Let me just step in a second. This is an academic institution, and decorum is required of everybody, and I have no doubt that everyone n this room will honor that.”
————–
“Oh shut up, you pompous bag of wet brownies!!!”
… is what I would have shouted at Sandler at this point.
The angry parents are not yet through with Eva.
Remember Fatima Gehdi, the parent who’s upset at Eva who, as part of Eva’s retaliation against Gehdi, illegally released Gehdi’s son’s private discipline records to the press?
Well, she got in her licks, too … at 49:05
http://nyls.mediasite.com/mediasite/Play/a383f1d9713a49c49cddb999e631de8d1d?playFrom=3383&autoStart=true
or
http://www.citylandnyc.org/complete-video-the-131st-citylaw-breakfast-with-eva-moskowitz/
I don’t have time to transcribe this, so just watch Gehdi yourself at: (this is what provoked Eva’s “customer service” comment)
Watch how, again, the moderator Sandler tries but fails to silence this parent.
Here’s moderator Ross Sandler in a nutshell …
When praising Eva, you can talk all you want.
When criticizing Eva, you are showing bad “decorum” and must be shut up, or have your mic turned off.
COUNTDOWN to the moment when, per Eva’s request, Sandler and New York City Law School takes down this video:
“One, two, three .. “
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I think an earlier poster hit the nail on the head – the real take away from this story is the value of school choice. Two children in my building attend SA UWS and their mother loves it. Not every school is for every person. This little boy may not have done well at a highly structured private school either. Fortunately he is in a school that better serves his needs.
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