Peter Greene writes that the Success Academy charter chain proves definitively that charters are not public schools. 

 

It is a private business funded with public tax dollars.

 

They have previously gone to court to argue that they are not accountable to any elected officials or the state government itself. And now their team of lawyers has sent out a memo to remind staffers that they are not in any way accountable to anybody outside Success Academy walls.

 

Politico got its hands on that memo. It’s the latest in a string of damage control attempts at the charter chain, which has suffered one bad PR moment after another, from a got-to-go list of students to be forced out , to video of teacher cruelty to a child. They’ve drawn the unwelcome attention of veteran journalist John Merrow. Eva Moskowitz, who is paid more to head up her private chain of 11,000 students than Carmen Farina is paid to manage the entire New York City school system, has been ineffective in beating back the problems, and mostly seems alternately confused and outraged that she has to bother. Moskowitz is a woman who always seems one bad lapse of impulse control away from barking, “Do you know who I am!!??” Most recently the chain hired the same PR firm that has tried to paper over the Flint water crisis.

 

The legal memo that Peter Greene refers to says the following, according to Politico, where it was first published:

 

Under the header “top 20 mistakes schools make,” the advisory team writes that one of them is “providing information to lawyers/press/electeds/government reps.”

 

“Leaders must call advisory if these individuals are requesting information or are in their buildings. Lawyers and press/government may appear to be asking simple questions, but there can be broader implications,” the document reads. “Leaders must not provide sensitive information, such as demographic info or projected enrollment, to third parties without consulting with advisory.”

 

Stefan Friedman, a spokesman for Success, told POLITICO that what the memo outlines is important to keep staff on the same page. “With 11,000 scholars and 1,700 staff/faculty, these common sense procedures ensure we have a coordinated way for responding to inquiries from important members of the community,” he said in a statement.

 

The memo also specifically instructs school leaders not to allow parents to become the sources of leaks to journalists or government officials.

 

“Letting parents get away with threats to go to the press/police/elected official” is listed as number eight on the list of twenty mistakes.

 

“If a parent makes this threat, contact advisory. Advisory can help diffuse this situation,” the memo reads. “But we cannot let parents ‘get away’ with these threats. Feel confident in pushing back on these and telling parents that threats are not a productive way to resolve conflict or build the relationship….”

 

Staffers should not, according to the memo, take videos of “scholars in crisis.”

 

Teachers should not “physically restrain” students, except when they are in imminent danger.

 

And employees should not prevent students from using the bathroom, according to the memo.

 

Success’s legal team also instructs staff to keep clear documentation of student suspensions. Suspensions have been particularly publicly contentious for the network, following reports that Success suspends children as young as Kindergarten and that it suspends students at a higher rate than district schools or other charters do.

 

There are many other reasons to recognize that Success Academy charters are not public schools. Public schools are not permitted to close for a few hours or the day to send their students to a political rally. But Success Academy does it whenever its leader wishes. If a principal of a public school closed for the day and put students and parents on a bus to Albany to lobby for funding, she/he would be fired.