Alan Singer, professor at Hofstra University in New York, wrote a column in the Huffington Post calling for the closure of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain.
He writes:
This is about a charter school network that systematically terrorizes young children to maintain total control over their behavior. This is about the Success Academy Charter School Network that should be investigated by state educational officials and the local district attorney’s office and probably shut down — permanently….
What stands out for me as I watched the video is the other children. It is a first-grade class. The children are probably six-years-old and all appear to be children of color, either African-American or Latino. During the math lesson while this little girl is being berated by the teacher, who is White, twelve children are seen sitting attentively, backs upright, hands folded in their laps, in a tight circle. Every child is in uniform. They do not smile or giggle. They are not allowed slouch. They are not allowed to squirm. They are not allowed to be children. They are terrorized into obedience fearful of being the next child targeted by a White authority figure.
The teacher, shown in the video, is what Success Academy considers a model teacher. Not only does she teach first-grade students, but she mentors other teachers in the Cobble Hill, Brooklyn school. After the incident surfaced, the teacher was suspended temporarily, but was returned to the classroom and her role as a mentor in less than two weeks. Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz dismissed the teacher’s behavior in the video as an “anomaly.”
Like many Success Academy personnel, this teacher has questionable teaching credentials. She is a 2009 graduate of Butler University in Indiana with a degree in sociology and political science, but without teacher certification. [CORRECTION: Reader David Kennedy says the teacher has a master’s degree in early childhood education, which means she should know that humiliating a child in front of her peers is inappropriate.] Online, including Success Academy webpages, I found no reference to how she was trained as a teacher.
Meanwhile, Chalkbeat NY reports that Eva Moskowitz convened a press conference, where she defended the teacher in the video and held a sign that says:
“New York Times:
#stopbashingteachers.”
“I’m tired of apologizing,” Moskowitz said at a press conference. Calling the video “an unfortunate moment,” she said, “Frustration is a human emotion. When you care about your students so much … and you want them to go to college and graduate, it can be frustrating.”
In the comments that followed the article, one commenter pointed out (like Singer) that the teacher who humiliated the first-grader was not certified. This, the writer said, was more evidence that charter schools are not public schools. Teachers in public schools must be certified.
I can’t help but wonder what the billionaires who fund Success Academy think of the bad press the charter chain has gotten recently. They created the group called “Families for Excellent Schools” to demand unlimited, free public space for charter schools, despite the overflowing coffers of Success Academy. They are now in Boston lobbying to lift the cap on charters in Massachusetts. What is it about the rigid discipline in SA charters that appeals to them. Is it the spirit of colonialism, masked as benevolence?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The teacher in the Success Academy video was “trained” by TFA
Is this a fact or something your suggesting?
TFA “trained” or not, New York State allows charters to hire individuals who do not hold certification, up to 30%. PUBLIC schools in NYS do not have that option. In looking at stats on the NYSED website, I’ve also noticed that it seems charters more so than public schools have certified teachers teaching out of their certification area.
I too was horrified by the “stepford” like behavior of the students in that classroom. I’m sure that silicon valley execs would never allow their children to educated in such an austere environment.
I don’t know that quiet, orderly and compliant would be so unusual in the classrooms serving the children of executives/the wealthy- but demeaning children to create that productive environment would not be part of the program. If it’s true that the teacher in this video mentors others, then that would be a sad testament to the probability that training the “teachers” and the children like service dogs is efficiency priority #1, and the hope is that high test scores will result from this mechanical approach to humans-thereby validating the gift Eva brings to the poor children of poor people who mange to fit the mold of S.A.. How many children have been pressured, or counseled out? How many have not been allowed in? Priority #2 is selling this as “choice”, and being dismissive and indignant in the face of criticisms and questions.
“I don’t know that quiet, orderly and compliant would be so unusual in the classrooms serving the children of executives/the wealthy….”
Children of the wealthy go to progressive schools like Lab, Sidwell Friends, Lakeside, etc. where children are treated like human beings and their developmental capabilities are taken into account. Furthermore, children of the wealthy aren’t trained for obedience, since they are eventually going to be the ones to be obeyed, not the ones to do the obeying. I think it would be very unusual to see children of the wealthy sitting so stock still, straight-backed, not fidgeting.
The following is from the Wikipedia entry about “cultural capital” and speaks, I think, to the question about the treatment of children. I’ve changed nothing in the entry except quote marks from double to single. It’s a long post, but check out the material under 3, 4, and 5. “John Taylor Gatto writes a piece in Harper’s issue in 2003, Against School. Gatto addresses issues over education in modern schooling as a retired school teacher. The relation of cultural capital can be linked to Alexander Inglis’s 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, which makes clear how modern American schooling is now what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s. The objective was to divide children into sections by distributing children into subjects by age groups and common test scores. Inglis introduces six basic functions for modern schooling. Functions three four and five are most related to cultural capital because they describe the manner in which schooling enforces children’s cultural capital from a young age. Below are functions three to five from Gatto’s issue: 3. The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. 4. The differentiating function. Once their social role has been ‘diagnosed,’ children are to be sorted by role and trained only as far as their destination in the social machine merits—and not one step further. 5. The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin’s theory of natural selection as applied to what he called ‘the favored races.’ In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempt to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit—with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That’s what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: ‘it was the dirt down the drain.’ These three functions are directly related to cultural capital because through schooling children are discriminated by social class and cognitively placed into the destination that will make them fit to sustain that social role as they grow. They will be led down the path into the class they will belong to and during the fifth function will be directly undesirable to the more privileged set of children and be even furthermore pushed down the ladder.”
paullauter: thank you for the relevant info.
😎
Hedge funder, who also bankrolls Cuomo, Daniel Loeb is on the SA board and major funder of FFES. He thinks these schools are “most excellent.” As he put it to me, they teach them how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, etc. Not extraordinary coming from a man who grew up with a silver spoon.
FYI – Danny graduated from Palisades High School (’79) along with Michelle King, now Supt. of LAUSD, and me, a lowly middle school teacher.
Class reunions are always interesting.
I wonder if Moskowitz would be willing to have her own children or grandchildren educated in her schools.
Yes, her younger children attend Success Academy. Read the bio of Eva on Wilkipedia and you will see quotes from her dismissing half the teachers of Stuyvesant High School as not fit to teach because she was bored when attending. She criticizes her college education as inadequate.
Clearly Eva has issues with education that is not painful and does not produce suffering. This Type A attitude may define her world’s idea of success but it has nothing to do with mine or millions like me. I’ve taught first graders for a long, long time and the behavior of those little ones in the video is not normal, natural, or healthy for 6 year olds.
Eva’s idea of hyper-focused, ridiculously difficult education is not about educating everyone’s children. It’s about winnowing out the lesser failures to make way for her super race of those who can survive her boot camp schools.
It is an ugly and violent future that we have seen before many times in the 20th century. We should be frightened and we should stop this now.
I’ve followed Success Academy from afar from a while now.
Back in fall 2011, I distinctly recall a 20-something Success Academy teacher—recently promoted to assistant principal—who was trotted out as a “show pony” of sorts in multiple venues. These included:
— NBC’s teacher-bashing, pro-privatization EDUCATION NATION week of specials;
— Steve Brill’s book CLASS WARFARE,
and
— the pro-charter propaganda doc THE LOTTERY.
Her name was/is Jessica Reid (now known by her married name, Jessica Reid-Sliwerski). Ms. Reid was Eva’s (and others’) prototype of the selfless, young go-getter charter teacher who needed no union to protect her — and she was contrasted with those lazy, half-assed, unionized veteran teachers. My recollection is that this thin blonde beauty came off a little stiff and unconvincing—methought the lady doth protested too much—but, like Campbell Brown, attractive and telegenic for the purposes of corporate reformers.
Well, Ms. Reid’s involvement in pro-charter, anti-union propaganda kind of blew up in the corporate reformers’ faces when Ms. Reid announced that she was quitting SUCCESS ACADEMY, claiming that working for Eva was ruining her marriage, and driving her to a nervous breakdown.
Whoops! Maybe Reid-Sliwerski needed a union more than she thought.
Jessica she ended up teaching in the NYC’s traditional and unionized public schools, where she became—horror of horrors!!!—a teachers’ union member… but I’m not sure.
UPDATE:
My memory served me well… Yes, Ms. Reid DID go to work for the traditional public schools. Here’s an excerpt from an article in THE NATION:
http://www.thenation.com/article/162695/can-teachers-alone-overcome-poverty-steven-brill-thinks-so#
— – – – – – – – – –
“One of (Steve Brill’s) CLASS WARFARE’s stars, a charter school assistant principal named Jessica Reid, unexpectedly quits her job at Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Academy in the middle of the school year; the charter chain’s rigorous demands pushed the 28-year-old Reid, a dedicated and charismatic educator, to the brink of a nervous breakdown and divorce.
“ ‘This wasn’t a sustainable life, in terms of my health and my marriage,’ she tells Brill, who concludes that he agrees (at least in part) with education historian and charter school critic Diane Ravitch. You can’t staff a national public school system of 3.2 million teachers, Ravitch tells Brill, with Ivy Leaguers willing to run themselves ragged for two years.
“Most of these folks won’t MOVE ON TO JOBS AT THE TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS, AS THE UNCOMMONLY COMMITTED JESSICA REID DID, but will simply leave the classroom altogether and head to politics, business or law, where they’ll be paid more to do prestigious work, often with shorter, less pressure-filled hours.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Eva’s loss was the public schools’—and their students’—gain.
Just to see how cult-like Success Academy is, compare BEFORE & AFTER with Ms. Reid (whose now known by her hyphenated married name, Jessica Reid-Sliwerski)
————————————————–
Jonestown-Era Jessica Reid (when she was with Success Academy):
Here’s that incarnation, where she’s exploited by Steve Brill and used Eva Moskowitz’ as show pony” at NBC’s Education Nation:
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/39406379#39406379
STEVE BRILL: “Jessica Reid is here …
— (JESSICA stands up, smiles and waves)
” … who is what’s called a ‘Leadership Resident” at the Harlem Success Academy, and we’re going to talk to her in a minute. She spends here day really as an assistant principal of sorts, going around and observing and advising the classrooms that are under her supervision.”
Later, on cue, Brill has Reid trash the public school system’s alleged lack of teacher supervision with Success Academy’s intense monitoring
( 19:19 – )
JESSICA REID: “So I spend all day, every day, in my teachers’ classrooms giving feedback, giving real-time feedback to make sure that they’re actually implementing their feedback. ”
Can you say Stockholm Syndrome?
Here’s more Jonestown-Era Jessica Reid, from the propaganda movie THE LOTTERY, funded by the charter school industry
( 01:31 –
( 01:31 –
JESSICA REID: “(At SUCCESS ACADEMY) we don’t make excuses like ‘Oh, well, his mom’s a drug addict. His mom works two jobs.’ ”
The implication, of course, is that the adults working at traditional public schools do go around making those excuses. Again, she’s reading right from Eva’s script.
——————
NOW COMPARE THAT TO …
Post-Jonestown-Era Jessica Reid. (after leaving Success Academy to work at the traditional public schools):
JUST LAST WEEK:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/nyc-charter-school-hit-with-criticism-after-video-of-teacher-berating-student-spreads-online/
———————————————
From the New York Times:
——————————————-
NEW YORK TIMES:
“Jessica Reid Sliwerski, 34, worked at Success Academy Harlem 1 and Success Academy Harlem 2 from 2008 to 2011, first as a teacher and then as an assistant principal. She said that, starting in third grade, when children begin taking the state exams, embarrassing or belittling children for work seen as slipshod was a regular occurrence, and in some cases encouraged by network leaders.
“It’s this culture of, ‘If you’ve made them cry, you’ve succeeded in getting your point across.”
One day, she said, she found herself taking a toy away from a boy who was playing with it in class, and then smashing it underfoot. Shortly after, she resigned.
“I felt sick about the teacher I had become, and I no longer wanted to be part of an organization where adults could so easily demean children under the guise of ‘achievement,’ ” said Ms. Sliwerski, who subsequently worked as an instructional coach in Department of Education schools.
——————————————-
Like a cult, you have to leave Success Academy to get a real perspective on what’s really going on there.
Check out these comments from dozens of former Success Academy teachers:
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2014/08/citizen-jacks-compendium-of-teacher.html
Here’s a taste from that link… from FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER NO. 3
———–
FORMER SUCCESS ACADEMY TEACHER NO. 3:
1 * STAR (out of 5)
“Toxic Enviorment, Developmentally Inappropriate Abusive Culture of Fear ”
CON’s: “Worked for one of the highest performing schools in the network in the Bronx.
“— Entire school focused on remaining at top of network schools assessment wise while pushing students in completely developmentally inappropriate and emotionally ABUSIVE ways.
” — When I brought up to Eva and the network that research disagrees with practices at my location, I was told the network didn’t know what they were talking abou … haven’t I seen our top assessment scores? … and that my primary responsibility was to make sure my classroom assessment data was up.
” — Teachers openly MOCKED 6 year-olds with learning disabilities, telling them they would see them in the same grade again next year because they were neither smart nor hard working, and hopefully would not be in their student again — in front of the entire classroom.
” — Left work every day feeling angry at the school until I left permanently.”
ADVICE to Management:
“Teacher culture needs to be totally reformed-
— experienced total lack of professionalism by newer teachers in front of children we were meant to be models for.”
Does NOT Recommend — Negative Outlook – No Opinion of CEO
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
What’s more alarming is that parents allow these I credentialed non teachers bully their kids in charters but would be outraged and suing in public schools. No, however you spin it, charters are not public schools. Parents better get involved, the very thing they think is good about charters is harming their children.
Here’s Eva’s full press conference responding the the Charlotte Dial abuse video…
… or as I like to call it …
“32 Minutes in Jonestown”
From the ridiculous pep rally-style cheering that accompanies Eva’s entrance… through the entire orchestrated event, a cult expert would have a field day with this, picking out all the red flags. When you consider the video to which Eva & her ilk are responding here — and their defiance to and dismissal of the resulting criticism — this is truly scary stuff.
AND THEY’RE CURRENTLY DEMANDING AND LOBBYING TO BE GIVEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO OPEN SUCCESS ACADEMY PRE-K CLASSES ???!!!!
Pre-K…. We’re talking 4 year-olds left to the mercy of the Charlotte Dial’s at Success Academy!!!
Unlike the other charter operators who are signing on to cooperation agreements, EVA IS REFUSING TO SIGN ANY CONTRACT THAT GIVES THE CITY Dept, of Ed. ANY OVERSIGHT OF HER PRE-K SCHOOLS, or that demands her schools are in any way even slightly transparent to the people whose taxes will fund these SUCCESS ACADEMY Pre-K classes.
Yeah, I’d want my kid to attend Success Academy Pre-K … NOT!!!
This was bad timing, to be sure.
Here’s the video:
For a comparison, here’s the doomed Congressman Leo Ryan getting that same cheering from the Jim Jones’ cult followers in Jonestown:
( 00:39 – )
( 00:39 – )
LEO RYAN: “There are people where who think that this is the best thing that ever happened in their whole lives.”
THUNDEROUS CHEERING
———————————–
What some people don’t remember about Jonestown was that Harvey Milk was a huge (and sadly misguided) backer of Jonestown and Jim Jones. Just before his own demise, Milk even attacked the San Francisco media’s detailed exposes of what was going on on Jim Jones’ People’s Temple as … you guessed it … a witch hunt against people who were just trying to do good for the world.
People today have also been played for chumps in a similar fashion by Eva and her PR leviathan.
It’s time for them all to wake up.
After this press conference ABOVE, the NY Times Meto Editor blasted back:
“I reject Eva Moskowitz’s criticIsm of the Times coverage.”
— from WashPost Erik Wemple’s blog:
——————————————————————
ERIK WEMPLE:
Wendell Jamieson, the New York Times’s Metro editor, isn’t in a ground-yielding mood. “I reject Eva Moskowitz’s criticism of our coverage,” he says in a chat with the Erik Wemple Blog. In October, Taylor stung Success with a story about a “Got to Go” list of students one of the schools. According to the story, “school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.”
Nor does the school’s talk of anomalies and bad days impress Jamieson. “It seems impossible to me that the one time she did it there was a video camera there,” he says. Speaking of the students assembled in the classroom, Jamieson continued, “You can see a sort of in their body language an accepting that this is the way they are treated.”
Even if it is an exception: “These are first graders. You can’t have a bad day like that with a 1st grader — I don’t care,” says the Metro editor. As the father of an elementary school girl, the Erik Wemple Blog endorses the no-abusive-eruptions-ever school of pedagogy.
Kiah Hufane, a Success Academy principal, said this at the press conference: “As a human, who does incredibly hard work, I do believe that what was published was a clip of a teacher at her absolute worst moment. Just think about that. This woman had her worst moment recorded and published for the world to see,” she said.
Much more video would be required to ascertain that Dial was having her “absolute worst moment.”
I am watching the parents at Success Academy on this video. The parents are truly offensive. There is a parent who claims that the so-called terrible public school told them their child was gifted and Success Academy said she needed to repeat a year. Ironically, it’s obviously the child WAS gifted! The ignorant teachers at Success Academy didn’t even recognize it and so she was eventually “skipped” – I guess to get her back to where she should have been.
“I have never witnessed a teacher mistreating a scholar” — “my child is treated nicely so despite a video showing the abuse and humiliation that OTHER kids get, my kids are getting a “quality” education and that is ALL that matter.”
I understand that parents whose kids do well academically are fawned over. How about a little sympathy for the OTHER children? The ones who so often disappear from your child’s class. Can’t a single parent at Success Academy muster an ounce of sympathy for them?
And the most offensive is their claim that they like the “discipline” – they discipline children for not knowing the answer. Just because your child knows the answers does not make it okay. I wish those parents cared about more than their own children.
Jack, is this really the FULL press conference? Because it seems to be a dog and pony show — a press conference generally involves answering questions from the press! Did that ever happen?
Another truly offensive thing is that the Success Academy teachers and parents accuse their critics of “not believing” that children of color can achieve academically. In fact, it is Success Academy itself and all those people who spoke at the press conference who seem to believe that children of color cannot achieve academically unless they are treated like prisoners.
The rest of us believe that most of the students that they allow to remain because they easily work at average or above average grade level would do fine in any public school that didn’t treat them like prisoners. It is certainly racist to think that the Success Academy humiliation and discipline tactics are necessary for these kids to learn, since no one would ever say that about a group of affluent white children.
Anyone notice that all the adults shown have also “assumed the posture” required at SA?
I should apologize for calling the Success Academy parents who spoke “offensive”. I understand that they are just expressing the fact that their own children are treated very differently than this child so why wouldn’t they like the school? It’s just hard to imagine watching the video — where a 6 year old girl is punished and humiliated for not knowing an answer — as a parent and not expressing concern that the other children didn’t even act as if it was a big deal. The measure of a great school should be how it treats the most struggling children, not how it treats the ones who shine academically. And this video – along with the high suspension rates Success Academy gives to the very youngest children – seems to suggest that we are long overdue for a close look at how Success Academy treats the children who don’t shine.
NYC Parent,
You’re right. This video was shot and edited by Success Academy, so consider that when watching it. There’s stuff that was cut out.
For example, there’s one great moment that’s missing from the press conference video above.
Kate Taylor, the reporter who has been trying to call attention to the abuses at Success Academy, asked Eva whether or not the little girl from the video, the one being screamed at by Charlotte Dial, still attends Success Academy.
Eva’s response… gee, I don’t know… can I get back to you on that?
Taylor follows up … You don’t know? Seriously? This is a national story, you’ve got a multi-million-dollar PR campaign to deal with it… but you claim you’re clueless about whether or not she still attends a SUCCESS ACADEMY SCHOOL?
Eva responded to Taylor, “Could you not be snarky?”
http://gothamist.com/2016/02/13/success_academy_accuses_ny_times_of.php
——————
GOTHAMIST.COM:
When Taylor herself asked Moskowitz to confirm whether the girl singled out in the video still attends Success Academy Cobble Hill, the charter head declined to provide the information for the crowd.
“We’re going to get you that information, we just want to make sure it’s accurate,” she said.
When Taylor pressed for more information, Moskowitz replied, “Could you not be snarky?”
What troubled me was that the teacher’s behavior modeled how to be a bully, how to shame, how to use your words to be cruel, how to exclude and shun. Every child witnessing that horrible incident was damaged. The “lesson” learned was this: when you see one of your peers treated meanly in a public setting, sit quietly, hands folded. Do you suppose any child would dare to comfort, or share with, or help, or be friends with a child identified by the teacher (authority figure) as “bad?”
I happened to be catching up on reading last night and was looking at Jill Lepore’s excellent article about child abuse (“Baby Doe” in the February 1 New Yorker). The parallels between our country’s historic reaction to child abuse and our repeated grasping for unproven fads meant to “reform” education are disturbing. Maybe that article was already mentioned here on the blog and I missed it? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/01/baby-doe
Instead of taking on what really needs to be done to protect and educate our society’s children, ineffective (though headline grabbing) reform ideas routinely pop up. Predictably, the schemes are adopted then end up failing. Meanwhile, politics and power as usual win out again and again over our kids.
Lepore details the “newest regime in children protection”, the “quantitative analysis of risk”. Yup, data collection and lots of it. That idea sure sounds familiar to anyone who works in a public school these days.
Though, as Lepore concludes, “….for all the knowledge gained, the medicalization of misery is yet another way to avoid talking about impoverishment, destitution and inequality.” If only we’d take on the real, root causes of the harm being done to our children.
Sometimes I sit and wonder how a wrong-headed, nasty woman like Eva Moskowitz can get away with what she’s doing? Or, how an arrogant creep like John B. King, a man proven to be an ineffective leader, is nominated to be U.S. Secretary of Education?
But then I think, my God, look how our nation leaves so many children living in poverty, or much worse, going to bed every night fearing for their lives.
No wonder so many of the powerful and rich could care less about who really leads our nation, our schools. THEIR train just keeps on running and the same poor people are stuck on the tracks -year after year after year.
I knew someone who used to work for Children and Youth. It was in neighboring Pennsylvania, in one of the most conservative, “red” counties in the state. It’s a beautiful, rural county and if you drove through it you might be tempted to say, now here is the America that people dream of. Small towns, plenty of pretty churches, friendly people.
But the harrowing stories I heard of child abuse going on under the surface of that peaceful county were nightmarish. My friend had one hell of a tough job. When I thought I was having a bad day teaching social studies, I’d think about what she was going through, for example, approaching a ramshackle house deep in the woods, a state trooper walking beside her for protection. I was glad to be standing inside a warm, well lit classroom.
It’s about time that Eva Moskowitz and her ilk are fully exposed for what they are: pathetic though dangerous puppets. But the real question is, does our country have the moral backbone to do anything about what we now see? Can we give our children the help they really need?
I just think it’s great that the NYTimes is treating Moskowitz as they would a public employee.
She is a public employee. Self-appointed, but that shouldn’t matter.
I have no idea who runs the charter chains in Ohio. Their names are never revealed even when there’s a scandal. Instead we get commentary from spokespeople for national charter lobbying groups and vague statements from “authorizers” who speak as entities, not individuals.
Just a reminder: Moskowitz gets access to lawmakers that your public school superintendent doesn’t get. She isn’t just running this charter chain. She’s considered an expert on all public schools by Congress and governors. That’s how she presents herself nationally- as reinventing US public schools.
The people we elect believe her schools are a good template for all middle and low income schools:
“She was also selected as a keynote speaker on education reform, along with Washington, D.C. chancellor Kaya Henderson, at a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, earlier this month for some powerful business leaders and politicians. She spoke before an audience that included New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who told the crowd charter school supporters would have to outspend teachers’ unions in order to defeat them. ”
When’s the last time your school superintendent was invited to mingle with “powerful business leaders and politicians” ? Ed reformers get exclusive and privileged access, which is probably why all our politicians sound like they’re parroting them.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/07/8549878/moskowitz-success-academy-could-be-national-model
There was a single line in Alan Singer’s column that resonated for me, and that was that the children “are not allowed to be children”.
There is physical abuse and neglect that is abusive, but to me, that children are not allowed to be children is a form of mental abuse that should neither be allowed nor tolerated but rather must be investigated for what it is and ended.
If children can be removed from an abusive family environment, why is there a double standard when the abuse occurs within an institution whose primary role should be to protect these vulnerable and impressionable children?
“children not allowed to be children”.
That’s by design, as Eva herself admitted in her “Ed Talk” at the Camp Philos corporate education reform retreat:
Reader Jack Covey watched Eva Moskowitz’s ED talk at Governor Cuomo’s Camp Philos retreat:
“Holy moley!
“I just watched a one-woman Eva Moskowitz’ horror show… starring Eva herself. It’s her six-minute “Ed Talk” (get it? rhymes with “Ted Talk”) at the 2014 Corporate Reform jamboree called “Camp Philos”:
She glowingly tells the story of Sidney — an eighth grade Success Academy student — while projecting her picture on a screen. (Did she get permission?)
“During Common Core testing, Sidney was in a life-threatening battle with sickle-cell anemia. Even at the most severe moment of crisis in her health, Sidney insisted on taking the entirety of that year’s Common Core testing. The adults around argued otherwise, because she had just had her infected spleen taken out that very day, “had lost a lot of weight,” and “was extremely cold and weak.” In the light of this, the principal informed Sidney that she was entitled to claim a “medical excuse” and delay taking the test.
“However, Sidney wouldn’t hear of it, and took the test.
“I want to get a 4,” Sidney replied, with Eva recounting these words with emotion.
Eva’s point?
( 02:10 – 03:03 )
( 02:10 – 03:03 )
“EVA MOSKOWITZ: “Children are incredibly resilient, and I would urge you to think about NOT treating children AS children… I think that we have underestimated in this country the pleasure that comes from achieving mastery, and from performance. In my experience, kids actually want to perform. The want to master. Sidney was a perfect example, even though she was in a life-threatening situation.”
Sweet Lord! What is WRONG with this woman?
Mr. Singer and Ms. Ravitch- she has a Masters in Early Childhood Education from George Mason University. Please edit the paragraph regarding her “questionable teaching credentials’ to reflect this. Thank you.
David Kennedy, I don’t know Ms. Dial’s credentials. Is she certified?
If that is true, all the more shame on her.
She doesn’t come up when I search the NY Sate teacher certification database (http://eservices.nysed.gov/teach/certhelp/CpPersonSearchExternal.do) so that would indicate she doesn’t have a NY State approved teaching certificate.
Ms. Dial has a Masters in Early Childhood Education. Please edit your paragraph regarding her ‘questionable teaching credentials’ to reflect this.
Her “Masters in Early Childhood Education” is not a certification, and remains, alas, a questionable teaching credential. Would you, by any chance, have any evidence that she holds a certification to reach? Or, perhaps, cite the name of the–reputable, I fervently hope–institution which conferred upon her the post-graduate degree she possesses?
markstextterminal- George Mason University…but do you really ‘fervently hope’?
I do not know her that well, so I’m unsure if she has a teaching certificate. Either way, I believe it is unfair to Ms. Dial to simply google her and assume she has ‘questionable teaching credentials’.
If she was certified in New York State, she would have had to respond to many of the questions in a completely opposite way in which she teaches. How hypocritical that New York requires potential teachers to exhibit mastery of best practices in childhood education on the licensing exams, but outwardly encourages this style of teaching in its pseudo “public schools.” In Quid Pro Cuomo country, money speaks louder than credentials.
” … a certification to reach?”
Mark, you sound like the dog Astro, from THE JETSONS cartoon.
(Baby Boomer reference)
Yeah, yeah… it was a typo. I know.
David Kennedy: I’m a classroom teacher who wants to work with well-trained, engaged and creative colleagues, so yes, I do fervently hope that teachers in the United States earn their credentials in reputable institutions–unlike the diploma mill from which I received my second masters degree.
In any case, a masters degree per se is not a teaching credential, so I stand by my question about this teacher’s bona fides.
Regardless Mark, the author of this blog should have done a better job investigating Ms. Dial’s credentials if he was going to dedicate an entire paragraph about it. I am not writing a response on this blog because I support Success Academy. Rather, I have an issue with the irresponsible reporting that is unfair to Ms. Dial and other teachers in charter schools.
Mr. Singer’s blog post has been read by thousands of people who now believe Ms. Dial has suspect credentials without any investigation. I take exception with the fact that since Ms. Dial works at Success it is immediately assumed she has suspect credentials after the author did a quick google search. Perhaps she doesn’t have her teaching certificate, I do not know. But it is irresponsible to just assume she does not.
I wonder what her professors at George Mason would say about her pedagogy? And certification means the state has deemed she is fit to teach; if she is not certified then it is a gamble akin to letting the guy down the street remove your gall bladder in his garage because he has an MA in biology. I looked at the George Mason coursework, syllabi, and programs. None advocate humiliating 6-year old children for faltering while answering a math question. The fact that she may have earned an advanced degree yet still does these abusive things makes her certification, credentialing, and education VERY suspect in my world, Mr. Kennedy.
Whatever this woman’s credentials, she should not be allowed to work with children, and that Moskowitz has her “teaching” other teachers (teaching what? how to shame and belittle children?) is clear evidence that Eva’s Plantation has got to go.
Well, charter hire a certain percentage of uncredentialed, uncertified, inexperienced teachers, don’t they? TFA hires uncertified, uncredentialed, inexperienced teachers and then confers bogus master’s degrees on them from weekend “studies” at the relay school. Heck, Eli Broad has a superintendent’s academy that is unaccredited and really nonsensical, and he gets his toads hired here and there, because he has bought the politicians. Give me a break. If this woman has a master’s degree in education, I’m shocked, shocked I say, to see her acting out in the video. I know teachers, real genuine teachers, who went to school and got their degrees in education and major subject, passed a Praxis or 2, got licensed and certified, and paid at real schools for master’s degrees. The whole nonsense of charters hiring less than licensed/certified, qualified teachers is the politics of the rich keeping the poor under thumb while extracting a return on their investments.
I could never defend Ms. Dial after seeing what she did; and it seems to me it wasn’t the first time. That Eva Moskowitz would DARE give her speech behind a banner that states STOP BASHING TEACHERS is hilarious and farcical. She is the queen of mean. That is her rhetoric and doublespeak at work. She would try to convince you night is day and black is white while trying to extract monies from your bank account. She is vile.
SA should be investigated, shut down and prosecuted for child abuse. What kind of atmosphere is this for learning? Hear is my take. http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2016/02/fear-and-learning-at-success-academy.html
I am a psychotherapist for 30 years. I despair at the thought that the moments of humiliation, cruelty, and labeling will be the moments that will impair the ability to trust and savor the opportunities and beauty in life. It feels like the adult who, in session, finally reveals the haunting memory of abuse. These children need help. Thank you. Z
To date, there is absolutely no evidence that Success Academy’s type of “no excuses” learning works for any child, but many journalists still report on this video as if these shaming methods are terrible and child abuse, but they do get “results”. But that is a lie that needs to be exposed over and over again.
I repeat – There is absolutely no evidence to support the notion that these methods work to do anything but get low-performing kids out of the school. Success Academy’s attrition data is hidden as if it was a state secret, but the little data that is available shows how many low-income students are either suspended into leaving, made miserable until they leave, or simply held back one, two, and sometimes threatened with a third year in order to get them to leave. How many of them weren’t high performers? We don’t know.
Why has there not been a single study of whether any students are actually served by this, or if the students who do well are simply the same students who would have done well in any public school. There is an inherent racism in this belief that no children of color would have succeeded had they not gone to Success Academy, yet even the failing schools almost always have students who work on grade level. The only “best practice” that seems to have worked for Success Academy is to gather those at-risk students with the most motivated parents and keep only the ones who would do well in public schools anyway. And then declare the network discovered a secret sauce!
There was a blog called “gradingatlanta” which Ms. Moskowitz and her defenders always use as if it was a real study of how much of an impact Success Academy had on students. It was nonsense and basically ignored attrition altogether. So the students that REMAIN until testing year (except for the ones who still in a lower grade because they had been held back a year or two) were compared against students who signed up for a lottery and weren’t chosen. It’s nonsense because the children who remain are the ones who haven’t been weeded out with methods like we saw in the video.
A pro-charter school organization – Democracy Builders – did a report that showed the shrinking number of SA students who were actually “proficient” when Eva Moskowitz was claiming GROWING proficiency rates as high as nearly 100%. Ms. Moskowitz wasn’t lying about that — it’s just that so many kids had disappeared from the testing cohort so her “100%” was technically true and just didn’t include all those kids who disappeared. Guess what? That report was ignored because most charter school operators are as terrified of criticizing Ms. Moskowitz as her teachers are.
If Ms. Moskowitz was really an educator who wanted to help children find better schools, she would be closely and publicly examining attrition rates of the 5 year olds who win her lottery to make sure she wasn’t just weeding out the struggling kids by 3rd or 4th grade. Maybe she has done that secretly and the results made her demand more and more schools in wealthy neighborhoods so she could get far more affluent students and hide how many at-risk kids are being weeded out of her schools. I can see no other reason for her desperation to hide attrition rates, and the huge amount of money she has spent lobbying for schools in wealthy neighborhoods and marketing to college-educated parents. And of course, she had to drop priority for low-income students for fear there would be too many of them and ruin her plan to lower her attrition rates by not having to teach as many at-risk kids.
Over three years ago, journalist Beth Fertig did a very limited look at attrition rates that looked only at a single year’s data over many grades in some Success Academy schools. It’s the kind of study Success Academy loves to quote, because it hides real attrition numbers. Instead of taking the starting Kindergarten class of lottery winning children and seeing how many stay until the testing years and make it to 3rd or 4th grade, you say “hey only 15% attrition at that school in one year”. But that “15% attrition rate” that year might be 30% of the starting K class (or 40%) and 5% of the students who are in the older grades who are the ones who remain plus the ones allowed to join the school in older grades because they have proved they already work at grade level. The ONLY way to look at whether these tactics that we saw in the video are teaching or weeding out methods are to see if the kids who enter in Kindergarten are actually making it to 3rd grade. My guess is that many — in fact, a huge percentage – of at-risk kids do not. Is it over 50%? Over 60%? For years now Success Academy has held itself up as the model of how every school should do it. It’s frightening that people have not even looked at the obvious — how many of those Kindergarteners actually stay at the school? If you can’t even teach 50% of the at-risk kids with the most motivated parents(!) how can you possibly know anything about how to address the needs of kids in failing schools. Success Academy has failed so many kids with their high drop out rate, but until we know exactly how many have been failed, the myth that demeaning and punishing a 5 and 6 year old actually works will continue to be spouted by ignorant folks.
NYC public school parent: thank you for your comments.
This reminds me of the Scott Schmerlson motion at the LAUSD BofE to just keep track of basic data that shows what’s really happening and make it available to the public.
Yet another reminder that when it comes to the most elementary procedures associated with “data analytics” that those pushing and mandating charters and privatization and such are not innovators but fabricators of self-serving numbers & stats.
Like so many other charter chain magnates and directors, Eva M could lead the way in providing transparency (fiscal and otherwise) and instead she opts out of being accountable and thus responsible.
And she is far from alone among the heavyweights and shot callers of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
😎
Based on my observations over the years, I’d call Beth Fertig a stenographer for so-called education reform, “brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”
She’s hardly a journalist.
KrazyTA, you are absolutely correct. The FIRST thing school reformers should be interested in is transparency and accountability. If your goal is to figure out what works, you need to figure out which kids are being served and which are not. You need to look closely at why students leave your school and – unless they are moving away – find out why your school didn’t work for them.
The last thing you would do is just ignore the kids who leave and still go around the country claiming you can educate all kids (except the most violent ones). Why would you make patently dishonest claims when you know you are starting with ONLY children of the most motivated parents who have signed a contract committing to all that is asked of them and you are STILL finding that so many of them leave?
My main problem with SA is how harmful that dishonesty is to ALL public education. How many politicians point to SA and say “hey, they are getting results with less money with the same kids, so we are going to cut funds for public education and the only reason those failing schools won’t get better is their crappy teachers”. That kind of dishonesty might work to help dismantle the power of the teachers’ union — which seems to be Ms. Moskowitz main goal — but is most certainly comes at the expense of millions of school children hurt. Those children will NEVER be the kind that SA wants in their schools.
I went to Catholic school in the ’70s. We wore uniforms, sat with our backs straight and our hands clasped on the desks. No one made a peep unless they were answering a question – and when you were called on, you stood up next to your desk, answered, and sat down.
It wasn’t so horrible. Our classrooms had 36 kids, and one teacher managed fine by herself. The teachers did not tolerate much – once I gasped “It’s snowing!” in second grade, causing a rush to the windows, and I was scolded for calling out. I put my head down and felt humiliated knowing that everyone knew I was crying….but that was all that happened to me in the 3 years I was there. I was SO far ahead of the public school kids when we moved for my 4th grade year….my first day, the kid next to me was sleeping with his head thrown back over his chair, and I wanted to shake him before the teacher came in, because I thought he was a dead man…but I was too afraid to unclasp my hands….so, there is a cost to that type of classroom management.
Some students may be able to cope with this type of shaming discipline. All students are not the same. Some sensitive students would be crushed by such methods, and this includes minorities. One size fits all is never a good policy, and shaming. insulting or bullying students was never part of my classroom management system. I always had rules, but never attacked a student’s self esteem. I mostly taught minority ELLs. Reserving these types of methods for poor minorities is racist.
Catholic schools are private schools, They charge tuition. The archdiocese and the parish pays teachers and maintains their own buildings. Success Academy receives public funding and is housed primarily within DOE buildings. I’m really tired of seeing people bring up Catholic schools in reference to Success Academy. There can be no comparison between what goes on in a privately funded school and what goes on in a publicly funded school, except to provide further proof that SA should be defunded.
Also in my experience catholic schools are not good schools. Those I knew who attended Catholic schools were no further ahead than their public-school counterparts where I grew up and in some cases were behind.
This is a key distinction. When public money is spent on schooling, the same standards must be held for all. Teachers must meet the same certification requirements, and schools must follow the same procedures, provide the same services, and be held reponsible when that does not happen. There is no reason only some public schools should have to meet such standards.
The racial subtext in the video was chilling. For an interesting account of school choice and segregation, check out: http://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city-schools-segregation
It is shameful that NYC public schools allow this to happen. We should work to integrate public schools.
Thank you very much for the link. PL
When I watched the video.. most of the students were still and in an unnatural pose for their age with arms crossed on crossed legs seated with backs straight! There was one child, however, looking at and fidgeting with his tie. Perhaps Eva should have had the SA principal write up this “stellar” teacher for allowing such an “indiscretion”??? Ughh! Here is my question… in the time period of supposed “differentiation” how do students with IEP’s that suggest a student can “stand by their desk” or “can get up and move around provided they do not talk to others” or can have extra time to respond to a question or have a question shown visually or repeated twice… how are these students’ needs met in such a harsh and scripted environment? I should think there should be a Civil Liberties-based law suit against her “Success Academies” for the few special needs students that are not managed to be kicked out through abusive measures and whose needs are ignored!
You know the last person who tried to justify their injustifiable actions by claiming “you just don’t believe children of color can achieve academically”?
You guessed it; Beverly Hall.