The New York Post has an opinion column criticizing the New York Times for picking on Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy.
You see, the Times can’t stand success. So it must “destroy” these very successful schools.
That explains why the Times wrote about the “got to go” list of children who had to be pushed out.
That explains why the Times published the story and video of the teacher humiliating a first-grader.
You see, as we have seen in the comments on this blog from two readers who defend whatever happens in charters, especially Success Academy, the public schools do the same, only worse.
Whatever charters do that is unsavory, there will always be a public school that did it too.
The only difference between charter schools and public schools, if you listen to the charter advocates, is that they are far, far better than public schools, have higher test scores, and educate exactly the same children (the reason they have so few ELLs is that the charters quickly teach them English, and they have fewer SPED because the charters magically overcome their disabilities).
But fortunately readers of this blog knew this already.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Boy, I guess all the money spent to hire Mercury PR firm is paying off. Placing an editorial in the NY Post actually bashing another newspaper? That kind of public relations influence can ONLY be purchased by a powerful firm beloved of right wingers that the NY Post will happily accomodate! No wonder they were the first firm that the right wing Republican Governor of Michigan hired when he needed to find someone to defend the poisoning of children in Flint to save a few bucks. And when it comes to spending money to protect their image, Success Academy never tries to save a buck. Too bad when it comes to money spent on the at-risk kids who are bit more expensive, the charter school suddenly finds money hard to come by.
So appropriate that Eva Moskowitz would hire the firm famous for making it okay to not care about the expendable at-risk children who they all seem to hope would just disappear.
By the way, I love that the editorial was written by a white, Yale graduate whose child is most certainly treated with all the deference and respect that he demands from the Success Academy teachers who are happy to make sure kids just like his are never the victims of humiliation and shame. On the contrary, all their achievements are celebrated!
But the fact that it is parents just like Kyle who don’t have a problem with struggling at-risk kids treated as we saw in the video, as long as their affluent child is given her free private school experience is exactly what is wrong. The affluent, mostly white parents are actively defending the charter school because of course, the teachers treat their children so well. Why should they care one whit what happens to those homeless kids? In fact, more than likely parents like Kyle would never notice how many of them disappear.
As a teacher who has seen the slow, methodical test-score-based “disappearance” of both unwanted students and unwanted teachers in our district, I sadly applaud your point.
Is Kyle Smith the real identity of “Tim” on this blog.
Either that, or both Kyle and Tim are getting their same propaganda talking points from the same source. Each of them cites the same exact incidents of public school malfeasance.
Whatever the case, both Kyle and Tim conveniently leave out of the story that 20 other Success Academy teachers claimed what was on the video this was not an “anomaly,” but representative of the school’s culture as a whole. Indeed, this procedure was mandated, with this strategy even given a name — “rip and redo”. One of the teachers condemning Success Academy was one of its former show ponies that they dragged out for various events and pro-privatization documentaries: Ms. Jessica Reid-Sliwerski.
Kyle Smith is also contradicting himself.
He starts out by arguing that what was on the video was perfectly okay… as his former teacher was just as mean, and darn it, it was good for him, and also good for those little six-year-olds on the video.
But then later, he approvingly cites Success Academy’s apology for the video, and its insistence that it was an unfortunate and rare occurrence.
So which which is it?
That it’s great teaching practice with no need for apology
… or …
… that it’s bad teaching practice for which Eva thankfully apologized.
KYLE SMITH: “I know the Times’ never-ending quest to tarnish Success is pure nonsense because my kid is a student there. She’s had several teachers, and she loves them all. She’s never reported anything that sounded remotely scary or abusive. Other kids and parents I know adore the school also.”
How would you really know, Kyle? In the last story the New York Times ran, the mother asked her daughter why she didn’t report to her what was going on in the class. The daughter replied that she was too scared of what her teacher would do to her, if she had told her mother.
Kyle Smith is a white Yale graduate. I’m sure his parent “friends” are just like him – they may not be white, but they are well-educated professionals who talk about how nicely Success Academy treats their above average kids. Somehow I bet he rarely socializes with the parents from homeless shelters whose kids disappear. But you are right, he DOES sound like Tim!
Every time I see the white affluent parents talking about how nicely Success Academy teaches THEIR child, I realize how co opted those parents are. I think other parents — maybe some more liberal than Kyle who toes the Rupert Murdoch political line — are starting to realize what is going on.
Success Academy should be able to recruit lots of right wing Republican parents like Kyle to their “free private schools” that promise to humiliate and (hopefully) get rid of any of those homeless shelter kids who can’t keep up academically. But are there enough parents like Kyle in NYC? Most well-educated parents that Success Academy covets are liberal and they don’t want their child witnessing the humiliation of those “lesser” at-risk kids if they can’t keep up academically. They used to feel good about going to a school that got such good results with those students (as long as most of the students in their particular Success Academy were middle class just like they are). But now those parents are starting to see what is done to the most vulnerable of those at-risk kids and the humiliation and punishment their low-performance brings on them. I can understand that parents like Kyle probably don’t mind at all having their child see how “lesser” kids are treated, but most NYC parents aren’t quite that selfish. And when they refuse to send their kids to Success Academy, there will be more room for the at-risk kids they are supposed to be serving. I suppose that can be considered a “good” thing, but I suspect that is the last thing Ms. Moskowitz wants.
Diane,
I question the “success” of Success Academy. I use to teach at a Success Academy school and found I felt most unsuccessful there. I detail my experience here: http://www.nuyoricanwriter.com/education
“Too bad when it comes to money spent on the at-risk kids who are bit more expensive, the charter school suddenly finds money hard to come by.” Exactly. SA is in the business of catering to wealthy donors like the Bill Gates Foundation to afford strategic political moves like the rallies that suspends instruction for the day and shuttles students (and teachers) to downtown Brooklyn.
Sincerely,
Sasha Guirindongo
http://www.nuyoricanwriter.com/education
The NYT WAS a strong supporter of SA charter schools. Give them some credit for seeing the light. All the ad space that’s fit to sell.
About three or four years ago, my daughter and I attended a sake party where she ran into a Stuyvesant HS classmate. He was African-American, and had risen to the highest position in our society: i.e., he was a hedge funder, one who “did good for society” by helping those less fortunate than he. He was on the SA board. Much to my daughter’s dismay, I got into it with this smug guy. He wouldn’t accept my contention that Success managed their enrollment in order to eliminate children who were hard to teach. Then I said, “Accept for a minute that I’m right, and that Success weeds out or discourages the children whose parents are not able to support them as well as your parents supported you, as well as the children with disabilities or other obstacles that hinder their ability to “succeed.” If that were true, do you believe it would be ok for a charter school to educate only the remaining “winners”? He said, “yes.” I said, you mean “the deserving poor”? Yes again. And send the rejects back to the public schools? Yes, again. I said, “Well, then there is no further need to continue this conversation.”
Some of the reformsters adhere to this belief — that charters should only be required to educate the children who can cut the mustard, not all comers, their circumstances be damned.
I think that is the issue we need to take on.
When we support a private institution that only values strivers and fortunate, we are turning our backs on many people that may have lots of talent, but not high test scores. Unlike magnet schools in public systems, charters diminish the funding base of the neighborhood public schools. When lots of students attend a charter from a given area, the neighborhood school and students suffer. The local schools have to do more with less as the difficult or expensive remain enrolled in public schools in large classes with fewer resources until such time as the school topples. Then, the cheap charters swoop in. This is not how democratic public education is supposed to work.
Every person on the Success Academy board knows that the school is for the strivers. The notion that they think the typical at-risk kid from failing public school is encouraged to stay at Success Academy if they can’t keep up academically after behind held back one or two years is pretty laughable.
That’s why the board member admitted the obvious. How could he say he wouldn’t approve when it is obvious that all of them know that the shoe could drop any minute?
I wish you would have asked him what happens to the rest of the at-risk kids. So many pro-charter folks seem to think they should just disappear. And it’s pretty scary that they don’t realize how much they sound like the eugenics lovers of the past.
dorothy in brooklyn: the smug assurance and arrogance that underlies his remarks…
Thank you for sharing this info with us.
😎
yes! unfortunately, this is a huge problem in general. the notion that the kids must adhere and come to behave not that the schools must come to the child. it manifests itself everywhere. all schools must become less obsessed with proper behavior and the “right” kind of student. they should be more project oriented and celebrate all kids. very telling story.
“I said, you mean ‘the deserving poor’? Yes again.”
Translation – We want kids to earn their education by compliance. Assume the position of groveling before their betters. Ugh.
Of course, we DO KNOW that Murdoch lies and is a bully. He’s part of the .01% of the .01% Oligarchy.
That is actually the amazing thing, Jack! No, these aren’t at all the same incidents I’ve been discussing recently, all of which came to light in the past ten days or so: PS 194, where a veteran, frequently reprimanded but never truly disciplined teacher, Osman Couey, repeatedly picked up and threw a seven-year-old child with special needs; PS 207, where bullying is out of control, where the principal is unreachable and unaccountable, and where two six-year-old students sexually propositioned a female classmate and punctuated it by exposing themselves to her; and PS 193, where there is a policy of not letting children use the bathroom, and where a seven-year-old special needs student had an accident and was made to sit in pants filled with feces and urine all day long. His father was arrested when he confronted the school about the incident, which was not the first time it had happened to his child. The police threatened to arrest anyone who filmed them forcibly removing the father from the building; the father “slipped” while being loaded into a transport and required medical attention.
This piece is actually pretty weak sauce. He could have pointed out that we don’t expect every single district school to educate every kid who might want to go there: e.g., if you require a self-contained classroom or have a physical disability and want to attend PS 321, you are out of luck! The New York City Department of Education spends one billion dollars – one billion! – to send special ed kids to private schools that provide services that the DOE doesn’t. While the numbers aren’t quite as shocking, the districts in the leafy suburbs do the same thing; those in New York State have the BOCES districts like Greenburgh Eleven to warehouse their most disruptive and hardest to educate kids.
But where he really pulls his punches is when it comes to those who live in residentially determined zoned schools with low or non-existent numbers of at-risk kids who piously and sanctimoniously fight against at-risk kids who live in concentrated hypersegration from having an escape route from zoned schools like PS 194, PS 193, PS 207, and the ones that he mentions. These things are all determined by uncontrollable market forces, they’ll say! Anyone who can buy a home in my zone is welcome to send their kid there. Never mind that whites earning $40,000 qualify for higher mortgages than blacks earning $150,000; or that steering, redlining, white flight, acts of intimidation and discrimination on the part of private citizens and law enforcement aren’t things of the past, they are happening right now.
People with means have spent most of the last 70 years’ walling themselves off and paying a painful premium to make sure their children don’t have to go to school with kindergarteners who punch other kindergarteners square in the face, or six-year-olds who propose a graphic sexual act to a female classmate and then expose themselves. But the poor people living in hypersegregation—that’s where the choice buck has to stop!
Unless you are actively and vocally fighting to end the isolation and segregation by sending your own child to the zoned schools that Success kids are drawn from, or allowing those kids access to your district, you are a rank hypocrite if you oppose charter schools. Ignorance is no longer a defense; separate but equal is not only against the law, it is a colossal failure.
Most of the kids from PS 194 and PS 207 would be put on the “got to go” list in a minute at Success Academy. We all witnessed exactly what happened to a young girl with a motivated and smart young parent who was willing to go all that Success Academy demanded to have a better school for her child. She was struggling academically and so she got the “Success Academy” special sauce reserved for kids just like her. Humiliation. Punishment for low performance. Got to go lists. From the MODEL teachers and principals, not from brand new employees who Success Academy hadn’t had time to train. These were the BEST of Success Academy’s teachers and principals.
Tim’s logic: We need to “help” those kids in PS 194 and PS 207 by allowing one or two who are academically advanced to attend Success Academy charter schools and more like that, and throw the majority back to public schools that don’t deserve it.
And by the way, while Success Academy administrators get rich picking out the cheapest to educate students and demanding more free resources for their trouble, Tim wants middle class parents in NYC public schools use their own donations to subsidize the education of all the kids on the Success Academy got to go list!
I’m so glad reformers want to do the tough job of teaching the kids who have always done well in public schools — and pay themselves handsomely for it — while he demands that public school parents subsidize the education of the charter school rejects who cost far more money than Tim wants charter schools to spend because it might mean their administrators’ can’t join the 1%!
Gotta love them SA parents and supporters like Tim and Kyle! They know how to look at the bottom line and decide what’s important.
Here, we are preaching to the choir, and the occasional troll. At this point, most people know Murdoch’s agenda, and the billionaires’ agenda. Agenda, singular, not plural, since they all share the same one.
You know what tho? Jeb Bush went down in flames. He had all the financial backing in the world, more than many of the others, and he couldn’t get any traction. Christie is now licking the boot heals of Trump, stumping for a spot at VP or Attorney General. We, the real people, the lowlives without cash, the ones who don’t matter….we have their number. Christie has disgraced himself by his newfound devotion to Trump–because he has shown himself as his true self–someone who is motivated by his own delusions and assumed privilege and pedigree.
People don’t CARE what Murdoch says, because we know he is a liar with a liar’s agenda. The more they protest, the more we know they’re full of …. turds.
Here’s NYC parent Jaybee Smalley telling her story about what happened after her child’s number was picked in the Success Academy lottery, effectively winning her child a seat n Eva’s wonderful charter chain organization.
Happy ending? Ehhh… not quite.
JAYBEE SMALLEY: “My name is Jaybee Smalley. I’m a parent, yes. I have two children with special needs. I have one child who I applied to the Harlem Success Academy through the lottery process to see if she could be… would be accepted.
“When she WAS accepted through the lottery, I reached out to them (Harlem Success Academy) before I attended any sort of a orientation to see if they would be able to accommodate her I.E.P. She has a 12-to-1-to-1 I.E.P. for a year-round program, with four different related services.
“They didn’t respond to me through email at all.. and finally, after the second meeting had come, I called them —- I had a very difficult time getting through to them —- Before I could get the words ’12-to-1-to-1′ out of my mouth, they immediately told me that they would absolutely not be able to accommodate that sort of child in their school.”
————————————
To John & Tim,
You guys say that this never happens, so I’m wondering. Regarding what Ms. Smalley says in the video, is Ms. Smalley:
A) lying?
B) delusional? (as she is recounting visual and auditory hallucinations that never happened, as they are nothing but her imaginary encounters with Success Academy administrators that she is describing);
C) telling the truth?
———————-
I’m voting for “C”.
Or perhaps you’ll offer the “anomaly” defense. Like Charlotte Dial, the Success Academy person who dealt with Ms. Smalley was a rogue agent who, acting on her own and against Success Academy policy, treated Ms. Smalley and her children this way.
Maybe they should have another tear-filled, highly-orchestrated press conference that degenerates into Success Academy fabricating victimhood at the hands of outside persecutors.
The problem is there are a lot of parents suing over this kind of treatment their their children received.
Here’s a story of one:
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/details-on-the-success-academy-got-to-go-list-lawsuit/
Here’s a scanned copy of that lawsuit itself:
Click to access sa_lawsuit.pdf
Here’s another such lawsuit:
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/moskowitzs-success-academy-is-being-sued-again/
Here’s a scanned copy of that lawsuit itself:
Click to access lawton-lawsuit.pdf
To John & Tim,
At the bottom of all of this, here’s the problem: to Eva and the charter school industry, Ms. Smalley’s daughter is a commodity, not a human being. Her daughter is “a thing”, if you will who is judged by the following criteria:
1) the revenue that her daughter bring in — the tax money that accompanies her attending SUCCESS ACADEMY;
2) the cost — the less the better — the funds that it will require to educate her; in this case the cost is higher than a non-Special Ed. student due to having a 12-to-1-to-1 ration (Student-to-Special Ed. teacher-to-classroom-aide), and other costs inherent in educating such a child… Hey, we ain’t paying for that!
3) Ms. Smalley’s child’s eventual ability or inability to generate high test scores (a form of profits, if you will, to these deranged charter-ites … Success Academy hiigh-up leader even bragged to New York magazine about turning these children in to “little test-taking machines” … as if this was a goal to which any school should aspire).
The message that Eva gives Ms. Smalley & her child and other parents & their child:
“Your child is nothing! You, Ms. Smalley, are nothing! Get out of our sight, you nothings!”
Everyone goes after Eva for being money-motivated, and to be sure, she is — $570,000 annual salary for only a few thousand children VS. Chancellor Farina’s $250,000 for over 1 million children (don’t have the figures hand).
However, another aspect of Ms. Moskowitz mindset:
… eugenics.
The inferior classes of children deserve no extra funding or attention should be allocated to assist them. They are a drain on tax money. They are lesser, or inferior beings. (Arne Duncan and Success Academy’s Paul Fuculoro doesn’t believe such a category as “Special Ed.” even exist … but that’s another story). Eva was quoted in New York Magazine as saying, “Success Academy is not a social services agency.”
In other words, “Inferiors, be gone!!!”
What would have happened to Ms. Smalley’s children in 1930’s Germany? The authorities would have confiscated Ms. Smalley’s children, then later put them into back of truck, then after sealing the back of the truck until it was almost airtight, would have connected a hose from the exhaust pipe of that truck until they were asphyxiated and die. Later, they would have burned the children’s bodies.
Now Eva doesn’t go that far. She just wants nothing to do with them. They are inferior, and as Eva said, she wants no inferiors’ special ed toxicity rubbing off her superior “scholars,” or again, cutting into Eva’s ability to earn a $570,000 salary.
I can tell you what happens to them at the public school where I work. When someone like Ms. Smalley’s and her child shows up at our school offices.
THE COST IS NEVER CONSIDERED
THE COSTS OF EDUCATING THOSE CHILDREN — THE BOTTOM LINE — IS NOT CONSIDERED.
THE FACT THAT THE CHILD HAS AN INNATE DISABILITY THAT PREVENTS HER FROM SCORING HIGH ON TESTS IS NOT CONSIDERED.
We will do our best to maximize the potential of every child — from the most gifted to the most disabled.
I’ll let LAUSD School Board Member Steve Zimmer add his two cents here.
From his 2013 Speech to UTLA’s August 2013 Leadership Conference:
( 13:47 – 14:35)
( 13:47 – 14:35)
STEVE ZIMMER: “What we oppose is the attack on the basic promise of public education, the basic contract of public education. That is we serve EVERY child who comes to our door—EVERY child who comes to the schoolhouse door.
“And if you don’t serve EVERY child—those who are the gifted to those who have the most special needs, and the entire spectrum in between.
“If you are not about EVERY child, then that is NOT public education, and we stand against it, and we stand against the corporatization and privatization that is embodied in the charter school takeover.”
… and earlier
( 11:16 – 13:08 )
( 11:16 – 13:08 )
STEVE ZIMMER: ““But student growth and student improvement can NEVER be measured by a single standardized test score, and what we suffer from in this district is what I like to call a ‘data addiction.’ It’s what I like to call a ‘religious addiction’ to ‘the numbers,’ and to a ‘spread sheet,’ and to a ‘bottom line,’ and we’re taught that this is ‘objective,’ that this is ‘fact,’ and that everything else is ‘soft’… that we should go into ‘The Temple of Data’ and kneel down, and that we should bow down at an ‘Altar of Objectivity.’
“But we WON’T and we CAN’T because the gods that WE believe in teach us that EVERYTHING that is wondrous and beautiful about children cannot be measured by a standardized test score!
“We know!
“The beautiful names… and stories… of our kids—we never met a kid that was named ‘Proficient,’ and we CERTAINLY never met a kid that was named ‘Basic,’ and NEVER ‘Far Below Basic!’
“Our children have names, they have stories, and if we are to fight the battles against corporatization and privatization, we must be the warriors of re-humanization of public education that is about our children, their families, our communities, and their stories!
“And that starts with humane school communities!”
———————————–
You want to know why, back in 2013, the privatization industry pumped in $5 million dollars to Steve’s privatization industry opponent to defeat him —- and Mike Bloomberg alone wrote a $1 million dollar check to Steve’s opponent?
Re-read or re-watch those clips. What’s coming out of Steve’s mouth is like waving a crucifix in front of these money-grubbing, privatization vampires. What Steve represents — democracy, democratic governance of schools, the rule citizenship versus the rule of elites, meeting the needs of all, no matter how disabled — must be stopped, so that the “betters” can take their rightful places over the lessers — the “Betterocracy.”
For more on that “Betterocracy” — the betters ruling over the lessers, read, Peter “Curmudgucation” Greene’s essay:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2015/06/betterocracy.html
What’s underlying all of this is the notion that a group of self-appointed wealthy elites should be running everything, and that democracy be rendered impotent. Curmudgucation’s Peter Greene calls this the “Betterocracy”. It’s also what’s behind the remaking of universities, replacing the ideal of “citizenship” where all citizens participate in a democracy with “leadership” of elites who are in charge because, because, … well because they’re so much “better.”
I’ll let Peter play me out:
—————–
PETER GREENE: ““This thread runs through many reformster ideas and many of my responses to them. I just wanted to gather thoughts about ‘Betterocracy’ in one place.
“Many reformsters have one fundamental point in common– they don’t really believe in democracy. They believe in ‘Betterocracy.’
“Betterocracy rests on one simple fundamental belief– some people really are better than others. It’s not necessarily the possession of a particular quality, though Betters are usually smarter, wiser, and possessed of superior character. It’s that Betters are made of the right stuff. They come from good stock. They are just better than others.
“This is not a new thing.
” ,,, ”
“The bottom line is that bettercrats believe that democracy is, really, a bad idea. Some people just don’t deserve to have a say. Some people just don’t deserve to be in charge of anything. Some people just aren’t important. Some people just don’t matter. Some people just can’t have nice things.
“Bettercrats may, out of generosity and a general sense of noblesse oblige, give Lessers the nice things that they don’t deserve, but those will be nice things that the Betters have selected, and Lessers can have the nice things under terms dictated by the Betters.
“Why shouldn’t Betters have an outsized disproportionate influence on government? The fact that they have the money and power to wield influence is proof that they are right to do so.
“None of this is democracy, not even a watered-down republic-styled democracy. Bettercrats mostly would not recognize democracy (they most commonly call it ‘socialism’).
“And that’s why we’ve got the refomster programs that we have. Our Betters are trying to give the Lessers the system they deserve while rescuing Betters who have been trapped by zip codes in dens of Lesser iniquity.
“Our Betters are creating a system that disenfranchises Lessers (who, after all, do not deserve to be enfranchised in the first place because if they deserved to have power, they would have it).
“Our Betters are trying to create a system that further reinforces their own power and control, because they deserve to have them.
“Our Betters are even trying to get Lessers to understand that they are, in fact, Lessers.
“The genius of America is that of a country that makes room for all voices and treats them all as equals, tied together and forced to create systems that accommodate all our citizens. It envisions a level playing field in which all voices and ideas can compete in the grand marketplace of thought. We have never fully lived up to that genius, but Betters do not even recognize it as genius to begin with.
“Right now their lack of vision is bad for education, but in the long run, it’s bad for the entire country.”
Jack,
I realize that there aren’t really any rules on this blog as long as you are an angry teacher taking on someone who dares to express a dissenting opinion. but out in the real world it is considered abysmal internet form to post multiple questions and accusations across multiple threads without giving someone a chance to respond to them.. So I’m going to cut and paste my response to your other post here, with one small addition.
And I’ll warn you–just this one time–to tread very, very carefully with making even the most faint and tangential insinuations that my support for charter schools makes me a eugenicist.
______________
added to earlier post re Ms. Smalley’s situation: it is against the law to permit transfers between charter schools in New York State, even schools within the same network, and charter schools are prohibited from enrolling any child who did not submit an application before April 1 of the enrollment year. If the Success school that Ms. Smalley applied to did not offer 12:1:1 classes, they cannot transfer to one that does if she didn’t apply.
________________
It looks like you and Steve Zimmer have a little bit of egg on your face.
http://achieve.lausd.net/Page/3379
So much for EVERY kid — LAUSD is spending a cool $175.1 MILLION to send LOTS of KIDS to someone ELSE’s SCHOOLHOUSE DOOR.
Your offensive characterization of my position on this is not just a little inaccurate, it is wildly inaccurate.
You, Steve Zimmer, Diane Ravitch, and many commenters like to hold charter schools to an unrealistic and unreasonable standard that entire districts, never mind individual district schools, fail to meet almost 100% of the time:
–Like LAUSD, the NYC DOE pays a considerable sum of money to private special education providers–$1.1 BILLION in 2015-2016, which is roughly the same amount as the entire budget for Memphis City Schools. Look at any suburban New York district’s budget and you’ll invariably find a multi-million-dollar entry covering private school tuition for special education students–Ossining, Montclair, Hastings-on-Hudson, etc.
–Approximately 40% of NYC DOE elementary schools do not have seats for students who require self-contained 12:1:1 settings, including many of its highest-performing and most popular schools, like PS 321 in Brooklyn.
–As many as 66% of NYC DOE elementary schools are not accessible to children with physical disabilities, including PS 321 in Brooklyn.
I believe that the public should fund a free and appropriate education for every child who wants one. Sometimes the best setting will be a privately managed special education school. Sometimes the best setting will be a traditional public school, be it a lottery school, a magnet school, a selective admissions school, or a zoned school. Sometimes the best setting will be a charter school.
Jack is on the side of angels.
Tim,
Be careful.
It doesn’t make “you” a eugeniciist.
You seem like a good egg… misguided for sure, but not a bad guy.
I fear, however, that you are unintentionally allied with and unwittingly aiding those who are eugenecists, and/or those who think those kids with the most disabilities don’t deserve the full funding that will allow them to reach their fullest potential.
Here’s how I view my job, as it regards those kids.
Special Ed kids come into my class for part of the school day. The obligation that I and all my other teacher, and other adults at the school have to them is the same as it is to the most gifted.
POINT A: There’s WHERE THEY ARE NOW.
POINT B: There’s WHERE THEY COULD BE IF THEY REACH THEIR FULLEST POTENTIAL.
We must close that gap between those two points, getting them as close to POINT B as we can in their lifetimes, spending whatever amd doing whatever is necessary to get there.
Now POINT B doesn’t mean those students, once they reach POINT BE, they will be competing on the debate team, or mastering astrophysics or whatever. The deal is… WHATEVER IT TAKES, WHATEVER IT COSTS, WE HAVE TO GET THEM TO REACH THAT POINT B.
Based on the words and actions of Success Academy folks, and other charter folks, THEY BELIEVE THAT THEY HAVE NO SUCH OBLIGATION… A NET GAIN IN MONEY IS THEIR ONLY OBLIGATION — taking in as much money as possible, and spending as little as possible (with the exception of executive salaries of course (Hello Eva… $570,000), as that’s where a lot of the savings goes…. Pursuant to the end of maximizing their net gain in money, they MUST SHOW THESE HIGH TEST SCORES, which mean little, or perhaps nothing. “Look at our scores!!! Aren’t they great?” Uhhh.. no.
I’m going to let Steve take it from here:
From his 2013 Speech to UTLA’s August 2013 Leadership Conference:
( 13:47 – 14:35)
( 13:47 – 14:35)
STEVE ZIMMER: “What we oppose is the attack on the basic promise of public education, the basic contract of public education. That is we serve EVERY child who comes to our schoolhouse door—EVERY child who comes to the schoolhouse door.
“And if you don’t serve EVERY child—those who are the gifted to those who have the most special needs, and the entire spectrum in between.
“If you are not about EVERY child, then that is NOT public education, and we stand against it, and we stand against the corporatization and privatization that is embodied in the charter school takeover.”
… and earlier
( 11:16 – 13:08 )
( 11:16 – 13:08 )
STEVE ZIMMER: “But student growth and academic improvement can NEVER be measured by a single standardized test score, and what we suffer from in this district is what I like to call a ‘data addiction.’ It’s what I like to call a ‘religious addiction’ to ‘the numbers,’ and to a ‘spread sheet,’ and to a ‘bottom line,’ and we’re taught that this is ‘objective,’ that this is ‘fact,’ and that everything else is ‘soft’… that we should go into ‘The Temple of Data’ and kneel down, and that we should bow down at an ‘Altar of Objectivity.’
“But we WON’T! And we CAN’T!
“Because the gods that WE believe in teach us that EVERYTHING that is wondrous and beautiful about children cannot be measured by a standardized test score!
“We know!
“The beautiful names… and stories… of our kids — we never met a kid that was named ‘Proficient,’ and we CERTAINLY never met a kid that was named ‘Basic,’ and NEVER ‘Far Below Basic!’
“Our children have names, they have stories, and if we are to fight the battles against corporatization and privatization, we must be the warriors of re-humanization of public education that is about our children, their families, our communities, and their stories!
“And that starts with humane school communities!”
One more thing, Tim.
You seem to be an employee of Success Academy, or at least, an expert on what Eva & Co. have to offer.
Given that, could you please list all the Success Academy schools — other than the one whose employees ducked all Ms. Smalley’s calls and emails, and, in general, treated her and her kid like sh#% — that could have accommodated Ms. Smalley’s child’s special needs?
“Put up, or shut up.” As they say;-)
If so, that’s the first I’ve heard of such a school. The knock on Eva & Co. is that they only take the least severe disabilities… i.e. minor speech impediments, then use the misleading data that comes from having those kids to point out their “percentage” of special ed children.
That’s a nice way of saying that I think you’re lying when you say such schools exist within the Success Academy Network.
I’m not an expert in the New York State Ed. Code, but I find if very hard to believe that, if such schools do indeed exist within Eva’s network, that some bending of the law, or some special exception to it would not have been allowed to place Ms. Smalley’s child in one of those Special Ed.-accommodating Success Academy schools … again, if such schools actually exist in Eva’s network.
Indeed, some appeal to New York State Ed. officials could use as the basis for this special exemption, that it would based on the desire to accommodate that child’s needs taking priority over the letter of the law, and that it would also allow Success Academy to avoid getting sued for not accommodating Special Ed. children.
You can title this post:
“EVA MOSKOWITZ CONTRADICTS TIM”
In defending Success Academy’s treatment of Ms. Smalley and her child, Tim said they had no choice to reject the child. There were other Success Academy schools, but transfers of students between charters within a charter chain were illegal.
TIM: ” … added to earlier post re Ms. Smalley’s situation: it is against the law to permit transfers between charter schools in New York State, even schools within the same network, and charter schools are prohibited from enrolling any child who did not submit an application before April 1 of the enrollment year. If the Success school that Ms. Smalley applied to did not offer 12:1:1 classes, they cannot transfer to one that does if she didn’t apply.”
—————–
Well apparently, according to an email that Eva sent the Success Academy staff, transfers of children from one Success Academy school to another are perfectly legal.
In her email, she said that she tried to get Nadya Miranda’s child — the one screamed at by Charlotte Dial — transferred to another Success Academy School, as part of a remedy to the situation.
——————–
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/02/8592086/moskowitz-offers-rare-apology-private-memo-staff
Eliza Shapiro at Political:
“Moskowitz writes that the network attempted to provide counseling for the child and offered to switch her to another Success school.”
———————–
BUT WAIT!!! Tim says such transfers are illegal!!!!
Who’s telling the truth here?
Also, It’s been 12 hours since I challenged Tim to list the Success Academy schools that can accommodate the particular needs of Ms. Smalley’s child — “a 12:1:1 ratio, with four different related services.”
Still waiting.
Jack,
I work in the summers at CSE 10 in Manhattan. And this is for Tim too who does not work in the school system or who have dealt with SA. I have been part of many IEP meetings with SA. My CSE covers their network. I can say unequivocally that none of their charters have 12:1 or 12:1:1 classes. Their game is to have a SETSS or ICT student in their network re evaluated for a self contained class to get rid of the kid. Once, when my IEP team disagreed, one of their educational directors threw a tantrum. He called me a dinosaur and that one day SA will bury the you. Human actions speak louder than all of Tim’s biased research.
So sorry that you were left waiting for 12 hours, Jack. The charter school laws and regulations of NY and Success’s 12:1:1 services are easily Googled, which I suggest you do at your earliest convenience. Read the section on charter applications twice if you need to.
And again with the simply terrible form, making demands and imposing deadlines when you haven’t addressed all that egg on your and Steve Zimmer’s faces! It’s a $175.1 million lie, the claim that LAUSD takes in every kid who shows up at the school house door. LAUSD sends a staggering amount of money to privately managed schools to educate kids whom it can’t handle.
We’ll know that you are serious about a dialogue only if and when you confront this inconsistency–we don’t expect entire districts to educate every kid who shows up at the district’s door, forget about individual district schools. Why should charters be held to a standard that districts–even the wealthiest, most advantaged ones–have concluded is literally unachievable, in no small part because it would harm kids?
Give me the list of the Success Academy schools that provide “a 12:1:1 ratio, plus four related services.”
How about YOU provide the list, Tim? You brought this up as a fact, not me, so it’s on you to back it up, not me.
At LAUSD, today is Tuesday, the afternoon where we teachers have professional development. All the elementary schools get out one hour early. If a principal asked me to research some information or data — asking if such information actually exists — then present it at today’s meeting, and I showed up and the meeting and when asked, responded,
“Go Google it yourself, lady. It’s easy,” that wouldn’t be very polite of me, now, would it?
As for the whole “charter transfers are illegal thing,” apparently, they’re not THAT illegal, as evidenced by Eva stating precisely this fact in a memo to Success Academy and staff.
According to an email that Eva sent the Success Academy staff, transfers of children from one Success Academy school to another are perfectly legal.
In her email, she said that she tried to get Nadya Miranda’s child — the one screamed at by Charlotte Dial — transferred to another Success Academy School, as part of a remedy to the situation.
——————–
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2016/02/8592086/moskowitz-offers-rare-apology-private-memo-staff
Eliza Shapiro at Political:
“Moskowitz writes that the network attempted to provide counseling for the child and OFFERED TO SWITCH HER TO ANOTHER SUCCESS ACADEMY SCHOOL.”
———————–
Why didn’t the Success Academy personnel dealing with Ms. Smalley do likewise …
“Well, you know the Success Academy school for which you won the lottery cannot provide for your child’s needs, but there’s another one who can. Let me help you connect with that school… blah-blah-blah… ” ?
Instead, they ducked her calls and emails like a fly-by-night insurance company trying to weasel out of paying off on a claim. When Ms. Smalley was persistent, and finally got someone on the phone, the Success Academy personnel treated her like sh#%. That would get you fired in LAUSD … should the parent so wronged go over her head and report such conduct. Not so at Success Academy, apparently.
To be blunt, I don’t believe Success Academy schools capable of providing for Ms. Smalley’s child’s needs actually exist — until you can provide me with hard information to the contrary, that is.
And “Go Google it yourself,” doesn’t cut the mustard.
THE HUGE LIE IS THE ONE WHEN EVIL EVA SAYS THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE WRECKED.
You don’t get to point a finger when you are part of the conspiracy that defunded the schools so they were wrecked. You cannot starve a person and then point to them and say, look how skinny and sick they are.
Eva is a SCOUNDREL, and the ‘interviewer’ , is not a journalist or a reporter…he is a ‘scrounge’ whose mendacity is well known. The media uses critters like him to produce such slanted pieces that offer the public pure LIES!
There would be no ‘wreck’ if they had not INVENTED FAILURE to give PIRATES like eva money. Public education for all would educate all our gfutre citizens & raise Americans income, If the GOP had not used ‘austerity’ RANTS TO DEPRIVE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS OF MONEY, AND poured THE NEEDED FUNDS into public EDUCATION , INSTEAD OF into charters!,
(I refuse to use the term “schools,’ because this is about educating our people– “promoting the common good.. AS the REAL CONSTITUTION SAYS IS THE PURPOSE OF OUR GOVERNEMENT.
IF THEY HAD built more schools with more classrooms and hired teachers and SOCIAL SERVICE EXPERTS TO SUPPORT TEACHERS when special needs kids NEED help, then the local school would be able to have the kind of classrooms that appear in that video. I TAUGHT CLASSES LIKE THAT where learning was ongoing, but that was BEFORE THEY WRECKED THE ‘SCHOOLS’. Education systems did not force slave labor to work longer days, but provided many after school activities and services… BECAUSE THE MONEY WAS THERE… Teachers had COLLECTIVE BARGAINING to protect their CIVIL RIGHTS, which charter schools do not ensure.
See my comment about mendacity below the article on LIES & MEDIA MANIPULATION at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/As-News-Media-Changes-Ber-in-General_News-Bernie-Sanders-2016-Presidential-Candidate_Lies_Media-And-Democracy_Media-Bias-160226-816.html
And another thing, here’s how LAUSD attempts to integrate Special Ed kids in a class for part of the school day:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/los-angeles-bold-move-to-reform-special-education/
When’s the last time they did this at Success Academy?
Oh… I dunno … maybe like… NEVER.
I’m sorry that you don’t have an explanation for Steve Zimmer’s $175.1 million lie, aka it’s perfectly fine for districts to pay through the nose to have privately managed schools to take away their most challenging cases.
NYS charter school networks can transfer children from one school to another so long as the child applied by April 1 to the receiving school and there isn’t another child ahead of them on the wait list. No application, no transfer, even if there is a vacancy and no wait list at all.
Hopefully one day you’ll want to discuss Zimmer’s lie and the fiction that traditional public school districts educate every child who comes to their school house door (we haven’t even discussed what would happen if a kid living in Harlem took a quick train ride up to a school house in Hastings-on-Hudson or Bronxville or even to PS 199 or PS 321 and tried to enroll there!). Until then, apologies in advance if you feel like I’m ignoring you . . .
I’ve seen the integration of special ed kids where I teach in LAUSD, where a mainstream child gives up both his/her lunch & recess break to spend time with their special needs sibling. Instead of playing with their peers, they go the special ed class’s play area lunch table area, and hang out with them. The sight will bring tears to your eyes.
That’s what Steve Zimmer calls the “re-humanizition of our schools.”
What’s the likelihood of something like that ever happening at Success Academy … a snowball’s chance in Hell, perhaps?
In contrast to that, here’s what your money-motivated eugencist hero Eva Moskowitz believes:
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/10/31/jack-covey-reviews-evas-ed-talk/
and specifically watch this video:
Camp Philos 2014 – Ed Talk by Eva Moskowitz
It’s the hideous story of Eva bragging about Sidney, a Success Academy female student being operated on for an infected spleen… and how the girl, inspired by Eva, insisted on taking a standardized test on the day of her operation.
Here’s the quote:
( 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?
Here’s an actual Professor of Education unpacking Eva, and the infamous Charlotte Dial video:
Below is a piece from Sonia Murrow, a professor of education and university training of teachers (Brooklyn College). She’s a veteran and expert in training teachers to teach in urban schools.
First, here’s her bio:
—————-
http://www.wnyc.org/people/sonia-e-murrow/
Sonia E. Murrow is an assistant professor of education at Brooklyn College.
—————-
First, let’s examine what Eva Moskowitz thinks of university teacher training before we contrast this with what Professor Murrow has to say.
In an article written for Campbell Brown’s THE 74, Eva Moskwitiz trashed the training that professors like Murrow provide future teachers, then offers Success Academy schools’ training as an alternative:
https://www.the74million.org/article/eva-moskowitz-student-performance-is-a-mirror
First, Eva dismisses talk about the teacher shortage as a lot of “hand-wringing.”
Second, she says the real issue is that United States teachers—and university-based teacher training—overwhelmingly suck because of teachers unions, and also because so many people use poverty and family distress as “excuses”. (Keep in mind that the girl in the video and her mother and sister are homeless, and living in a shelter)
Third, she proposes herself and her charter schools’ training system as the solution.
——————————————
EVA MOSKOWITZ:
“It’s easy to blame the kids – poverty, single-parent families, etc. – but school isn’t really about the children, it’s about the adults, and the adults in our classrooms aren’t getting the job done. No wonder there’s a backlash against the Common Core and standardized tests. They tell the ugly truth about the quality of our schools, and the teachers and unions don’t want to hear it.”
——————————————
So who’s got the solution?
Why Eva does, of course.
——————————————
EVA MOSKOWITZ:
“If we want to truly reform education in the United States, we must fundamentally reform how we train America’s teachers.
“Innovative approaches like those employed by small organizations such as Success Academy to create better teacher training programs should be viewed as a model for achieving this important goal.
‘We all know that strong teachers make a tremendous difference – maybe the greatest difference – in educational outcomes for children. As a country, we need to abandon the old, failed methods and instead
foster programs that are improving teacher preparation and producing
dramatic gains for children.”
——————————————
Here’s Murrow’s take.
Murrow analyzes and attempts to draw lessons from the Success Academy video:
——————————–
Opinion: ‘No Excuses’ Teaching
Shortchanges Civility in the Classroom
“Feb 29, 2016 · by Sonia E. Murrow
“When I first watched the video of the first-grade teacher at a Success Academy charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, berating a little girl who did not give the right answer on command, ripping up her paper and sending her to sit in the corner, I wondered immediately…
” ‘What kind of training did that teacher receive?’
” ‘What knowledge and beliefs about children, learning, and teaching were on display during that one minute and 16 seconds in her classroom?’
“My questions hinge on the belief that teachers can be, must be, trained to see their work in a broad social context, to understand that children learn differently from one another and that many face social and emotional challenges in and outside of school every day.
” … ”
” ‘What contributes most to student success in schools?’
“According to research, few factors in education have more of an impact on a student’s education experience than a caring relationship with a teacher. Overall, students who feel supported by teachers are more likely to be engaged in school than peers who do not experience such support.
“In a word, relationships matter in learning.
“The first-graders in that Success charter school learned — and perhaps most especially the girl who was the target of the teacher’s tirade — from the incident shown in the video
that her classroom was not a safe place where they could be themselves, show vulnerability, disagree, take risks, and challenge ideas presented.
“Sadly, there are many incidents such as this one in classrooms across New York City and the country that are not recorded, some carried out by educators who uphold “no excuses” for low achievement as justification for harmful practices with children and teenagers.
“If we aim to prepare students for high academic achievement and meaningful and productive lives, including to be active participants in our attempts at U.S. democracy — as Thomas Jefferson and philosopher John Dewey argued was a central purpose of education — then teachers and school leaders must demonstrate in their every action that learning and teaching are extensions of how we live, treat one another, and carry out relationships.
“Teachers must be taught that notions of ‘high achievement’ should not override civility, regard for students of any age, and respect for democratic principles.”
————————
Tim, which philosophy of teaching do the schools of Campbell Brown (Heschel), Arne Duncan/Barak Obama/Rahm Emanuel (Chilcago Lab School), and Michelle Rhee (Harpeth Hall), and Bill Gates (Lakeside)?
Eva Moskowitz’ or Sonia Murrow’s?
SPOILER: it’s the latter.
The kids of the 1% get Sonia Murrow, while “other people’s kids” get Charlotte Dial.
This revelation is a bombshell, liberal teacher.
Kate Taylor’s report on the “got to go” list stated very clearly that the network has 5 12:1:1 classrooms. If she got that wrong, what other inaccuracies might her reporting contain?
We’re all biased. Remember that time when you criticized Success’s failure to get one out of group of ~80 poor black and Latino kids by comparing them to a non-Title I Queens middle school that’s mostly white and Asian? That was pretty biased.
This revelation is a bombshell, liberalteacher.
Kate Taylor’s report on the “got to go” list stated very clearly that the network has 5 12:1:1 classrooms. If she got that wrong, what other inaccuracies might her reporting contain?
We’re all biased. Remember that time when you criticized Success’s failure to get one out of group of ~80 poor black and Latino kids by comparing them to a non-Title I Queens middle school that’s mostly white and Asian? That was pretty biased.
Tim, once again I will call you out on the disconnect between what you PRETEND to care about, and what you always say is fine as long as the person doing it is a very wealthy charter school operator funded by billionaires who probably also underwrite whatever organization you or your partner work for.
There is nothing stopping Eva Moskowitz from using HER money to set up special education schools. While you claim that PS 321 doesn’t accommodate all kids, you ignore the fact that EVERY child at PS 321 is charged for the cost of the NYC public school system accommodating those kids.
Eva Moskowitz now educates MORE children than some of those suburbs you mention. But there is a huge difference. Eva Moskowitz purposely weeds out every expensive child. Since nearly all of the children she weeds out are at-risk (take a look at the attrition rate for at-risk kids versus the attrition rate of the middle class kids at Success Academy if you don’t believe me), that’s especially reprehensible given her claim (and yours) that you care about them. But if a kid isn’t a striver, they seem to be invisible to you, Tim, and that’s what is truly appalling. Because many 5 year olds, especially those raised in low-income families don’t fit Eva Moskowitz’ definition of striver and when they don’t, on the got to go list they go.
But Tim, if she cared about them she would PAY for them to attend private special schools at the $100,000/year that she says they need. After all, that’s what all those wealthy suburban schools do.
Can you imagine if Hastings-on-Hudson did what Eva Moskowitz did and just told the kids with special needs to rot because they needed that money for high administrator salaries and to lavish luxuries on the affluent kids they want to attract?
So why isn’t Eva Moskowitz doing what every other school system does and using her millions in donations to pay for private schools for all those kids she claims can ONLY be educated in such schools?
What’s scary is that when you defend her making every public school child pay the cost of the more expensive kids so she can keep paying herself and her favorite minions outrageously high salaries you are purposely hurting a million kids in the NYC public schools system. Taking money from their mouths so Eva Moskowitz has more for marketing.
I am going to take you at your word that you believe Eva Moskowitz when she claims that 20% of the kids in her schools are such severely special needs that they don’t belong in any public school. Why aren’t you demanding that she do what every other school system of her size does and pay for them to have a private school for special needs kids to accommodate them? Is it because you don’t care?
Exactly Good for you for calling tout the hypocrisy and offering real FACTS.
The article author is just doing his job as a Murdoch laptop. The editorial team lets this punk rant off whatever he wants. He has no expertise in education whatsoever. It’s none of Murdoch’s damn business whether NYT is cheerleading Slave Academy or not. They are dye-in-the-wool anti- NYT.
I disagree. This author’s editorial unintentionally revealed exactly what Success Academy is all about.
He is a Yale educated white dad who sends his kid to a Success Academy school where she is treated in the manner in which she deserves.
If some homeless at-risk kids can’t hack it academically and are humiliated and punished for it, it doesn’t bother him at all. If it means the teachers have more time to cater to HIS child, he actually thinks it is wonderful! The more “those” kids disappear, the more resources can be lavished on his privileged child who obviously is far more deserving.
No kidding. He is? I just checked out his archives but I couldn’t find any other writing he touches on education. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Most of his pieces look like a total garbage to me.
Wikipedia is a questionable source but I assume this is him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Smith
Kyle Smith (born 1966) is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic[1] for the New York Post.[2]
But Wikipedia does have a special warning about this entry:
This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject’s importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance. (February 2015)
LOL! Perfect!
The NYTimes treats Moskowitz differently than an ordinary public school administrator because Moskowitz promotes herself as a national leader.
Here’s the book she co-wrote:
“Strategies for making the schools we need that work for all kids
Eva Moskowitz (the founder and CEO of the Success Charter Network in Harlem) and Arin Lavinia offer practical, classroom-tested ideas for dramatically improving teaching and learning. Moskowitz and Lavinia reveal how a charter school in the middle of Harlem, enrolling neighborhood children selected at random, emerged as one of the top schools in New York City and State within three years. The results of the Harlem school were on a par with public schools for gifted students and elite private schools.
In addition to providing strategies and lessons for school leaders and teachers, Secrets of the Success Academies also serves as a guide for parents, policymakers, and practitioners who are passionate about closing the academic achievement gap.”
It is entirely appropriate that she gets extra scrutiny to go along with her celebrity and clout. If the NYTimes didn’t vet her claims, who would? No one in ed reform, that’s for sure.
http://www.amazon.com/Mission-Possible-Secrets-Success-Academies/dp/1118167287
How much do you want to bet that her “Mission Possible” somehow forgets to include the following surefire ways to get results that Success Academy uses but never talks about:
1. Force struggling kids to repeat a year, or even two. If they still aren’t learning, tell their parents they will continue to be held back so why don’t they find another school.
2. Humiliate and punish kids who aren’t performing academically in the hopes that their parents will pull them out. Or if not, keep increasing the humiliation until the child acts out and you can suspend him over and over again and claim that it’s a shame so many of the 5 year olds who won the lottery turned out to be such violent kids.
3. Use every single means in your power to attack anyone who points out the above. If it means you need to publish private records of a 6 year old specially designed to “prove” his untreatable violent nature, do it! And do it fast! And make sure no one ever looks closely at real attrition rates. Hide them as if somehow revealing them would cause a nuclear bomb to be dropped in NYC! State secrets!
Usually when I read about Success Academy’s educational philosophy and methods, I think they sound reasonable and interesting. But the reason I know they are all a sham is that if those methods worked, Ms. Moskowitz would never have resorted to using methods #1, #2, and #3 above. There would have been absolutely no need to use them.
Eva’s paid way more than an ordinary public school administrator, too, isn’t she?
Here is a copy of a comment I made at Oped News, and which I already posted here.
it is not short but it addresses the Murdoch lies,
I wrote it to go with the article about Bernie Sanders view of how the media changed everything. If you want to see it there, you have to click on the BUE SEE COMMENTS BAR!
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/As-News-Media-Changes-Ber-in-General_News-Bernie-Sanders-2016-Presidential-Candidate_Lies_Media-And-Democracy_Media-Bias-160226-816.html
END LYING NOW!
I am asking you, if you are reading this, to begin a campaign of demanding punishment for lies that destroy lives!
CALL OUT THE LIARS, demand THAT they go to jail for crimes. Call out the media, when they disseminate ‘lies’ and call it ‘balancing news.’ Write and call in your outrage.
As I said in the introduction: Anyone who, in the 1960s, read Vance Packard’s ‘The Hidden Persuaders’ are not surprised, but it is time THE current media propaganda IS RECOGNIZED as creators of fear-mongering and promoter of lies that was prevalent in 1939 Germany. click here
We need to end this AGE OF MENDACITY where people plea that “everyone was doing it” (business as usual)!
THIS WAS the “reason’ that the guys at Libor and Standard and Poors,’ gave. They figured it was OK to sell junk to our people. Their values. After all — they lied, got away with it, and never went to jail! In fact the CEOs were rewarded for their mendacity, walking away with millions, while their companies settled and paid a pittance for penance.
And the media sold this to the people. Look, Bernie and I graduated HS together. It does not surprise me that he recognizes what I do. We were there when things were different… not perfect… but without tv and thus without the incessant noise and demands on our attention and our values! That ubiquitous screen, which sells ON HUGE SCREENS, THEIR VERSIONS OF THINGS… IN HD was ABSENT!
Many of us, with a decent and free education (Bernie and I graduated in 1959) had some prior knowledge with which to analyze what we heard on the radio. And, we had time to think critically. We heard Nixon and listened to the news. Today, people can barely have time to relax; many hold down 2 jobs and have to meet the needs of kids.
I have written for years about what I KNOW — how studies show that fast images, and sound-bites changed the brain or our citizenry. Images enter the brain on a different neurological path than do words. Sustained attention is difficult for many. Bits of information, and loads of misinformation at blistering speeds compete in a 24/7 static field.
Humans simply tune out the noise, and this is what the oligarchs need to happen — ALL THOSE TALKING HEADS EMITTING LIES… and the studies show how maths and lies become TRUTHS with re-telling.
For a very long time, I have written about the corruption of the media, and in fact, I WROTE A MEDIA UNIT AT EAST SIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL IN THE NINETIES, which introduced 13 year old seventh grade students to THE SUBTLE MESSAGES IN THE COMMERCIAL.
How else, I asked, can you KNOW if the VALUES THAT ARE OFFERED are VALID and productive ones for your own well-being and that of the society which you love. “DO THEIR VALUES contradict what parents or community value?”
In their weekly LETTERS these children wrote about what they saw and heard, and many related that they recognized the importance of KNOWING WHO IS PAYING for the message. They became critical of ads!
(OHMYGOSH! OK, so you know why I had to be removed from talking to our future citizens!
Well, THEY AINT KIDS ANY LONGER! They are ALL in their twenties and thirties now, so I wonder if they remember what they learned WITH SUSAN LEE SCHWARTZ?
I have at THIS blog, many times recommended this NOT TO MISS book,”IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED,” by Jerry Mander; (YES, that IS his name!) IT IS NOT ABOUT RELIGION! The warning is implicit, as he describes the way it was before tv. Good values are those that benefit a society. That is, as my former students know, an EQ… AN ESSENTIAL TRUTH.
Elders passed on those things that benefited a society.
Lies hurt tribes because knowing what lurked ‘out there,’ was the secret to success and a survival behavior! Which begs the question: HOW CAN WE SURVIVE if our leaders and legislators and our justices lie with impunity?
I am not saying that it is merely television lies are what is killing democracy.
I am saying that LYING by those when trust to ‘promote the common welfare,’ is INTOLERABLE because it is DESTRUCTIVE.
That is why dictators ultimately destroy their states, and why our founding fathers created the document whiter legislature has made unrecognizable to bernie and I, and anyone who knows what it actually says and what it MEANS for a democracy to EXIST!!
The reason that lies are hurtful is easy to comprehend. In the real world, what you DON’T KNOW MAY KILL YOU, and thus, built into the human genome is the desire for FACTS… well, until the advent of television and that screen… that window onto the world… not the real one, but the one that the puppet-masters of media want you to believe. Like a world where a bully should have THAT PARTICULAR finger –THE ONE that pushes that RED button. OY! Lying is the New Truth… Bill Maher is right.
“NYC public school parent
February 28, 2016 at 6:04 pm
How much do you want to bet that her “Mission Possible” somehow forgets to include the following surefire ways to get results that Success Academy uses but never talks about”
I just love the cries of outrage: “Why is she being held to a different standard!?”
Because she holds herself out as a national expert on public schools and lobbies powerful people on how all schools should operate like her charter chain?
Maybe because of that?
Also because she makes PATENTLY DISHONEST claims about her schools. It isn’t just that she holds herself out as an expert — it is that she holds herself out as an expert based on dishonest claims about how her schools can educate all those at-risk kids in failing schools.
If I hear a public school making those kind of dishonest claims, I call them out as well. I haven’t seen anyone in public education making those claims.
There was nothing stopping Eva Moskowitz from giving an honest assessment of her failures with at-risk kids. She could educate the strivers and even some struggling kids by having them spend 1 or 2 extra years being held back. But she had also found that even holding kids back wasn’t enough and she was finding many who just would never be able to test at grade level. And that turned out to be 30% of all the at-risk kids who won the lottery for Kindergarten. Or 40%. Or 50% or 60%. But she also could say that she did replace them with kids who were tested to make sure they were good enough students to join their grade and she was also able to teach them as well. Although I’m not sure anyone would have been very impressed.
It’s not just that her dishonesty helped to promote her — her bragging about results might be a minor glitch. But it served to HURT every child drummed out of her school whose parents were told they were incorrigibly violent and unteachable and all kinds of other things she told parents when they were put on the got to go list that her lauded principal most certainly did NOT make up out of thin air. It served to hurt all the public schools when politicians pointed to Eva Moskowitz as their reason for cutting funding — she claimed she could work miracles for less money and public schools should do the same. If not, they were “wasting” funds when rich people needed tax cuts.
Her dishonesty — and that of Tim and John who constantly defend her — has done unmeasurable harm to all children in public schools. Too many people now believe she achieves miracles with less money and we should expect public schools to do the same. An honest charter operator would have acknowledged that public schools needed far MORE money because they found that those kids were very hard to teach. What a shame she wasted her chance to do good. I doubt she can undo the harm her dishonesty has done at this point. And the fact that a few low-income kids got an arguably great education at the expense of millions of at-risk kids doesn’t make it okay.
Tim,
Do you agree with the Success Academy list of infractions (scroll down to see it, from its handbook) and Eva’s rigid enforcement of this list?
I think you can surmise that I believe that both this list, and its rigid enforcement, is — to quote an ex-military man from the COMMENTS section of a John Merrow article dealing with the infraction list — … the ex-military man says:
“I was a military officer, 1967-69 and we did not experience disciplinary processes as asinine as these. Utterly shameful.” (go to the link just below)
http://themerrowreport.com/2015/10/15/the-rules-at-success-academies/
The basic “creaming” strategy that Eva employs is this:
STEP 1) Make a list of suspension-worthy infractions that is ridiculously long, arbitrary and all-inclusive, a list that includes minor, trivial transgressions as “not being in a ready-to-learn” position.
(In the COMMENT’s section to the John Merrow article on the SUCCESS ACADEMY infractions list, a military veteran wrote in and said,
“I was a military officer, 1967-69 and we did not experience disciplinary processes as asinine as these. In my book manuscript, I produce a memorandum of the policies of Democracy Prep (charter chain), which are even worse.
“Utterly shameful.” )
STEP 2) Identify various undesirable students who are in undesirable categories … in other words, kids who won’t score as high on standardized tests, no matter how many hundreds of hours of mindless test prep to which they are subjected, or kids who are expensive to educate, if mandatory guidelines for Special Ed. are followed—
a) undesirable because they’re Special Ed, i.e. have innate disabilities that require expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive intervention — mandated smaller class sized; teachers with advanced certification; regular I.E.P meetings with an I.E.P. team composed of teacher, social worker, adminstrator, psychologists, etc.
b) undesirable because they come from challenging backgrounds — homeless kids, foster care, etc. — and have no parents that can fulfill Success Academy’s demanding parental involvement;
c) undesirable act out through no fault of their own — an innate inability to sit still in the same position for long periods of time due to ADD, ADHID, etc.
d) undesirable because they are brand new to English, and there’s no one in the home who speaks English.
… the list goes. Indeed, the SUCCESS ACADEMY HANDBOOK (BELOW) says:
“Please keep in mind that the list of unacceptable conduct and consequences is not exhaustive. Teachers and staff can supplement this Code of Conduct with their own rules for classes and events.”
STEP 3) Use the suspension-worthy infractions list created earlier — that ridiculously long and arbitrary list — so that you can easily target and justify the “counseling out” …
“It’s in our handbook right here, the one we gave you when your child first started here. That’s why we suspended your child. Both you and your child knew the rules. If you don’t like it, leave… and go to one of the public schools that are being starved of funding to fund this school.”
Again, the handbook even says the list is “not exhaustive”, and a teacher, on her own, can arbitrarily add to it as she wishes.
4) Keep suspending the until the parent just gives up in frustration, and removes the child from the school:
—————–
John Merrow actually got a copy of the Success Academy’s suspension-worthy list, and wrote about it here:
http://themerrowreport.com/2015/10/15/the-rules-at-success-academies/
——————————————–
JOHN MERROW: “Below you will find, verbatim, the disciplinary code for Success Academies, taken from the Success Academies handbook, which is distributed to all parents and perhaps others. I discussed aspects of the rule book in my interview with Success Academies founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz.
(If you missed the NewsHour segment when it was broadcast on October 12th, you can find it here:
http://themerrowreport.com/2015/10/15/the-rules-at-success-academies/
—————————————————
When you read this list, keep in mind that this list currently applies to Kindergartners — 5 & 6 year-olds (!!!) , or as young as 4 (!!!), if the child has a late birthday.)
Should Eva’s Pre-K program be approved and funded — even though Eva refuses sign any agreement that would include any outside oversight of the school or of lists like the one below — this will then apply to Pre-K students — 4 & 5 year-olds (!!!), or as young as 3 (!!!), if the child has a late birthday.
Without further ado, here’s the list: (thanks to John Merrow)
————————————————————————————–
————————————————————————————–
“1. DISCIPLINE:
“1. VIOLATIONS
“Anytime a scholar violates school or classroom rules or policies, it is considered a behavior infraction. Behavior infractions include, but are not limited to:
— Non-compliance with the school dress code
— Non-compliance with the school attendance policy
— Non-compliance with the code of conduct
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“1. VIOLENCE and AGGRESSION
“We must ensure that our scholars are safe at all times in our schools. Success Academy has a zero-tolerance approach when it comes to aggressive or violent conduct that puts the safety of our scholars or staff in jeopardy.
“In the classroom, we teach our scholars strategies to peacefully handle disagreements. We teach them that violence is never the solution. Scholars who engage in aggressive or violent conduct will be suspended. Scholars who hit because “he hit me first” will also be suspended.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“1. SUSPENSIONS and EXPULSION
“Scholars who repeatedly disregard directions, compromise the safety of others, or violate our policies may be suspended.
“A short-term suspension refers to the removal of a scholar from the school for disciplinary reasons for a period of five days or fewer. A long-term suspension refers to the removal of a scholar for disciplinary reasons for a period of more than five days. Expulsion refers to the permanent removal of scholar from school for disciplinary reasons.
“If your scholar is suspended, a member of the school leadership team will call to inform you. You will receive a suspension letter at pick up or within 24 hours. You should make arrangements with the school for mandatory alternative instruction for your scholar during his or her suspension.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“1. DISCIPLINARY POLICY and CODE OF CONDUCT
“In order to establish and maintain school culture, the following Code of Conduct contains a list of possible infractions and potential consequences. Please keep in mind that the list of unacceptable conduct and consequences is not exhaustive. Teachers and staff can supplement this Code of Conduct with their own rules for classes and events.
“In addition, violations of the Code of Conduct and resulting consequences are subject to the discretion of the Principal and may be adjusted accordingly. A scholar’s prior conduct and his or her disciplinary history may be factors in determining the appropriate consequence for an infraction.
“The Code of Conduct will be enforced at all times. Scholars must adhere to the Code of Conduct when at school on school grounds, participating in a school sponsored activity, and walking to or from, waiting for, or riding on public transportation to and from school or a school-sponsored activity. Serious misconduct outside of the school is considered a school disciplinary offense when the misconduct or the scholar’s continued presence at the school has or would have a significant detrimental effect on the school and/or has created or would create a risk of substantial disruption to the work of the school.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“CODE OF CONDUCT:
“LEVEL 1 INFRACTIONS
— Slouching / failing to be in “Ready to Succeed” position (SPORT or Magic 5 position)
— Calling out an answer
— Chewing gum or bringing candy to school
— Minor disrespectful behavior
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“RANGE OF SCHOOL RESPONSES, INTERVENTIONS, & CONSEQUENCES for LEVEL 1 INFRACTIONS
— Warning/reprimand by school staff
— Scholar is reminded of appropriate behavior and task at hand
— Scholar is reminded of what he/she is like at his/her best and of past good behavior
— Scholar is reminded of past poor decisions and provided with productive alternatives/choices that should be made
— Scholar is given a non-verbal warning
— Scholar is given a verbal warning
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
” LEVEL 2 INFRACTIONS
— Committing a Level 1 Infraction after intervention
— Verbally or physically dishonoring a fellow scholar (which includes, but is not limited to, teasing, name calling, being rude, mocking, etc.)
— Verbally or physically dishonoring faculty, staff, or other Success Academy community members (which includes, but is not limited to, being rude, disobeying instructions, etc.)
— Using school equipment (e.g. computers, faxes, phones) without permission
— Bringing electronic equipment to school of any kind without school authorization (which includes, but is not limited to, cell phones, Game Boys, iPods, headphones, pagers, radios, etc.)
— Unauthorized possession or use of a cell phone
— Failing to follow directions
— Failing to complete work
— Being off-task
— Arriving late to school/class and/or violating school attendance policy
— Violating the Dress Code
— Being unprepared for class (which includes, but is not limited to, failing to bring a pencil, not completing homework, etc.)
— Wearing clothing or other items that are unsafe or disruptive to the educational process
— Failure to obtain signatures for required assignments
— Disrupting class or educational process in any way at any time (which includes, but is not limited to, making excessive noise in a classroom, failing to participate, refusing to work with partners, etc.)
— Leaving the recess area during recess without permission from an authorized adult
— Being in an off-limits location without permission
— Failing to be in one’s assigned place on school premises
— Getting out of one’s seat without permission at any point during the school day
— Going to the bathroom without permission or at undesignated times
— Making noise in the hallways, in the auditorium, or any general building space without permission
— Inappropriate noise levels in lunchroom, gym, and during arrival and dismissal
— Engaging in unsafe behavior, failing to use recess equipment properly, or failing to follow directions during recess
— Excluding classmates in games/activities during recess
— Littering on school grounds
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“RANGE OF SCHOOL RESPONSES, INTERVENTIONS, & CONSEQUENCES for LEVEL 2 INFRACTIONS
— Scholar is reminded of appropriate behavior and task at hand
— Scholar is given a verbal warning
— Removal from classroom for ”Time Out” outside of the classroom (administrator’s office)
— Student-Teacher-Parent conference
— Student-Parent-Administrator Conference
— In-school disciplinary action (which includes, but is not limited to, exclusion from recess, communal lunch, enrichment activities, sports, school events, trips, or activities)
— Verbal or written apology to community
— In-school suspension (possibly immediate) in a buddy classroom
— Out-of-school suspension (possibly immediate)
— Other consequences/responses deemed appropriate by school (including, but not limited to, extended suspension for a fixed period or expulsion)
– – – – – – – – – – – –
“LEVEL 3 INFRACTIONS:
— Committing a Level 2 Infraction after intervention
— Dishonoring a fellow scholar using profanity, racial slurs, or any foul or discriminatory language
— Dishonoring a faculty, staff, or other Success Academy community member using profanity, racial slurs, or any foul/discriminatory language
— Disobeying or defying school staff or any school authority/personnel
— Using profane, obscene, lewd, abusive, or discriminatory language or gestures in any context (which includes, but is not limited to, slurs based upon race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability)
— Posting or distributing inappropriate materials (which includes, but is not limited to, unauthorized materials, defamatory or libelous materials, or threatening materials)
— Violating the school’s Technology and Social Media Acceptable Use Policy (which includes, but is not limited to, using the Internet for purposes not related to school/educational purposes or which result in security/privacy violations)
— Forgery of any kind
— Lying or providing false or misleading information to school personnel
— Engaging in any academic dishonesty (which includes, but is not limited to, cheating, plagiarizing, copying another’s work, or colluding/fraudulent collaboration without expressed permission from a school authority)
— Tampering with school records or school documents/materials by any method
— Falsely activating a fire alarm or other disaster alarm
— Making threats of any kind
— Claiming to possess a weapon
— Misusing other people’s property
— Vandalizing school property or property belonging to staff, scholars, or others (which includes, but is not limited to, writing on desks, writing on school books, damaging property, etc.)
— Stealing or knowingly possessing property belonging to another person without proper authorization
— Smoking
— Gambling
— Throwing any objects
— Engaging in inappropriate or unwanted physical contact
— Fighting or engaging in physically aggressive behavior of any kind (which includes, but is not limited to, play fighting, horsing around, shoving, pushing, or any unwanted or aggressive physical contact)
— Leaving class, school-related activity, or school premises without school authorization
— Repeatedly failing to attend class, school, or any school activity or event and/or repeatedly violating school attendance policy
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“RANGE OF SCHOOL RESPONSES, INTERVENTIONS, & CONSEQUENCES for LEVEL 3 INFRACTIONS
— Sent to principal/school administrator
— Loss of classroom/school privileges
— Additional assignments which require scholar to reflect on behavior in writing or orally (depending on grade)
— Call home to parents/guardians
— Removal from classroom or “Time Out” outside of the classroom (administrator’s office)
— Student-Parent-Administrator Conference
— In-School disciplinary action (which includes, but is not limited to, exclusion from recess, communal lunch, enrichment activities, sports, school events, trips, or activities)
— Verbal or written apology to community
— Staying after school or coming in on Saturdays
— In-school suspension (possibly immediate) in a buddy classroom
— Out-of-school suspension (possibly immediate)
— Other consequences/responses deemed appropriate by school (including, but not limited to, extended suspension for a fixed period)
— Expulsion
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“LEVEL 4 INFRACTIONS
— Committing a Level 3 Infraction after intervention
— Repeated in-school and/or out-of-school suspensions
— Exhibiting blatant and repeated disrespect for school code, policies, community, or culture
— Engaging in gang-related behavior (which includes, but is not limited to, wearing gang apparel, making gestures, or signs)
— Destroying or attempting to destroy school property
— Engaging in intimidation, bullying, harassment, coercion, or extortion or threatening violence, injury, or harm to others (empty or real) or stalking or seeking to coerce
— Engaging in behavior that creates a substantial risk of or results in injury/assault against any member of the school community
— Engaging in sexual, racial, or any other type of harassment
— Possessing, transferring, or using drugs, alcohol, or controlled substances
— Participating in an incident of group violence
— Possessing a weapon
— Charged with or convicted of a felony
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“RANGE OF SCHOOL RESPONSES, INTERVENTIONS, & CONSEQUENCES for LEVEL 4 INFRACTIONS
— Sent to principal/school administrator
— Loss of classroom/school privileges
— Additional assignments that require scholar to reflect on behavior in writing or orally (depending on grade)
— Call home to parents/guardians
— Removal from classroom or “Time Out” outside of the classroom (administrator’s office)
— Student-Parent-Administrator Conference
— In-school disciplinary action (which includes, but is not limited to, exclusion from recess, communal lunch, enrichment activities, sports, school events, trips, or activities)
— Verbal or written apology to community
— Staying after school or coming in on Saturdays
— In-school suspension (possibly immediate) in a buddy classroom
— Out-of-school suspension (possibly immediate)
— Other consequences/responses deemed appropriate by school (including, but not — limited to, extended suspension for a fixed period)
— Expulsion
————————————————————————————–
————————————————————————————–
The PDF of the relevant pages is here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5mXKGS4xL6iVnlZMzIyWi05eHc/view
I want to get something straight.
Is the teacher at the center of all this, (and also in charge of training other Success Academy teachers) certified or credentialed? Not does she have a Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in something?
Is Charlotte Dial certified or credentialed to teach or not?
Alan Singer doesn’t believe so. He checked the records of both New York State, and Indiana, where she comes from, and no one with her name is listed as being certified. (It could be a name change thing… “Dial” is her married name, and she never bothered to inform either state’s credentialing body.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/success-academys-war-agai_b_9235556.html
If she’s not certified or credentialed, then why the-Hell was she put in charge of training other teachers?
Why are Broad Academy alumnus appointed to Superintendent positions when they are not credentialed or licensed or certified or qualified? Why are TFA alums appointed to positions of Principal at charters having taught for 2 years, received quickie lube certifications and/or bogus weekend Relay “masters degrees” and not possessing the years of experience, training/education and certifications necessary for regular run-of-the-mill educators who work their way up to principal/superintendent? BECAUSE the laws, rules and regulations don’t apply to the deformers.
Charters are allowed to train their own, a certain percentage of teachers, and certainly hate that they have to hire other credentialed, certified, fully licensed teachers who want to be teachers.
TFA routinely assigns TFA “teachers” to charter chains. I wonder where Eva gets her scabs from.
What do credentials matter when the point of training is to make sure you understand the philosophy that if the child isn’t learning in a no-excuses charter school, it is ALWAYS the fault of the 6 year old child. It ALWAYS shows “lack of effort”. There is no reason to train teachers to learn how to reach students who need help since there ARE no students who need more experienced teachers or smaller class sizes — they just need to put in more effort!
Let’s assume whatever a poster writes on this log is Absolutely True. Then I have to wonder where all the law suits are. There seem no small number of them in my experience against both charters and regular public schools. And it is my perception that in both cases money settles the individual cases and they go away.
So I imagine any number of lawyers are involved in suits against SA and P. S. 207. Or is the term New York lawyer no longer relevant and being replaced by L. A. Lawyer?
Now there is a question!
They do sue… and the media is SILENT… COMPLICIT.
They only talk bout bad teachers.
And here is a lawsuit just won by a teacher at great cost.
…http://www.scribd.com/doc/301020150/16-02-26-DECISION
. and if you knew how long Lenny Isenberg has been fighting since they did this to him
http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
then you will know why teachers don’t sue.
Lorna Stremcha sued and won, but lost years of her life and allure savings, and she was lucky because she found a lawyer. As Lenny discovered the are often tied to the unions and will not take on teachers.
http://blog.ebosswatch.com/2013/05/one-womans-legal-fight-against-workplace-bullying/
Dania Hall, in Long Island found that out..
http://endteacherabuse.org/Hall.html
Walter Porr sued and 8 years alter, lost because the federal judge said he had to go with the department of education’s judgment.
David Pakter won, ( after years and half a million dollars were spent)
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7501
and here on Ed Notes Online:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/search?q=david+pakter
TEACHERS SHOIULD NOT HAVE TO SUE . The union contract includes collective bargaining so that civil rights are not abused but this is the process that works http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
… because there are 15,880 school districts , tens of thousands of schools, and NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE NEXT TOWN, let alone across the nation.
We are so isolated.
If we were all the teachers across the nation , were to WALKOUT AND SAY WE ARE NOT GOING TO PUT UP WITH THIS abuse of our civil rights, ANY MORE,( like the women did in MIcheal Moore’s’ “Where DO WE INVADE NEXT,’ ) maybe things would change
A lawsuit’s been filed in the PS 194/Osman Couey case, along with a petition for the DOE to preserve and make public the video recording of Couey’s assault of a seven-year-old special education student: https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20160225/east-harlem/mom-plans-sue-city-after-7-year-old-allegedly-attacked-by-teacher. I’m sure that suits will eventually be brought against the NYC DOE for what’s happened at PS 207 and PS 193 as well.
Oh Tim, did you throw a parade?
Tim argues that there are terrible public schools. Of course there are; also terrible teachers, principals, and even parents. But that is not the issue. IMHO, the issue is this:
–Public schools are designed, indeed are critical, to implementing a democratic education. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say “no public schools, no democracy.”
–Charter schools, whatever their original purposes, have increasingly become mechanisms to turn education into a profit center. Those who profit are not only investors and their political buddies, but also people paid like kings (or queens) to run charters. In this process of marketizing schooling, charters swallow up large sums needed by the public schools to run their programs, much less to improve them. No one suffers more from this diversion of public funds than schools of poverty.
The underlying ideology here is crackpot Reaganism, the belief that government is always part of the problem, and privatization is inevitably part (or all) of the solution. BS. It’s a belief tightly held and severely pursued by the one-percent currently acting to end democratic public schooling. The wars over schooling will not end until that belief is challenged and defeated.
Meanwhile, are there charters that do a good job of educating some students? Of course there are. But I have yet to see any evidence that they do a better job than good public schools, and much evidence, particularly in recent weeks, to suggest that authoritarian methodologies popular among many charters present real dangers to democratic education—and to children. Why? Because charters in real practice answer only to themselves, and public schools answer to voters and parents—even if sometimes too slowly and unevenly.
And also, because it is not at all clear that the real problem of community and school violence is being solved by terrorizing little kids into compliance. What would happen if there were more good jobs at the end of school instead of prisons? Hope in place of fear? Opportunity instead of despair?
Everything you said is real and true. it is complex problem made worse by poverty.
They’ defunded the public education because they could. They knew what would happen. it was their plan. We have to fight for public schools. Period!
Good jobs will increasingly disappear. A Facebook board member recently, falsely, claimed that India was better off under colonialism.
Self-anointed education “reformers”, from Wall Street, plot to enrich the least productive American business sector, the financial sector.
We have the recipe for further concentration of wealth and reduced gains in productivity.
We can sum this up simply. Public schools have public accountability and charters do not. Interestingly, I was castigated when I discussed why the charters do not have kids going to the specialized high schools. I was told that only the best public schools get students into the specialized high schools–mostly because they take preparation courses. Well, my two sons went to a Queens public school which did not have much in the way of extra resources. If anything, the PTA had to raise money to get the basics. A school gets less funds if it is not Title 1. In addition, the school\ they went to has always been very multicultural. One son went to a specialized high school and the other was in a specialized high school program in his zoned school. The only test prep they got was with me helping them do the sample tests. And I will not lie that I do know how to do test prep for the SHSAT. That was a decade ago. Today, in the same middle school that my sons went to, a nice percentage always make it into specialized programs and high schools. Today, almost all of these students are immigrant children. It is a school that really works hard educating these children–many who were ELLs and FELLs. To tell the truth, many did poorly on those Common Core pieces of junk, but managed to do better on the SHSAT. These kids come from families that live in either small houses or apartments–many rentals. This is a school that does not have special test prep programs for the SHSAT and these hard working parents cannot afford to pay thousands for such programs from Kaplan or the Princeton Review. They are hard working kids of very supportive parents being taught be hard working teachers doing the best they can with meager resources. By the way, these students like going to their middle school because most know that their teachers support them in every way.
So sorry that you felt castigated. I’ll cut and paste my response to your other comment. The additional details you’ve provided here are helpful: your sons’ middle school (Hawthorne? Ryan?) is not Title I, almost certainly tracks/has an honors or “SP” section, and enrolls very small numbers of black and Latino children, making a comparison of it to a group of students that is 100% black and Latino and 80% FRPL-eligible somewhat less than useful.
_________________________________
“Completely wrong.”
In an average year, about 25% of specialized high school offers come from the same 10 NYC middle schools. No, not 10%–10 *schools*, period. 50-60% of the offers go to students from just 40 or so middle schools. The DOE has 500+ intermediate and middle schools.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/well-worn-path-from-top-nyc-middle-schools-to-coveted-high-schools-1419824326
“The school my sons attended was a straight working/middle class public school with a multiethnic population–many former ELLs and FELLs.”
So this school didn’t have any honors or “special progress” sections? It was fully de-tracked and heterogeneously grouped? How many black and Latino children attended/attend? Is it 100% black and Latino, with 80%+ of its students receiving free lunch?
“These parents could not afford Kaplan or Princeton Review test prep.”
Kaplan and Princeton are just two of a seemingly infinite number of SHSAT prep providers. There are many, many others, and many “mom and pop” storefronts, especially in Queens and southern Brooklyn.
“greedy corporate lawyer”
They’re the worst.
“Charters are nothing but a form of social Darwinism.”
Charters in New York City, which collectively serve an enrollment that is 93% black or Latino and 80% FRPL-eligible, are open to any resident of New York State. Contrast that with traditional district schools, where the quality of a child’s education and the options available to her are dictated almost entirely by the color of her skin, the contents of her parents’ bank accounts, and her ability to pass entrance tests for screened and selective programs. Consider that our region’s stark residential segregation wasn’t formed by harmless market forces or people’s personal preferences, but by racism: steering, redlining, reverse-redlining, zoning regulations, acts of intimidation by private citizens and law enforcement, and a failure to enforce civil rights laws. Hard to get more Darwinian than that. Hard to get less liberal than insisting that kids who are warehoused in hypersegregated conditions have no choice other than their zoned school.
Tim,
Do you ever have anything positive to say about public schools? You claim your children go to public school. Why? You should put them in s charter.
Well-said.
Do I ever have anything good to say re district schools, let me think . . . well, this was from a ways back, about 9 hours ago: https://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/28/number-of-nyc-failing-schools-drops/#comment-2473700
The system works great for me. My partner and I have good careers and a little bit of money. My kids are soulless content acquirers who will never be passionate Freire-approved lifelong learners, but they are really good at playing the school game. We receive excellent privileges and benefits due to the color of our skin.
I believe that the traditional district system has utterly failed many families who aren’t as fortunate as mine. What’s worse is that the traditional district system is too often unwilling to even acknowledge the problem. Without a big day of reckoning–coming up with and implementing those meaningful and actionable solutions, Chapter 31–I have no choice but to throw my full support behind well regulated non-profit chartering like we have in New York State.
Oh, Tim, I must have misjudged you. I thought you were on the payroll of Success Academy or Mercury LLC
Tim, there is an enormous disconnect between your actions and your words. You write:
“I believe that the traditional district system has utterly failed many families who aren’t as fortunate as mine. What’s worse is that the traditional district system is too often unwilling to even acknowledge the problem. ”
There are genuine reformers like RiShawn Biddle who can make that comment and it is because they truly believe it.
And there are faux reformers like you who support all the people who attack RiShawn Biddle because their goal is not to educate the vast majority of the children “utterly failed” by district systems. Your goal is to support the charters who educate the easiest of the bunch and are happy to throw the rest back into those failing schools where their situation is even worse because the charters you support make it clear that it is THEM, not the school. The kid isn’t worthy.
If you are telling the truth about who you are, you would NEVER be posting here defending the actions of the reformers who hurt those kids even more than the failing public schools do. You would sound much more like RiShawn Biddle and be horrified at what the reformers getting the most money and praise are doing in the name of “reform.”
If you (or your partner) aren’t somehow benefitting from your constant defense of charter schools that actively hurt many at-risk kids, then I would expect you to sound like RiShawn Biddle. If you are here to justify the most reprehensible actions of charter schools because they are supported by billionaires and that is helpful to your own finances, then you would be posting the kinds of things you do. It would be nice if you could explain the disconnect between what you claim to be and what you defend, but I won’t hold my breath. But your comments as written here just don’t ring true with who you claim to be.
THIS IS THE TRUTH THAT YOU WROTE “:If you are telling the truth about who you are, you would NEVER be posting here defending the actions of the reformers who hurt those kids even more than the failing public schools do.
TIM IS NOT ALONE… what happens is that so many teachers argue with these trolls.
It is one thing to argue with people who are misinformed, thanks to the media and culture of lies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies_and_the_lying_liars_who_tell_them
but arguing with facts to self-important blowhards is a waste of time, and only gives them an excuse to continue. To such people I often write: “you are talking got my HAND!.’
^^^And you also say “I have no choice but to throw my full support behind well regulated non-profit chartering like we have in New York State.”
Again, you know that it isn’t “well-regulated” because Success Academy has been throwing away any kid who they feel like throwing away for years, and the SUNY Charter Institute has most certainly refused to look at attrition rates for at-risk kids in their schools. Not just that, SUNY was delighted to allow Ms. Moskowitz to stop giving priority to exactly those at-risk kids you keep claiming you care about about 4 years ago the first time there was mention of very high attrition rates in some of the schools that did give priority to those kids – no questions asked! Is that the kind of “well-regulation” a person like you who claims to have so much concern for all the children in PS 207 would feel? Not for one second. Once again, your actions (defending charter schools that drum out most of those kids who you find in failing public schools) speak much louder than your words (Oh I care about those kids and that’s why I post here). Caring about 10% of them while looking the other way when the other kids are treated like dirt and their parents are told it is the kid, not the school!, is exactly why your dishonest mirrors Eva Moskowitz’ dishonesty so much. And it explains why it seems as if you work for them or a sister organization devoted to promoting their interests over the interests of ALL at-risk kids.
Susan Lee Schwartz, I know you are right about my posting not doing anything to change Tim’s mind. He will continue to profess concern about the kids stuck in failing schools while looking the other way at well-endowed charter schools who weed out so many of those kids because they only want to educate the cheapest and easiest of the bunch. (Unfortunately, that means most of them — Success Academy expanded into affluent neighborhoods instead of the poorest ones where their wait lists are longest because they have a huge problem when it comes to teaching most of those kids.)
But the only way to deal with dishonest and outright lies is to call them out. It won’t change the liars because – I suspect – they are well compensated for those lies and that allows them to rationalize all that they do to actively hurt at-risk kids. But it’s always important to make sure that people like Tim who profess concern for those kids are called out for exactly the kind of opportunists they really are.
Good Point. I leave that job to you.
tead mycomment on Mendacity at oped news, right after the article on Sanders and the Media.
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/As-News-Media-Changes-Ber-in-General_News-Bernie-Sanders-2016-Presidential-Candidate_Lies_Media-And-Democracy_Media-Bias-160226-816.html
NYC public school teacher,
All the so-called reformers are doing it “for the kids.” You know?
Yes, Eva Moskowitz and her minions are victims! Victims of an antagonistic media, but mostly, just plain victims!
Victims in the same way hedge funds are victims of the system that they rigged to benefit the richest 0.1%?
Pretty much, yeah….
There is a special name for the sort of victims they are: “victim bullies”.
In other words, they use their alleged “victim-hood” to blunt criticism and actually advance their positions and careers.
Everyone is out to get them, the poor dears.
Eva is so caught up in her role as “victim bully” that she does not even realize she is going down in flames.
Murdoch’s paper is like the early ads for cigarettes, that claimed health benefits.