Eva Moskowitz agreed to open a pre-K program on behalf of the City of New York. But she refused to sign the contract that other charter schools (and all public schools and facilities) agreed to sign. Eva said that the city was not her boss, even though the money for the program came from the city.
She refused to back down. She refused to sign the contract. She canceled the pre-K program, for the fall, which enrolled about 70 children at a cost to the city of about $700,000.
Success Academy Charter Schools Cancels Pre-K
After months of fighting with City Hall about a prekindergarten contract, Success Academy Charter Schools said Wednesday it was canceling its pre-K program for the fall.
For nearly a year the charter’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, has refused to sign a contract that New York City requires of providers who participate in its public pre-K program. She says it aims to exert too much control over her curriculum, daily schedule and field trips.
City officials have said that every other pre-K provider, including charter schools, signed the same basic contract, and doing so was a clear condition of joining the initiative. Expanding public preschool has been a key part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s agenda.
Ms. Moskowitz has said the charter oversight body at the State University of New York is the proper authority over her network. State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia ruled in the city’s favor in February, saying pre-K is a state-funded grant program, rather than part of the K-12 levels overseen by SUNY.
Ms. Moskowitz appealed to the state Supreme Court earlier this year, but said Wednesday that the court’s decision would come too late to open doors in August, and families of admitted children must scramble to find alternatives.
“It is unbelievably sad to tell parents and teachers that the courts won’t rescue our pre-K program from the mayor’s war on Success in time to open next year,” she said in a news release.
“The state upheld our important standards to ensure all programs are high quality,” Department of Education spokeswoman Devora Kaye said.
Success Academy started a prekindergarten program for 72 children in four classrooms last August, and planned to expand slightly for the next school year. A spokesman said about 3,000 children entered an admissions lottery for about 100 seats for the coming year.
Ms. Moskowitz and Mr. de Blasio have clashed repeatedly over the city’s obligation to provide space for charters and other issues. She said she hopes for a court victory so she can reopen prekindergarten classes in August 2017.
A spokesman said she is still seeking $720,000 reimbursement from the city for the current school year.
Ten grand per child! Looks like corporate welfare is doing quite well.
I wonder how the strict discipline of SA would have played out in Pk?
“Eva said that the city was not her boss”. Then I guess my dime should not pay her salary.
Let the Walton’s pick up the tab .In fact if they want to privatize every public school . They could be my guest as long as they paid the bill. Which is as likely as them and the other corporate vultures in the ed reform movement paying their employees a living wage or a fair wage.
$700,000?
That’s nothing.
As many have pointed out, Eva spends more than that ($734,000) on a two-hour rally in Albany (September 2015) :
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POLITICO:
“Success and Families for Excellent Schools, the pro-charter group that officially organized the rallies, have denied requests to disclose its spending on the events, but financial documents obtained by POLITICO New York indicate the network spent at least $734,000 on the 2015 rally.
“The spending included $71,900 for the beanies and $62,795 for the T-shirts, according to receipts submitted to Success’s board of directors.”
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http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2016/05/internal-documents-lay-out-threats-to-the-success-academy-model-101592
And the gist from this article above is that Eva and Company are now upset, believing that they did not get a good bang for that $734 K buck… in contrast to the aftermath of the similar 2014 rally almost exactly one year proir.
(Again from internal documents leaked to Eliza Shapiro at POLITICO. The link is at the end of this email.)
It’s interesting that Eva is now appealing to the NY State Supreme Court in her demand that the N.Y DOE fork over $720,000 to run a pre-K program, when Eva spends more than that on a failed 1-day publicity stunt.
3-quarters-of-a-million, in a one-day splurge, doesn’t buy you what it used to, apparently.
10% of that $734,000 total went for beanies ($71,900) and another 9% went for T-shirts ($62,795).
Did Eva sign off on blowing $134,000 for freakin’ LL. Bean apparel to juice up a photo op?
The internal document justifies this thusly:
“T-shirts are a critical part of large-scale events,” said one receipt. “They help get the event’s message across, demonstrate mass participation, and provide the primary visual that captures the public’s attention.”
The network also spent $539,923 on busing and $59,375 on lunches for the rally.
Ahhh, that was money well-spent. … NOT!
Indeed, unlike the 2014 rally, which led to legislation favorable to her schools, the 2015 rally was a bust for Success Academy Schools, if not for the charter sector in general.
POLITICO:
“While this year’s state budget included a funding boost for the charter sector as a whole, it also contained a stinging loss for Success: Proposed legislation that would have blocked the city from having oversight power over pre-K programs in charters failed at the eleventh hour of negotiations.”
Here’s the details on the rally and its expenses:
POLITICO:
“The Albany rally represented just a small fraction of Success’s total spending on political advocacy and its public image, according to several internal financial documents.”
Lots more in the new article…
25% of Eva’s highest-level management (5-out-of-20) left in the last year. Most of them left after just two years on the job, while one who has been with S.A. over decade also bailed (Keri Hoyt).
A data system that they had developed internally — one that Eva had earlier believed would turn into a lucrative product they could sell to charter groups outside S.A. — has turned into a worthless $20 million boondoggle.
The guy behind it has left the S.A. fold in a hurry.
There’s more, a lot more…
Man, who knew that cowboys were such wimps….
Eva would make a great vice-Presidential candidate to The Donald. They’re both experienced at educational scams.
“Behind a paywall” sounds like every charter school I’ve seen so far.
I watched Obama’s town hall in Elkhart, Indiana today.
There was a question on the gender/bathroom issue- the man asking the question objected to the US Dep of Ed position. Obama said “these are PUBLIC schools” so all have to follow the same rules.
I agree with Obama. Public schools aren’t private schools.
The problem is Obama doesn’t agree with Obama. He treats some publicly-funded schools differently than others.
He was at a public high school today. Does that school have to follow the regulations in the City of Elkhart and the State of Indiana?
First of all, she got millions from a friend this or last year, and more millions at one (or more) fundraisers, right? She doesn’t need the taxpayers $700,000, nor should get get it, take it, or be entitled to it.
She is already putting her spin on it (she good, Mayor bad) and I’m sure she is willing to spend more than $700,000 in P.R. efforts to paint herself a saint and everyone else evil.
I agree with Joel Herman’s post above: If the beneficent billionaire philanthropists desire to provide educations for the poor, I have no issue with them using their own monies to open private schools. They can NEVER just do something nice–they are always looking for a way to get an ROI, and if it has to be on the backs of us lowlife taxpayers, they love it!
Have you read (true or supposition, I don’t know) that the Zika virus came from genetically modified mosquitos to end malaria? Have you read that Zika doesn’t come from mosquitos at all? Big Pharma, in cahoots with the government, is scrambling for a vaccine. How’d that Lyme disease vaccine work out? Not to good. Even the Shingles vaccine is hit or miss, just like the flu vaccines.
It is a sad world where those will all the wealthy they could ever imagine have to take advantage of the disadvantaged.
I don’t give a rat’s rear about Eva or Success Academy. I wish for them both to just disappear. Poof, gone.
By the way, I posted the full article about Eva and pre-K contract. Someone sent it to me
Did you see where those pre-ks were supposed to open? There were going to be 5 pre-ks, and 3 of them were going to be in some of the schools with the FEWEST students who were at-risk.
I wonder why she chose so many locations where there were lots of affluent young families having babies (like Williamsburg, Brooklyn) instead of locations in the Bronx or elsewhere where the pre-ks would be serving mainly at-risk kids. Wait, maybe I answered my own question.
For me, as a New York City taxpayer, this is good news indeed.
SUNY, a public entity, should get out of the business of privatizing public schools. SUNY’s affiliation gives charter schools, undeserved status. Get rid of the charter schools. Then, explore the elimination of private schools, which create division within the American community.
The fact that Eva Moskowitz was so adamant that no one but SUNY should ever be allowed any oversight over her schools tells you everything there is to know about SUNY’s oversight.
She can suspend as many 5 year olds as she wants. She can push out as many high needs kids as she wants. SUNY believes her when she claims that it is just “bad luck” that over 20% of the 5 and 6 year olds in some of her schools serving mostly at-risk kids turn out to be constantly doing the most violent things. It’s all on them and their “nature”. If a charter school had told the SUNY Charter Institute that 20% of the nice white middle class 5 year olds were so violent they needed to be constantly suspended from their schools, no doubt SUNY would do more than take the charter operator’s word for it. But when it comes to kids of color, the belief that so many of them are doing such violent things at age 5 is easily accepted by the SUNY board and never questioned. I’m sure their white privilege has nothing to do with that at all. It’s not that they have low opinions of at-risk 5 year olds and their violent nature. It’s that they have so much trust in the integrity of Eva Moskowitz. No need for any more oversight than that!