Eva Moskowitz reacted angrily to the unflattering story in the New York Times about a teacher berating a first-grader. She sent a note to her staff accusing the Néw York Times of having a vendetta against her.
Her email said:
“We must not allow the haters to bully us or stop us from re-imagining public education,” Moskowitz writes.”
She added that if a similar video came from a public school, the Times would have ignored it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The hypocrisy of “reformers” is absolutely amazing. Their rise to power was built on making broad negative generalizations about public schools based on similar stories. Karma can be a b*tch.
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Evil the Evil. I can’t stand that thing. How can anyone consider her even human.
The media crucifies the public schools every time one of its almost 4 million teachers does something the media discovers. Even a simple note criticizing a student on an assignment can end up going viral on social media and then hitting the front pages of the traditional media. If a public school teacher is accused by a student of sexual molestation, the media often crucifies those few teachers and millions of people will think they are guilty even if they are found innocent in court. The way the media reports these stories of public school teachers often smears the entire profession until millions think public school teachers are tyrants, lazy, incompetent, etc.
For instance, repeat idly and for years, the media has made a big deal about suspensions and expulsions in the public schools resulting in restrictions and laws that limit the public schools from suspending children but often the same media ignores much higher rates of suspension and expulsions found in corporate charter schools.
A 4% suspension rate in the public schools rates front page headlines in the tradition media but even a 50% suspension rate in a corporate charter doesn’t even rate a story buried on a back page.
To be honest, I’m surprised The New York Times is even publishing these stories of Eva’s evil empire. She must be so evil and cruel that the traditional media can’t ignore her any longer.
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Mr. Lloyd we have no control , you are truyimg as me too . Charter Scholl Is base on power , U.S Scholl sistem the Devel take the control only GOD will stop that evel sistem . I realice after i meditate Biblia 1ra jonh charter 5:19 . READ … We are Jehovah witnesses , out kid. My Daughter report card E E E E and what charter Scholl Arasment bulling , asalt Fisical , is a lot more what happen in another charter . The media ignored , the law enforment ignored . Why ? Because we are no human because Jehovah witness are the biggest target of clild abuse in Scholl . Can you answer this . Why not even you care and replay , thoses problems appear in news is 10 % compared with our Kid abuse . Our kids , my son Fisical abuse , mental destroy , his life in Rick almost comite suicide , my daughter Arasment , teacher sex – arasment a bunch of girls , Coaches with criminal records work at this charter Scholl . Why the sex-arrasment sience teacher / basebal coach abusers ( sex – arrasment and Fisical abuser is not been removed ?
You should pay analyze to this comedy . Any question don’t hesitate to ask C
Reibelcastillo@yahoo.com
305 322-3199 .
I hope you like latins , because a lot millions hate another nationality , even if born in U.S.A . That is focus of Donal tromp campaign , get the votes of united state citizen those who hate immigrant .
Take care
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My mother was s Jehovah Witness for 50 years and then she died at 89. I was 12 when she joined JW.
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Mr. Lloyd . I’m proud of your mom as I know you more and Jah super proud , as such scale your Mom name is in the book of the life .
Thanks for replay . Dear Lloyd
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I’m not a JW. Two years after my mother joined, I turned my back on JW and all religions.
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I’m sorry Mr. Lloyd if my words Sr. Hurt your feeling . I respect your decition and thanks to let me know so fast . That is the way real person Mr. Lloyd as a win teplay . I envorauge as I’m sorry one more time forgive me it was not intentional . learn from you is a privilege !
Take care ! And I’ll like hear from you , ah I like Latin , American discrimination is unfear .
I can tell who much hurt be ignored , my son an MLB PROSPECT EVEL CHARTER RULERS INTIMIDATED MY KID THAT MY SON THE TOWN LEFT .
My family sufering and dicnite I’ll make sure very very soon Mr. Lloyd those rulers will regret and never ever to no one will jugge as doom they act . They are real lions but the strongers are the Law .
2 years of reserges , plus the true in my hands . A bunch of prove but no money . I not fear be PRO SE .
Take care Mr. Lloyd .
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Yes, we have to resist and defeat the evil corporate charter schools with an emphasis on the world “evil”.
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Mr. Lloyd . I won’t quit , I fighting the evel my myself . You just can’t bear a person who never give up . ” Babe Rut ” . My son just turn 18 . Daniel was diagnose with ADD disorder at 7 years of Age . Evils and more Evils and more and more , there is 2 words I repeat as many time . Evil Charter . Evil Charter and Evil Charter and Evil Charter Daniel baseball carrier and Evil Charter destroyed and more and More Evil Charter Principal keep in clouse door and support Evils Coaches after they abuse of my son , Fisical abuse , Dany left knew almost broke , night time intimidated my son after baseball practice finish , Daniel was told becarful to tell what we did to you . I was told by a couples parents who my son was hit on his kew , chatter Evils coaches , principals very well knows child abuse have to be reported before 24 ours , Evil principal told my wife he was informed and desair to keep in clouse door , Evel Principal , Evil Coaches and Evil Chair Boards of Director Mayor of the city . A city Mayor Chair for a Evil Charter , the city Mayor and Chair of boards , evil Charter private Runer . My son has a very white skin , Evil coaches who hit Danny knee , hit pretty hard Evil way because , bone almost broke . Pain from out side and black on the knee are ACL injured Son Evil Coach I told to my Kid , we have to go to the doctor , Doctor diagnosed no is an ACL injure but a hart impact , my son is very strong kid with big bone frame . The police did nothing , the principal Kick me out from a city park . baseball game , last one of the regular season , The evel principal obligated kids to go and suport the Evel Chater basebal Team . The Evel Principal Kick me out as Som he saw me . What ? Now I know you are not only evil , you your Evil Charter are the perfect copy of Stalin regime and you are Stalin . I get very upset and left before make a crazy things . I call the police , warning trespass for me . Not way. Dear officer what side of the constitution are you defending today ? I mean dears I replay . I almost got an hart attack , tell your boss yes the ex-chief police . The Bermuda Triangle it moved to Hialeah . Now is missing the justice in this city ah dear officers I’ll complain at internal , unfear , FDL . I won’t quit that is a police Arasment .
Dear Lloyd 5:01 am , I still resisting , because Evel Carter principal also abandoned my 11 yeas old Daughter at the same public park very late , at kidnaping risking . I have witness , recored when the Evel principal gave a FCAT to a baseball player , yes the Evil Charter School principal was suborned for a Evil Parent , I have the recored and witness who hear when Evil Principal and Evil parents in a friendly Evils dooms saying that my son was retarder because has ADD . Making fun . What a crazy parent , so stupid talking about me . My son never will sigh will MLB because people with ADD/ADHD can’t play not even bushes league . Of course Charter Evils principal have no clue what mean IDEA or section 504 . They don’t denied help to special needs students , not the have no clue what it is desabillity , they know how to destroy talents , because 46 people with ADD/ADHD disorder the World laughed at them , Albert Einstein was told he never gonna learn , Michael Phelps , baby rube ,
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When I was age 7, I wasn’t doing well in school and I was tested to find out why. Then my mother was told I was retarded and would never learn to read or write. That verdict didn’t bother me. I preferred being outdoors playing anyway, but my mother cried on the drive home and said she would teach me to read and write on her own (she also followed the advice of my teacher who didn’t agree with the administrative verdict)—and she did it with help from a wire coat hanger (my teacher didn’t tell her to use a wire coat hanger on me. She thought that up on her own) she used to swat me with. Through fear and pain, I learned to read and eventually to love reading.
My mother made liars out of those administrative experts who tested me and told her I would never earn to read or write—that I was a retard.
Back then, there was no term for “dyslexia”, and dyslexia was what was holding me back from learning what my teachers were teaching me to learn. That and the fact that I needed glasses and couldn’t read what the teacher wrote on the blackboard or read what was printed on the pages in textbooks. It was another classroom teacher who suggested to my mother that I needed glasses and that teacher was right.
The only term they had back in the 1950s was if you weren’t normal like most kids, you were either a retard or a genius. I was labeled with the word “retard” and tossed aside.
But today I have three college degrees, was a successful classroom teacher for thirty years (1975-2005) and have published four award winning books. I’m also an avid reader who has read thousands of books and enjoyed most of them.
I barely graduated from high school, joined the U.S. Marines and ended up fighting in Vietnam. Out of the Marines, I went to college on the GI Bill and taught myself how to study—bad study habits are hard to overcome and I was a lousy student K – 12 that was not the fault of any of my classroom teachers.
When I graduated with a BA in journalism five years later, I was on the Dean’s honor roll.
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Lloyd “Through fear and pain, I learned to read and eventually to love reading.”
This method of learning to love something through pain rarely works, but there are notable exceptions such as Beethoven and Mozart (and of course, you, Lloyd)
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I don’t advocate what my mother did to me for anyone else’s children.
For our daughter, we just turned off the TV Monday through Saturday (TV was only on for one to two hours Sunday evening, and the parents, us, picked what we watched as a family) and took daughter to the library every week where she checked out the maximum number of books. With no TV to watch, after finishing her homework, she read books, lots of books. No need to use any force. We didn’t buy her any video games. We didn’t buy her a mobile phone until she was in high school and then only for calling us. We didn’t pay for texting and put other restrictions of the phone.
Of course, today, not letting a child watch TV several hours daily is probably considered torture by many and inhumane. Imagine, gasp, not owning any video games or a mobile phone at age 7.
Daughter graduated from Stanford in 2014 and already had a job. A year later, she quit the first job and went to work for another company.
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Mr. Lloyd , Pete Ross holder record in Hits ( a player with 3000 hit career records is a hall of fame , for me the that I Know a lot more than Evil Owners , Evil Charter School principals and they corrupt and criminal way they rule and lie about standards grade , more than 70 % of charter school students are not smart no they get promotion unrealistic , my Daughter is an super A++++ students and a MOGHT after I transfer her to the Evil destructor future of my son baseball carrier ( Tort Law sue , I’m waiting to file a law sue in federal Court and I’ll make a patty after that Evel Charter close doors , last year in Florida 38 Charter close they doors , this year HEA will be closed , I told the Evil principal , chain is in trouble 15 parents complain at federal Court for only denied help to students with special needs, not your Evil Charter and you , will face more than 10 complains , you cheat to much help to one students , fraud , give the FCAT , he is like how , yes the same coach who abuse my son and Arasment and bulled at my Daughter . Yes the same guy sience/teacher/ baseball coach with criminal record and not qualification . I told everywhere a requirement to be part of the corrupt and Evil Charter staff member only one requirement { mean } mean Principal , Mean .. { The song mean by Taylor Swift ) should be sound very laud very soon , because the only way they close keep open if I die , but yes I’ll but after my dream came true ( I hd a dream MLK) I’m fighting monster mr. Lloyd but I’ll beat them , there is real lion but the stronger is the Law ) I have no Lawyer , no money but I have the winer card I found it a huge trouble , I have what they ignored , and investigation with probve , legal prove , the Evel Sienceteacher/baseball coach . Has been sex-Arasment a bunch of Girls , and I have 7 names of innocents gilds a couples sex-arasment with only 12 years of age . We’ll back to baseball Deret jeter one of the greater baseball hitter to reach 3000 hit played 20 season and the last one with an Brooke ankle to reach 3000 hit Goal . Pete rose 4252 with ADD/ADHD . MY son was ready to get signed or UM university scholar ship tuition pay in full . But yes The evel principal interrogation Stalin way , click out my son and my Daughter fom the Evel Charter . As a consequence my son was very CLOUSE to comite suicide . I have doctor in mental healh letter in my hand and she is ready to testified , as a buch of person more , well the Charter don’t accept Afro American students , not white American students ( know about laws ) and more . I’ll conclude this nighmare { pandora box modern definition ( an upset person can do it ) a parent very upset and with hungry of justice I’ll defeat those Evils , they put the money in the wrong horse , that is a huge mistake , as soom he told crimen is in CLOUSE door and I won’t talk any more about it . That day will never forget by an Evel Principal of and evel Charter scholl )
I have no money , I want no money , I have time , time gone time loss , I have the priceless time , money I looss more than 100 grand in the past year , but I loss not time . Because time is something we can’t go gof it after pass . That is why time is priceless . Money we loss we can make it to bring it back and more . There is something I won’t like someone take it from me . Knowledge and time . I can share but never with Evil People .
Take care . Mr. Lloyd
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If a similar video surfaced from a public school, the teacher, tenured or not, would be off to the rubber room pending a hearing. Totes the same.
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In Right to Work states like mine, there are no rubber rooms. The teacher would just be fired. Probably within a month.
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No Eva, if a public school teacher did this, the New York Times as well as the News and Post would have relished bashing us again. However, any public school teacher caught doing such an action would not have been counseled to behave better, but would have been subject to a 3020a hearing for corporal punishment and probably fired.
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I guess the lack of a response from Children Service has caused me some concern. The teacher should be removed from the school pending some type of intervention by the state. Does this not happen in New York. I know it does where I am from.
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This sums up reformers love of charter schools:
That Brutal Charter School Video Shows That Rich People Love No-Excuses Discipline … for Other People’s Kids
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/02/12/success_academy_undercover_video_shows_no_excuses_discipline_at_its_ugliest.html
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I love that last line Michelle!
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Highly recommended reading:
First published 21 years ago:
and more recently:
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Interesting bit in that article says that SA has changed PR firms several times in the past YEAR. What, even the PR shills can’t even muster enough positive spin on SA? Word, Eva, your lashing out isn’t helpful to your cause.
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Should clarify, by “article” I am referring to Politico, not Slate. Thanks Michele Hamilton for the Slate link!
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Eva is now using the same PR firm as Rick Snyder, called Mercury. “Leaders” or vultures,who poison child with lead and those who verbally berate/abuse children, flock together in times of trouble.
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I have never heard of a public school that hired a PR firm. Rhee, however, hired Anita Dunn–a PR powerhouse who worked in Obama White House–to sell her image
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She brooks no dissent, from common citizens or employees.
The ego inflation and self-importance is staggering and reflected in the astronomic salary she pays herself.
I’ve no doubt she has a savior complex and truly believes that only she can ‘save’ these poor children of color from their birthright, their culture, and the nefarious effects of racism and generational poverty through her version of ‘tough love’ or “Stop being brown and poor and start acting white and middle class! Or else!”
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What was particularly disturbing to me about the video is not that a teacher “lost it” with a student. Everyone has a bad day every once in awhile, and students who continually act out or misbehave can elicit anger in us. It’s always the wrong response, but sometimes it happens.
This video was different. It was chastising a student for a wrong answer in a bullying, humiliating, shaming way. This runs counter to the very notion of the classroom as a safe space where children can learn from their mistakes. Teachers are to be nurturing, encouraging, and not shaming.
The fact that this teacher, Ms. Dial, was NOT fired says a lot about Eva and her values. Apparently, the ends (high test scores) justify the means.
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The part of the video that concerned me was the tearing-up of the child’s paper. What message does that send. How do parents not stand up against this abuse is beyond me. I do not care if they are poor. I know poor parents in my district who would have put together a group and marched to the Superintendent’s office the moment they head of the incident demanding the removal of the teacher. This would be the beginning of their angry. They would not stop until they had the teachers license. New York must work on empowering disenfranchised parents of color.
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Agree with both of you, but what concerned me the most was the other children’s reactions. This is clearly not the first time this has happened. In fact, it appears to be par for the course and the kids are just rolling with it. This teacher did not just “lose it”.
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I could be wrong but as a human being with half a century of living behind me, I have a lot of experience with a wide variety of feeling states, including anger in all its various forms. Teacher Dial did not look angry to me in the sense of “Whoops, my button has just been pushed!” She did not look like she was spontaneously erupting. Her behavior looked very calculated to me, basically an act, a conscious choice.
I would love for someone with an academic background in reading people’s actions and moods to give their assessment.
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Maurine: “The part of the video that concerned me was the tearing-up of the child’s paper. ”
Exactly. No teacher has ownership of my kids’ work. I religiously save every single work of my children.
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I subscribe to an online forum for mothers living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In the past, it’s been disheartening to me to see interest in Success Academy among parents of preschoolers. They actually believe the propoganda that public schools are bad and charter schools are better. Since Kate Taylor’s reporting in the NYT however, attitudes are starting to change. Moms are sharing the articles and commenting on how scary and disturbing the findings are. One mother commented on how there is something wrong with Success Academy from the top down. Often I fear we can’t beat the money of pro-charter billionaires even with all our advocacy, so these victories are welcome.
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Beth,
We may not be able to beat the money but parents can by removing their children. These groups need encouragement. Remember, Knowledge is power. The more they know the more powerful they become.
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I don’t think that this teacher should be crucified, demonized and cast into oblivion based on a single incident, a few seconds of video. And especially not if this is the norm in the SA charter schools. Everyone can have a bad day but if this type of behavior went on day after day, then, yes, she should be fired. However, isn’t she just following SA procedures and policies?
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Joe,
I can appreciate your position. However, abuse is abuse whether it happens once or twice. Following a program when you know it is wrong does not give you an excuse or an pass.
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Joe, are you seriously invoking the Nuremberg defense, that the teacher was “just doing her job” ???
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Sharon, agreed. It is not her job to humiliate a child. If it is, that’s scary!
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Diane, I am scared by the fact that the no-excuses approach to education, which is not necessarily limited to charters, has gained such popularity in recent years. It speaks to the appeal of authoritarianism in Amercian culture, a deep undercurrent we often choose to ignore – at our peril.
I should also mention that modern German history is one of my sub-fields, and so it always troubles me to use or read “SA” as an abbreviation for Eva’s network. I think I’ll stop doing that from now on.
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Yes, she was “just doing her job”. Apparently she’s so good at doing that job that SA has promoted her to model teacher. Says a lot.
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Joe: how do you know this was not the norm in that class, and when the teacher really got mad, far worse things happened? Whatever was going on, the assistant thought it was wrong, and should have reported it to Child Protective Services. The assistant teacher is not supposed to be investigating; leave that up to CPS.
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Just a reminder. Eva Moskowitz doesn’t just run Success Charters. She is treated as an expert on every public school in the country and she lobbies for every public school in the country to be more like her charter chain.
The people we elect to Congress treat her like a hero and give her access and a forum that no single public school district leader gets.
No one elected this person, she runs schools in NYC, a place that has astronomical land values and thus very little in common with the vast majority of public school “markets” in the US, but she is one of the select few that get access to lawmakers on public schools. She’s driving public school policy for the whole country based on her schools in NYC.
Success Academy could be a national model. That’s what she lobbies for.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/07/8549878/moskowitz-success-academy-could-be-national-model
When’s the last time your public school superintendent was treated like a celebrity by the US Congress? When’s the last time your public school superintendent had any opportunity to access anyone in power?
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Also, Chiara, with about 11,000 students in Eva’s network, she’s lords over a school district that’s something like the 30th largest one in New York State.
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Eva also gets invited to speak to closed door meetings of billionaires in Aspen, where she explains her great success
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What’s just as scary are the group of parents who supported the SA policies of no tolerance. The parent of the humiliated child did not seem to be present in the reporters interview.
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Yes, most were obviously not parents of at-risk kids and they had no problem with their children witnessing other children’s humiliation because their child is treated well. It’s appalling.
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From Jersey Jazzman:
That said, I’m not about to say, on the basis of a one-minute video, that Dial should be fired immediately. If any teacher tells you that they’ve never said anything to a student that they later regretted, they’re either lying, deluded, or a living saint.
Teaching is hard, frustrating work — especially if you actually give a damn about your students. You have to make all sorts of snap decisions, and it’s impossible to get them all perfectly right. And teachers are human beings who have personal worries and woes. You try to leave them at the door of the school, but you’re only human, so sometimes something regrettable happens. That doesn’t excuse it — but it also doesn’t make sense to me to immediately force out a good teacher who may have just had a really bad day.
Of course, if the Times had put out multiple videos of Dial yelling at students like this, I’d be saying something else. And the fact that the teaching assistant was concerned enough about Dial’s behavior that she recorded this also bothers me. So I don’t think we know enough about all this other than to say this was a really bad moment and a great example of what not to do in the classroom. Let’s see how it all plays out.
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com
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If it was just a single incident, how is it that the TA happened to have her phone out and ready to capture it? How is it that the other students aren’t reacting at all? Clearly this is just business as usual.
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The FACT that it was recorded at all is a miracle. The FACT that the assistant had the balls to record it, and risk being caught, risk having her phone confiscated, etc., is a miracle. I’m certain, based on seeing this one video, that it happens all the time. That teacher wasn’t merely having a bad day. That teacher was, herself, having a hissy fit. She treated a 5/6 year old with such disgust and disdain, I wonder what the lasting effect will be on the little girl who appeared quite calm, will be, of this? How did it feel to be sent to the calm down chair? How did it feel to be told she ruined it for the other kids? Was she made to feel stupid? yes. Was she made to feel responsible? yes. Was she EXILED from the group? yes. She was belittled, yelled at, and treated badly. There is no excuse for this bully of a teacher–even if she was doing her job as Eva expected. That she has been held up as model teacher makes me ill. It happened prior; THAT is how the assistant knew to have the phone at the ready. GOTCHA Eva…and that is something Eva can’t stand.
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Former Success Academy teacher speaks out, says what’s on the video is NOT”an anomaly.” as are some former Success Academy parents.
In my iniital post about this a couple days ago — first on this blog, mind you — I predicted there would be another tear-filled press conference, with the teacher being criticized blubbering away, and Eva backing her…
… and, lo and behold, the above article describes such a scene.
But then again, you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to anticipate THAT one. 😉 .
This time, however, unlike the media event with the “Got-to-Got List” principal Candido Brown, Eva’s significantly more defiant and dismissive of the criticism. She announced that the teacher, instead of being fired, was actually being promoted to be in charge of the training of all Success Academy teachers, so she can replicate what’s on the video to the entire Success Academy charter chain., apparently
This is Eva’s equivalent of giving the “middle finger” or her saying, “Suck it, haters! We’re not changing anything!”
This is Jonestown-like stuff here.
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Sharon in NYS
February 13, 2016 at 11:19 am
Also, Chiara, with about 11,000 students in Eva’s network, she’s lords over a school district that’s something like the 30th largest one in New York State.
Charter chains are held up as the model we all must follow and they have huge clout in policy circles. This stuff will be in every public school in the country if we don’t break up this absolute lock that the ed reform “movement” has on lawmakers. Time to bring in some other experts.
Eva Moskowitz’s personal philosophy about what the middle and lower classes “need” should not be driving policy in an such a hugely diverse country with tens of thousands of public schools that serve ALL KINDS of communities.
This reflects US public schools? Really? :
“My niece just bought a home in Atlanta for $85,000,” she said. “I almost spend that on rent and utilities in a year. To them, making $250,000 a year is wealthy. To us, it’s maybe the upper edge of middle class.”
We probably have fewer than 10 people who make 250k a year (earned income) in this whole county.
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What is with ed reformers and the word “haters”? My kids stopped using that word after seventh grade. Eva, TFA, Nina Rees…grow and handle criticism with facts; not name calling.
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The teacher that recorded what was happening in Dial’s classroom was very courageous. With the many hours of training we received last August during our pre-service week, I would have called Child Protective Services immediately. One time or many, it’s still abuse and must be reported.
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I watched that video twice. I do not see a teacher that has “lost it” — I see one that has summoned up her energy to carry out the directives of her employer. Ms. Dial is not actually “frustrated” — she’s just treating the child the way she is expected to do. Of course, I do not know Ms. Dial and maybe she just happens to be one of the few people in our world who really does not have emotions. But I do not see that — I see someone who is delivering the exact sort of reaction her employer apparently pays her to do.
In case I am not being clear, in my job, I am expected to help enforce our dress code. As to revealing clothing, or liquor ads on tee-shirts, that sort of thing, it’s not hard. As to hoods being up, that disturbs me less (or not at all is what I’m really saying) and so I have to discipline myself to notice and take action (which is to smile and ask kids politely to drop the hood, something with which they always comply without hesitation, hence I am not required to engage in abuse to get my job done).
It’s that latter reaction that I see in Ms. Dial. She is following orders — and is not actually frustrated. She’s just doing her job — doing what Ms. Moskowitz herself would do if she were in the classroom.
This is child abuse — not the kind where an overworked, frustrated person has just given in to despair, but the kind where a person makes a deliberate, entirely pre-meditated decision to engage in this act, which most of us would agree is abusive, of a child.
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Yes, I agree. This is part of why parents are so disgusted. A perfectly behaved child doesn’t know the right answer and is sent away and told she is ruining it for the other kids! And the other kids just watch silently and agree! Can you imagine a bully teaching the kids to bully the kids who are “slower” than they are? As a teaching philosophy? That’s absolutely the SA way – that’s why the kids didn’t even blink an eye. No compassion.
The teacher is just following orders. Unfortunately, it starts at the top. Eva Moskowitz keeps claiming kids are punished and suspended because so many of them are “violent”. Now we know exactly how so many kids become violent — make them feel as small as possible and publicly humiliate them and make certain the kids know that this child is a loser. Shameful.
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Julie Kramschuster and NYC public school parent:
A very important, if painful, posting.
A terrific thread.
Even amidst the excellence, your comments are outstanding.
Yes, the most horrific aspect of all this is that it smacks of being a norm.
A norm that teaches all the wrong things to staff and students.
Thank you both for your observations.
😎
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Well, Queen Eva/Saint Eva – she can’t take the criticism. She is terribly good at doling it out, however. She is a LIAR when it comes to defending her schools and staff and policies. There was no “got to go” list. She defended Candido Brown as having made an error of judgment, and that was NOT the policies of SA, and plainly stated she wouldn’t throw someone under the bus, Candido particularly, because of a lapse in judgment. The only thing Candid did wrong, however, was to document the got to go list – he should never have committed it to “paper” or virtual paper, because that was his undoing.
Where is Candido Brown now, after his tearful mea culpa? Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Bye Felicia.
Evan can’t take the heat; she responds to the TRUTH about her, her policies, her rules/regulations, her systemic beatdown of children, as…lies. All lies.
Eva is a bully with cash, and hedge fund backers who want to further reap the return on investment. At this point, how do you know when Eva is lying? Her lips are moving.
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Scratch a bully, find a coward.
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“On Friday, the influential PR firm Mercury announced that it would now be representing Success…”
Why is it normal, or at least acceptable, for a publicly funded school, like Success Academy, to use a PR firm? Public Relations Firms are supposed to make their clients look good, which is achieved by putting a “positive spin”on things, ie: not being forthright or honest? If they are accountable to the tax payers who underwrite them, than they should not need a spin doctor to tweek the truth. When public schools screw up they may attempt a cover up, but they don’t hire an outside agency to do it for them.
This private sector practice (no matter where the funding is coming from) is a system that obscures by design, and violates the public trust.
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…and who pays for the PR firm? Her donors? The taxpayers? No wonder we vehemently denies our right to see her books.
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If Moskowitz didn’t use overblown rhetoric about people preventing her from “reimaging public education” then maybe she would have so many “haters.” My public school child does not need tough love and I am inclined to make sure she isn’t afforded any by the school system. Why not of accommodate the parents who like what she is peddling without destroying school for the rest of our children?
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That should be “wouldn’t have so many haters”
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Eva is the hater who believes in what she says and does, despite how incomplete her understanding of education actually is.
She has absolutely created a high stakes, zero tolerance, learning culture where teachers and school leaders sadly become haters castigating 6 year old’s, and creating got-to-go lists. These are not anomalies, but Success Academy norms that embrace the values of current school reform.
Thanks to Obama, Dunkin and Gates, the same academic crucible that sets a teacher up to hate a kid for not learning exists in public schools too.
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I deliberately add the below separate from my response to Julie Kramschuster and NYC public school parent [above]. I don’t want to confound my praise of their remarks with what follows.
What is one possible consequence of teachers and students distancing themselves from each other to the point of passively suffering abuse or learning to let others suffer while they remain silent? To just follow and obey orders? Teaching and learning encompass vast domains beyond reading and math and STEM.
Someone who learned the wrong lessons and eloquently explained the devastating consequences:
“Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.”
[start]
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
[end]
Link: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
Perhaps homegrown talent will help make this clearer:
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
But can’t individuals find their own way to $tudent $uce$$ even if it is denied to others?
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”
Frederick Douglass. Right on both counts.
😎
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For me the question is, “Where is the line between stern and abusive?” Dial skirts that line.I think Amy Chua and probably many Tiger Moms skirt that line. I’ve had old school teachers who were born in Europe who have really skirted that line. As a student I complained about one such piano teacher to my parents. I got switched to a gentler American teacher. More comfortable, but I think I would have learned more from the stern European. On the other hand I had a great stern Argentine Spanish teacher in 5th grade. I learned a lot from him but other kids complained about him for being “mean” and he got fired (this was a private school). American norms have shifted so that what was once “stern” is now seen as “abusive”. This is probably a good thing on the whole. But I think the norms may have shifted too far in the direction of warm and fuzzy, and to the extent that the “no excuses” schools are trying to rehabilitate sternness, I think they may be doing our culture some good. We should not go back to the era of tyrannical nuns; we need to steer the course between that Scylla and the Charybdis of touchy-feely hippie schools.
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Here is the problem:
A public school teacher can be stern and even horrible but it isn’t purposely designed to get the children out of her class.
A charter school teacher who does this is rewarded because the more she humiliates a child, the more likely it is that the child’s parents will pull them from the school. That’s why she can be so fawning over the easy to teach children of those middle class parents in the video whose children perform at grade level with no great teaching needed. But if a child struggles academically, it’s far more profitable for her school — and Eva Moskowitz herself — to do everything to humiliate that child so he is gone.
That’s why Eva Moskowitz keeps claiming that over 20% of the 5 and 6 year olds in some of her school are violent. How long before a child struggling academically is humiliated enough to act out? Of course they are violent. They are treated like what we witness in the video by the “exemplar” teacher who is promoted to train other teachers in her “best practices”.
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“How long before a child struggling academically is humiliated enough to act out?”
Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwfYa-krjHc
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The idea that this was calculated to drive the kid out of school did not occur to me. I wouldn’t be surprised. If so, very slimy. Another thing that troubles me is that Dial’s application of pressure is designed to goose up the almighty test scores, which does not necessarily equate to meaningful learning. Amy Chua pressured her kids so they’d ace a Brahms violin concerto. Dial is pressuring her kids so they’ll ace a crappy Pearson test. The benefit of the resulting scores probably accrues to the teacher more than the students.
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Putting pressure on your children to do their best is something parents do — it can be both a good thing and a bad thing. But the motivation is always the same – your child will be your child his entire life and you believe you are doing what is best. Whatever the outcome, the child is still yours and you will be there for him.
The kind of public shaming we watched in the video is not done by parents committed to that child for the long term. Success Academy has no incentive to teach a low-performing child if they can use public humiliation and shaming to encourage them to leave. I blame the SUNY Charter Institute for that because they keep rewarding the charter schools for test results and ignore the fact that so many of the students leave. When was the last time you heard SUNY even wonder about why so many students leave Success Academy schools? Never. As long as the remaining students get good results, that’s all that matters.
Is this a “calculated” method to get the child out of there? I’m sure that the teacher would deny it. But this school gave out of school suspensions to 14% of the Kindergarten and first graders the last year that suspension rates were documented. 14% of the kids were supposedly acting out violently. How many times does an academically struggling kid get sent to the chair and had his paper torn up for “low performance” in first grade? At what point does that continuous public shaming lead a 6 year old to “act out” so that Eva Moskowitz can tell the public that she only suspends the most violent 6 year olds and she just finds so many of them in her schools? When the SUNY Charter Institute rewards charter schools who rid themselves of as many low-performing students as they financially can — and in Success Academy’s case, their huge donations make that very easy — then this is the result. This is not the fault of that poor, misguided teacher who has spent 3 or 4 years rising through the ranks because she was doing exactly what was needed to get the kids who won’t do well to leave. It’s not even the fault of Eva Moskowitz, who is rewarded for high scores by a so-called “oversight agency” who happily looks the other way at attrition and outrageously high suspension rates of 5 and 6 year old children. It is the fault of the SUNY Charter Institute for incentivizing this behavior. And if anyone should be publicly shamed, it is every person on their board and Susan Miller Barker, who have adamantly refused to look closely at why one charter network somehow achieves results that no other charter school in the city can come close to matching. Despite the high suspension and attrition rates of 5 and 6 year old children being right in front of their eyes for MANY years.
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NYC Public School Parent, I agree 100% with your assessment of blame here. The SUNY CSI does not appear to consider attrition and suspensions at all in its approval and renewal protocols. Test scores trump everything. What’s needed is for the Legislature to pass new regulations requiring that these so-called public schools abide by the same rules as true public schools.
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It is not just that the SUNY Charter Institute does not consider attrition. It deliberately avoids looking at whether high performing charter schools have high attrition rates and empty seats as a results. At the October 2014 meeting a group of public school parents submitted documented evidence to them that there were empty seats in many schools when Success was claiming such long wait lists. SUNY laughed it off and their “oversight” consisted of “we asked Eva and she said there was just a glitch”. Kind of like “we asked Eva and she says she has so many violent 5 year olds what else can she do but suspend them?” It’s pretty appalling and instead of this little girl being shamed, I wish the people at SUNY Charter Institute were publicly shamed for enabling these practices to continue and become worse and worse. Obviously, once Success Academy saw that SUNY would reward them more if getting rid of these low-performing kids led to higher test scores, the more they started building it into their “best practices”. That is why it is their MODEL teachers and MODEL principals who are doing this and not the new and ignorant ones. It’s what makes them model employees at Success Academy! And if the SUNY Charter Institute had put a stop to it years ago, maybe the SA schools might have had my support on their merits. The fact that they used dishonesty to expand makes us all doubt there is anything there but shaming the kids they don’t want into leaving so their leaders can promote themselves as having discovered the solution to failing schools.
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Somebody help me. The same way Hillary suddenly claims to be wanting to tax the rich; suddenly starts waving her arms around and being grumpy and talking about helping the middle class…you know, being “progressive”; there are times I wonder if people really, really believe and/or feel the things they come up with- or if it is just the smartest thing for them to be on the record as having said. Does Eva really believe the vendetta thing, and that “re-imaging public education” thing? Or, does she really know that hers is only a market option that will do a job and/or serve a population that will serve that market-ignoring children that the real heroes in education will be left to serve?
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“Success Academy has no incentive to teach a low-performing child if they can use public humiliation and shaming to encourage them to leave. I blame the SUNY Charter Institute for that because they keep rewarding the charter schools for test results and ignore the fact that so many of the students leave.”
Thank you for saying this. This is exactly what we see here!
Dial had no momentary lapse in patience. She was deliberately following unspoken SA policy; target kids who will not provide the test scores Eva demands.
Targeting includes humiliation, frequent demerits for the ridiculous — like not having both feet on the floor and eyes not fixed on the teacher –, and out-of-school suspensions. This is all to make it clear to the parent that they need to pull out their children.
These children who were put on the ‘Got to Go List’.
I am not surprised they put a big emphasis on winnowing out first graders. They are very vulnerable and easy to make miserable and SA wants to get the lower scoring test takers out of he way and try again quickly.
But who in NYC Charter Authorization Boards cares about the children? There should be an investigation of SA and its discipline methods and attrition rates.
Wonder if Dial gets a bonus based on her winnowing out of first graders?
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Btw, Eva protests so very much because she knows the truth is finally getting out. She is pushing every sort of silly argument she can to confuse people and distract from the truth. Her PR firm seems to be doing a great job at crisis control. .
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For now . . . .
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The woman was a model teacher in your school system, Eva. I’ve been teaching for 22+ years in the NYCDOE. You will never, ever, ever find a model teacher who treats his or her students like that in the NYCDOE.
Never.
And if video footage like that DID come out of any teacher in the NYCDOE, he/she would first be sent to the rubber room and then, should the principal know his or her job, would end up being fired. Tenured or not. It’s called due process and it’s what tenure grants us.
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This episode, like those previous involving Eva Moskowitz and the guiding philosophy, though I hesitate to even use philosophy to describe what is more of a mission statement in the business model of Success Academy, reminds me of the central theme in Alice Miller’s “For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence”. In this case, it is the actions of Success Academy that is the deliberate source of the not-so-hidden cruelty. How could it possibly be for their own good that these little children are humiliated, belittled and shamed?
Call it what you will, it is abuse. Why it has been tolerated for so long and continues to be is a mystery to me. It is my hope that these revelations will open the door and shed light on these practices and eventually put an end to them. The children being abused deserve no less.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
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+1
And I think we know why it’s been tolerated for so long:
$$$
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Ah – you are probably right!
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“We must not allow the haters to bully us or stop us from re-imagining public education,”
Let’s face it, we are haters. But it’s very effective: it gets to Eva. It’s not exactly uncommon that a teacher is proud of her tough teaching methods, but then has a hard time dealing with a “lack of love” from adults.
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So sad, so glad! They finally got her number! Teacher should be fired and arrested for child abuse! A REAL NYC PUBLIC Ed teacher would NEVER get away with that kind of behavior. What is done in the dark… Comes out in the light! Dr. Sherylyn B. Bailey
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Wireless video cameras that save what’s filmed, as it is recorded, on the cloud must be installed in every hallway and classroom in all Success Academy corporate charter schools and those videos should be transparent and open to the public to view at any time they feel without restriction through You Tube. Open access. If Eva has nothing to hide there is no reason to be so secretive and defensive. But she does have something to hide. Even she knows that the vast majority of Americans would go cannibalistic if they witnessed what was going on inside her autocratic, gulag style, for-profit (no matter how you look at it) schools.
The 99% does not think the same as the 1%.
Who should have more say in how the U.S. is managed—almost 316 million Americans or 3.1 million who earn the most money?
The richest 1% think different than the rest of us, and of course, they have managed to fool some of the 99% or they wouldn’t be able to subvert democracy as easily as they are doing.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/08/27/yes-the-rich-are-different/
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Once again it’s back to the concept of getting tax dollars and free public space but not wanting to follow the same rules as the rest of us play by.
We have cameras in every public school in NYC. Everywhere but the class and bathrooms. We are audited. We are held accountable for everything from how we teach to the spacing of the work on our bulletin boards.
It’s like Bloomberg never left. If you’ve got the bucks to back you up, you can get away with anything.
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Semantics; but “hate” is a drastic option in my world, Mate.
Hate puts an end to communication and, in my experience, puts a cap on being open to analysis and balance of the facts and how they apply to different situations.
Sounds like Spock…but I, personally, don’t hate anybody. At this point, at least. I have before…but not in this arena.
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Well, if the teacher would rip apart my daughter’s work, it wouldn’t be love I’d feel. 🙂
According to one of the definitions in the urban dictionary, I think many would accept the term:
“to hate somethings is good. i hate poverty, war, and bad shit like that. just try to have some morals, people.”
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Ok…I’ll buy that definition. Thanks, Mate.
🙂
The one I was thinking of goes a couple of steps further. I’d definitely be furious at that teacher. No doubt.
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It is important for parents to understand that this is the SA and other charters’ business model — simply put, it is to abusively target kids and get rid of those whose test scores may be low. This should be investigated by the attorney general.
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I agree with you on this, Mary, and I think it’s also a matter of simply taking things too far.
Testing is the number one priority of SA (and other charter chains). They’ve bought in, 110% to the Gates/corporate model of education…for now, at least (let’s see what they think of “Personalized Learning”. *Ugh*). So they’re definitely going to want to weed out the weeds.
It’s still terrible even when you take testing out of the equation, though. I can understand the concept of wanting to keep disruption at a minimum in a classroom. All it takes is just one troubled kid to make the teaching/learning process so much more difficult. It’s understandable that a school would want to have the optimal learning environment.
But this wasn’t a “troubled kid”. This was a little child who didn’t understand the material, yet. She needed some attention…and unfortunately, she got it.
Then we get to the question of what really IS an optimal learning environment. Plenty of room for debate there.
If SA wants to exclude the “weeds”, they should do it in a respectful manner (put an end to the child abuse), drop the pretense of being a public school, and advertise themselves as a private school chain, being transparent about what their methods are. With the tremendous financial backing that they receive, it would be easy enough to create scholarship programs for the families who can’t afford the tuition.
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gitapik, you said “all it takes is just one troubled kid to make the teaching/learning process so much more difficult……but this wasn’t a ‘troubled kid'”
In fact, the child we saw wasn’t a “troubled kid” YET. But humiliated and punishing a child for not performing academically is a sure fire method for eventually getting him to act out. And then you can suspend him.
That’s why this video was so revealing. Eva Moskowitz keeps claiming that over 20% of some Success Academy schools’ 5 and 6 year olds are violent. Now we all understand how so many children get to be violent at Success Academy schools. Target them until they act out. Is it intentional, or just a by-product of their so called “secret sauce”? I have to say intentional, because if it wasn’t, someone at the school would be trying to figure out a way to end it, instead of Eva Moskowitz simply implying all those 5 year olds came into her school as violent thugs so she can continue these “model teacher” practices non-stop.
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No arguments there. It’s bad news.
But there’s a reason why parents want their kids to go there. They want an alternative to the violent schools that are in their districts. It’s just such a shame that SA is that alternative and it’s gotten all the glowing reviews that money can buy to the exclusion of what we’re seeing in this instance. There’s obviously more than meets the eye.
Yes, they score well on the tests. But education is about so much more than preparing for and taking continuous testing.
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“She added that if a similar video came from a public school, the Times would have ignored it.”
That’s ridiculous. The Times would eat it up. They’re no friend to public education.
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If the video had been of a public school teacher, the Times would have printed it for sure. I guess Ms M does not read the Times unless it is about her. The thing is the NYC district would have been sued and the teacher would be sent to sit at the board office until fired.
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