Campbell Brown, education expert and former journalist, excoriates Mayor de Blasio for failing to allow Success Academy to run a $700,000 pre-K program without any oversight from the entity supplying the money: the city.
Despite the fact that other charters signed the city’s contract, Success Academy refused to sign and is now abandoning the pre-K program because it will not answer to the city.
You see, Success Academy is so successful that the city has no right to expect it to sign the same contract that every other pre-K provider signed.
Note: there are many statistics in this article, but don’t believe them. Brown has never understood the Common Core cut points, which are aligned with the NAEP achievement levels. She continues to assert that all children should reach the NAEP proficient level. As the governing board of NAEP says clearly, “Proficiency is not grade level.” She obviously didn’t read the many suggested articles, some posted on government websites, that would have made this comprehensible to her.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I dare to revise “Campbell Brown, education expert and former journalist” to ‘ Campbell Brown, self appointed education expert and former hack sold-her-soul journalist with an alleged pretty face’
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder….CB is no beauty!
Agree with your assessment Lloyd. Her LASR gig is infuriating and she and Lynton see to it that there is no ability to post public comment. Evidently they are too afraid of truthful rebuttals.
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Lloyd, I think that scare-quotes around the words “expert” and “journalist” were implied.
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I thought they were implied too but I couldn’t help myself.
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All is well for Brown . Obama went down to congratulate the new Right Wing Government in Argentina and I guess her husband and Singer are no longer on a hit list if they ever were. Campbell Brown a true hero of
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Americas disadvantaged students(LOL)
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Thanks Joel…not enough folks pay attention to Dan Senor and his resume. What a pair!
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“Petulant Children”
Eva picked her marbles up
Said she wouldn’t play
Said “Of rules, I’ve had enough”
“And oversight? No way!”
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“Eva’s position about pre-K seems inflexible; every other charter school apparently signed an agreement to follow city rules, why do you think you’re above doing that?”
Brown:
“We have fought for 10 years to build schools free from any influence that might dilute or compromise our program for our students. Our independence from district oversight is inextricable from that program.”
This BS response tells me they must be afraid of outside scrutiny. Wonder why?
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Success Academies get free space from the city, that is then not available to public schools that the city holds accountable. But SA is in a bubble, where no one scrutinizes their operation.
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Why? Because anyone looking at the attrition rate of the kids who won the lottery for Kindergarten spots would be appalled.
See, we are supposed to believe that thousands of parents are dying to send their kids to Success Academy AND when they get in, are more likely than any other charter school to pull them out!
That’s what SUNY believes! That the fact that Success loses so many kids and has an attrition rate twice as high as worse performing charter schools has nothing to do with the got to go lists and targeting of at-risk kids with special needs and suspending 1/4 of the 5 year olds in low-income schools. I mean, can you imagine if SUNY heard that lots of middle class kids were leaving a “good” charter school to return to underfunded failing public schools. Do you think they’d ask questions? But since it is only the low-income students with parents who the SUNY board members obviously look down upon with pure condescension and disgust, they would never question what is staring them in their face. Why should they bother to investigate when a white woman with white billionaires behind her is telling them it is all okay. That’s all the oversight needed and that is why Campbell Brown thinks that having anyone else looking closely at the schools is such a terrible, terrible thing.
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Is that really a CB statement (the independence from oversight thing)- or is it Eva?
If being unaccountable is essential to a successful program, shouldn’t SA supporters be suggesting less accountability for traditional schools to improve outcomes?
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It is a quote from the Opinion column in the NY Post written by CB.
http://nypost.com/2016/06/03/no-mr-mayor-we-wont-shut-up-about-your-misrule-of-the-schools/
“Oversight? We don’t need no stinkin’ oversight!”
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Her biggest worry should be that it looks like she head-butted a belt sander
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Lol — unbridled arrogance will do that now and then.
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I wish your title would read “Education Idiot Campbell Brown”. Every time the public is exposed to her as an education expert, they believe it.
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“She obviously didn’t read the many suggested articles, some posted on government websites, that would have made this comprehensible to her.”
Here lies the problem. Understands bullet points, but the above average vocabulary of research studies and thoughtful articles?
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does anyone know specifically what Eva objects to in the contract?
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Everything that would hold her accountable
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The best Brown offers is the deal-breaking concern that the influence of outside oversight from NYC might “dilute or compromise [their] program”.
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I think it’s the part that says she can’t make kids feel like dirt.
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Eva objects to city oversight of any part of her operation. She says her authorizer is the state, so she believes only the state can supervise her operations. But in this case, the funder is the city, and she refuses to sign the city’s contract because they have no authority over her schools. She appealed to the state commissioner and lost.
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Jonathan — I find it very telling that Eva will not engage on exactly what aspects of oversight concern her — she is clearly not willing to engage on the issue in any way other than polemical attacks on the very notion of oversight. But all entities getting significant amounts of public money should be subject to oversight and accountability with respect to the use of that money. If she wants to engage on specific regulatory issues — I would be happy to listen. If the idea here is that she is above any oversight — ever — then she needs to be working with ALL private dollars — no public funds — no taxpayer should be coerced into paying money to someone who bears no accountability for use of funds.
And even if she works with all private money. my guess is that to run a business that works with children, there are applicable health and safety regulations, etc. imposed by various levels of government. Campbell, honey — methinks thou dost protest too much. Are you afraid of what oversight would uncover?
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A very important correction to Diane’s comment regarding the funding sources for NYC preK programs: the state of New York is providing close to 90% of the funding for universal pre-K in New York City. Furthermore, roughly half of New York City’s universal pre-K’s are private providers.
Click to access universal-prek-enrollment-frunding-march2015.pdf
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And all those providers signed New York City’s contract: private providers and charter schools. Only one provider refused to sign the contract: Success Academy.The State Commissioner of Education rejected Eva’s appeal. Sorry, Tim.
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I’m glad that we could set the record straight on how NYC universal pre-K is paid for.
Now a judge will decide what happens next with Success. They must like their chances.
I think the right thing for Success to do would have been to continue to self-fund their relatively small number of preK classes while the legal issues were sorted out. However, their concerns about the contract aren’t unfounded, as this Politico piece points out: http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/02/slow-start-for-city-pre-k-in-charter-schools-019338
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Tim writes:
“However, their concerns about the contract aren’t unfounded…”
Finally, Tim writes the truth!
If there is oversight by someone other than SUNY, they might actually question why a charter school CEO would publicly proclaim that over 20% of the 5 year olds in some of her schools are violent children who needed to be suspended and prevented from violently harming the “good” kids in the school. And if that someone had oversight ability, Success Academy should be VERY concerned!
However, Tim knows that if the only oversight is done by SUNY, they will laugh heartily at how many 5 year olds get suspended and totally agree that of course those 5 year olds are violent! No need for any oversight other than asking Eva Moskowitz to give her “word” that she just gets lots of violent kids and they deserve it!
So it would certainly be VERY concerning because that contract means someone other than SUNY would actually care about those kids!
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Campbell Brown = Donald Trump of education
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Yes, she is Donald Trump except that President Obama and his Dept. of Education admire and respect her and give her lots of credibility.
She has flourished the last 8 years of the Obama administration because President Obama and his appointees believe that everything she says is the gospel truth.
So: Campbell Brown = MLK Jr in the eyes of the Obama administration
Obama lives in the reality community except when it comes to the charter schools his billionaire friends think are great. Then, he believes in taking their word over anything else.
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And here’s another ignorant statement by CB from the article: “The city has endorsed the Success Academy vision by repeatedly allowing us to create additional schools.”
Is she not aware that the City has nothing – nothing! – to do with creating the SA schools, that SUNY authorizes them to open, and that the NYC DOE has been forced to allow co-locations of SA boot camps that displace public school students and programs?
Moron!
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What really angers me about Campbell Brown is that her opinions never allow comments from readers. Her biased faux-cational website is editorials. Have they ever allowed comments? If they did, were all dissenting comments deleted? I cannot visit her billion dollar website because all it does is incite me to riot, and as my daughter says, I need to chill.
Campbell Brown is a well-paid moron. No, I don’t find her telegenic–I find her looks and her opinions offensive.
Of COURSE she is defending Eva. Maybe she should directly defend Kevin Brown because, after all, he is a pedophile and she remains silent on that, so she must be on his side or she would “expose” him, right?
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I think you mean Kevin Johnson, Michelle Rhee’s husband.
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Oh Jack, you are correct. Freudian slip, that.
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Campbell Brown was a tv personality so she feels a special kinship with Cat Greenleaf, another tv personality who has written (on Campbell Brown’s blog!) about how her son is one of the many affluent children whose siblings are currently in some of the very affluent Success Academy schools where Eva Moskowitz wants to have pre-ks without anyone watching what she does there. Cobble Hill. Union Square. There may not be many poor kids in those schools, but those rich tv personalities and their friends need good pre-ks too. And they don’t want any pesky regulations that might force them to attend with any not up to snuff homeless kids who the model teachers at Success Academy are so good at making feel misery until they leave. What if signing that contract means that those homeless kids have to be treated the same as Cat Greenleaf’s kid? What if that meant that a kid who was homeless ALSO got that “exhaustive consideration he gets from the entire staff to reach him, and teach him, where he is. Once they figured out his optimal learning style, they swiftly adapted…” That’s the kind of special treatment that at-risk kids don’t usually get at Success Academy where they are frequently suspended at age 5 and 6 while Cat Greenleaf’s child is carefully treated so as “not to feel like a bad kid”. No wonder Campbell Brown is so upset that some poor kids who aren’t up to snuff won’t be able to be suspended over and over again! She knows they deserve it! And Cat Greenleaf’s kid never does, of course, because Success Academy is happy to adapt to whatever he needs! No oversight necessary. Ever. Except by SUNY.
See, it’s important that only SUNY provide the oversight that they did when the model teachers at Success Academy freely treat the not up to snuff at-risk kids like dirt while the ‘deserving” parents like Cat Greenleaf’s child is treated like a prince. If a charter school is not free to do that, Campbell Brown cannot abhor it. Charter schools know which kids are worthy and which are not, and Ms. Brown wants them to be free to treat the ones who are NOT worthy as the worthless 5 year olds they believe they are. Or soon to be 4 year olds!
https://www.the74million.org/article/cat-greenleaf-for-my-childs-sake-please-save-pre-k-at-new-yorks-success-academy
Remember, as Cat Greenleaf writes on Campbell Brown’s website, it is for HER child’s sake that we need to keep those pre-ks open with public money. If she can’t send her kids to a school that weeds out those nasty unwanted kids that both she and Campbell Brown think are unworthy, then how can she expect them to be able to learn anything.
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Tim, is that you hiding under the bed?
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The Code of Silence must be obeyed.
Otherwise the $tudent $ucce$$ that comes from rhephorm ROI is threatened.
Capiche?
😎
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Omerta or else!
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I have no idea what this is in reference to–feel free to clarify or to ask me an actual question!
While we wait, the NYC charter lotteries and admissions for the 2016-2017 school year are winding down, and there an astounding 44,400 individual children are left on charter school wait lists. That’s a couple of thousand kids less than there are enrolled in the entirety of the Seattle public K-12 system. Incredible.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/nyc-charter-schools-waiting-list-tops-44g-article-1.2660528
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Tim, please not the “waiting lists.” That line has been debunked again and again. Double counts, triple counts, quadruple counts.
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Avoid, deflect, divert.
Non Sequitur: a most appropriate moniker.
😎
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Another ad hominem swing, another embarrassing ad hominem miss. At least these were short and sweet, not the normal logorrhea.
If there’s an actual question, please restate it. Thanks!
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“there an astounding 44,400 individual children are left on charter school wait lists”
This is a patented lie since no one knows whether there are “individual” children on the wait lists or the same kids on the wait lists for different schools. When I see Tim using these numbers and having to outright lie by saying “individual children”, when he knows that is not the case, I know that he is grasping at straws.
But by Tim’s fuzzy math, did you know that there are 18,500 kids on the wait list for Bronx Science, 21,000 on the wait list for Brooklyn Tech, 19,100 on the wait list for HSMSE, 15,000 on the Staten Island Tech wait list and 21,500 on the Stuy wait list.
By Tim’s fuzzy math, an astonishing 90,000+ students were on “wait lists” for spots at specialized high schools.
And, at only 4 high schools: NEST, Beacon, Elro and Murrow, there were nearly 17,000 students on wait lists!
So according to Tim’s calculation, that means that at just 9 high schools, there are well over 105,000 students on wait lists for ONE grade! Even though that grade only has what, 80,000 students total!
Because it doesn’t matter whether one kid signed up for 10 charter schools or 10 public schools. According to Tim, if they don’t get a spot, each one is on the “wait list”. Even though they are at schools they prefer.
I don’t know whether to be embarrassed at Tim for lying or embarrassed at Tim for being ignorant.
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Spot on, NYC public school parent!
105,000 students on wait lists at just 9 high schools in NYC !
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Diane,
You can read about how the wait-list number for New York City is calculated here: http://www.nyccharterschools.org/sites/default/files/resources/Lottery-Enrollment-Estimates.pdf
For the 2015-2016 school year, NYC charter schools received an insane 249,700 individual applications.
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The saddest thing is that Eva Moskowitz is fighting this battle so that the very affluent parents at Success Academy Cobble Hill and Union Square are served. Despite having 6 schools in the Bronx, she isn’t fighting for pre-ks there. Nope, because the mostly white and middle class kids in Bensonhurst deserve it more. Hmmmm….
Campbell Brown published the plaintive cry for help from a typical parent whose children would get one of those pre-k spots:
https://www.the74million.org/article/cat-greenleaf-for-my-childs-sake-please-save-pre-k-at-new-yorks-success-academy
“For MY child’s sake!” Not for the sake of those undesirable at-risk kids who the model teacher at our school is so good at humiliating until her parent pulled her from the school. Some of them just can’t keep up and need to be humiliated. However when it comes to HER child, as Cat Greenleaf writes: “I’ve been especially moved to see how his teachers handle adjustments with minimal disruption to the class, which keeps Primo from feeling like the “bad kid” when he needs some extra support.”
Campbell Brown wants to save pre-k for Cat Greenleaf’s child. That’s why she published her op ed. And that is why the majority of the pre-ks are located places where parents like Cat Greenleaf will get the first seats.
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In 2014-2015, NYC Public schools received an “insane” 1.1 million applications. According to Tim’s fuzzy math.
Maybe Tim will explain why it is that charter schools have to go way down their wait list and even take out of district kids to fill spots. Even at Success Academy. Or maybe they just cook the books and accept the out of district kids they want while blowing off the in-district ones. Which is it, Tim?
We all know there are out of district children attending Success Academy schools. Documented empty seats in many of them. what happened to those wait lists? Just a “glitch”? Or funny business so that the kids on wait lists who aren’t the ones that Success Academy wants to teach just never find their number coming up?
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By the way, the link that Tim provided are ESTIMATED (by the pro-charter organization!) and based on SURVEY data!
Because when you are looking for accurate numbers, you always make sure to ask the people whose livelihood depends on them manufacturing demand to provide you with “survey” numbers.
Charters also did not receive an “insane” 279,000 separate applications unless you use the same fuzzy math that I used to show that 9 high schools received far more applications for 9th grade spots than there are 9th graders in the NYC school system.
Extrapolating using Tim’s system, an estimated 10 million children are on wait lists for all grades in the NYC public school system. Because that school was listed somewhere on someone’s application.
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NYC public school parent:
Didn’t you know that when you use rheephorm-friendly ESTIMATES based on rheephorm-friendly SURVEYS you are basing yourself on the Gold Standard for rheephorm data analytics?
Rheeally!
And really!
😱
But doesn’t that mean you are committing [from the rheephorm POV] the cardinal sin of using facts, logic, context and good sense aka ad hominem attacks—
When self-serving proof by assertion and torturing numbers & stats are called for?
Please, there are bigger questions than decency and honesty involved here like using public monies for preK programs but not having to answer for how they are used and Dialing up the campaign against the felonious assaults of small children tossing heavy desks around like Olympic discus throwers and protecting $500,000+ in salary and maintaining got-to-go lists and such.
Never forget: ROI aka $tudent $ucce$$ is a precious and fragile thing.
Next thing you know you’ll pronounce yourself in favor of a “better education for all”…
😎
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KrazyTA,
“… the felonious assaults of small children tossing heavy desks around like Olympic discus throwers…”
You are so right. Why do I even expect a modicum of honesty from these people? If Donald Trump can say outrageously ridiculous things without being called out by the press or the leaders of the Republican Party, why shouldn’t Campbell Brown and Eva Moskowitz do the same?
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Propagandists like Brown and Moskowitz can only survive for so long on their vitriol and lies, the more they are provoked, the greater the lies they tell, the sooner that more and more people who are appalled by the lies will join the pushback. They assume that the wealth and influence of their backers is an aegis, but in reality it is nothing more than them painting themselves into a corner. As it was with Rhee-volting, it will be with them.
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Commenter Tim just provided a link that claims that demand for charter schools in the last year has DECREASED nearly 9% from the year before.
Charter school demand is the lowest in 4 years. Despite there being more charter schools than ever!
Are the ones still applying now the “right” kind of kids, Tim? Did the charter folks succeed in discouraging more of the undesirables so they don’t have to suspend so many 5 year olds or put them on got to go lists or just do what the model teacher did and humiliate and punish a child who can’t come up with the right answer fast enough?
Is it a good thing that applications are down, Tim? Because finally more parents understand that no matter whether they choose the charter, the charter will not be choosing their child as someone to treat with the respect that Cat Greenleaf’s child gets? Is that someone to celebrate?
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Maybe Cat just wants her kid to learn some of the college readiness skills that other Pre-K programs ignore?
making and holding mouth bubbles
eye tracking their teachers
perfect posture and constant alertness
communicating in “scholar talk”
tight roping the tape line
slam the exam songs and chants
enduring the constant threat of suspension
navigating a pernicious demerit system
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RageAgainstTheTetsocracy,
Cat’s children, and the children of middle class parents are not treated that way. The kind of “college readiness” you described is reserved especially for those low-income children who are far likely NOT to be able to pay the very high rents (and get priority) for most of the pre-ks that Success Academy planned to open. (One of the schools where Eva Moskowitz planned to open a pre-k – in Union Square, Manhattan – had under 25% low income kids. Cat’s kids attend a Success Academy school where most of the kids are middle class, as are MOST of the schools where Ms. Moskowitz is demanding pre-ks.
As Cat describes about how Success Academy treats HER child: “exhaustive consideration he gets from the entire staff to reach him, and teach him, where he is. Once they figured out his optimal learning style, they swiftly adapted…”
No mouth bubbles if it is not Cat’s child’s “optimal learning style” — Success Academy will happily adapt for him.
https://www.the74million.org/article/cat-greenleaf-for-MY-childs-sake-please-save-pre-k-at-new-yorks-success-academy
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I don;t know how we’re supposed to tell the difference between government contractors who lobby against oversight and charter schools. All government contractors lobby against regulations.
Charter school leaders have “the right” motives? They’re good people? They’re just intrinsically pure and unsullied? The Best and the Brightest don’t have to follow the rules that ordinary fallible contractors have to follow?
Maybe Success Academy could clear this up.
How are they different than any other government contractor? Why should they get an exception that every other city contractor doesn’t get?
Conversely, what if every contractor did this? What if every government contractor refused oversight yet demanded funding? I don’t know why they wouldn’t- there’s really nothing unique about charter school government contracts other than their leaders insisting they’re somehow “public”.
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Why stop with preschool? Publicly-subsidized daycare programs shouldn’t be regulated either. The people who run them can just assure us they’re good people and they’re opposed to regulation “on principle”.
We have a publicly-subsidized daycare program at the YMCA. My youngest went there when he was small. About half the kids were there on a voucher. They had all sorts of rules they had to follow because they are a GOVERNMENT CONTRACTOR.
They must have been bad people who required oversight, as opposed to the charter movement, who are good people so don’t require oversight.
The Y should have called themselves a “charter daycare”. Then they would have gotten the special “good people” exception for contractors.
How does the public tell the difference between who is the Best and the Brightest and who is not? What if we don’t know them personally? We should just take their word on it?
I don’t know- this seems problematic. Maybe the echo chamber should examine this idea more closely. Seems risky. They MAY find out they’re just government contractors rather than “movement leaders” when the scandals start to pile up!
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I love how the whole ed reform lobby rushes to the defense of a charter operator yet there’s crickets when public schools are collapsing.
The public education system in the whole state of Kansas is collapsing due to deliberate defunding, and all of these thousands of paid advocates can’t see their way clear to a single op-ed, yet Eva’s preschool program is threatened and it’s all hands on deck!
Are there no poor children in Kansas or is that just an unfashionable area of the country without national media coverage?
It reminds me of Washington (state). Bill Gates charter program was threatened and ed reform ran a coordinated media campaign, meanwhile, every public school in the state was threatened because the idiots in state government wouldn’t do their job and put together a funding plan that passed court muster.
This isn’t about “public schools”. They don’t do jack for “public schools”. It’s about charter schools. Always. It’s obvious to those of who are outside the echo chamber.
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Good point, Chiara. Not a word from “reformers” about the dangerous state of Kansas’ public school system, but all hands on deck to defend Eva when she walks away from a contract for 70 preschoolers.
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It is especially ironic when you are talking about Eva demanding a pre-k in a school — Union Square – where under 25% of the Kindergarten class was low-income. It’s not even about serving the at-risk kids anymore — it’s about serving the entitled rich parents who are pleased when a charter school their child attends targets low-income kids who aren’t up to snuff so that they can withdraw. And then congratulate themselves for attending a “diverse” school that allows the “strivers” among the poor to sit next to their child because they feel confident that the non-strivers will be weeded out if any slip through a lottery where priority is given to parents who live in very wealthy neighborhoods.
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There’s only a hair’s difference between …
— high-end charter schools — catering to middle and upper income parents — paid for by taxes, which can exclude kids at the front door, or can kick them out later.
AND
— similarly run private schools — also catering to middle and upper income parents — that are also paid for by tax money in the form of individual vouchers (or tax credits… or “education savings accounts” or whatever euphemism is being tacked on) that are then given to parents to spend on those private schools. (The whole “put the money in the child’s backback” nonsense.)
In both instances, tax money goes to entities which are, for all or most intents and purposes, “private schools” that, again, are being funded with public money.
With vouchers, tax money goes to schools which are admittedly private entities — no one’s denying it. In their operations, they unaccountable and non-transparent to the public.
With charter schools, they’re ALSO essentially “private” schools, ALSO unaccountable and non-transparent, funded by taxpayer money, but their operators and promoters like Peter Cunningham and Campbell Brown won’t own up to this as the “privatization” of schools.
Instead, we have to listen to demonstrably false canards such as “Charter schools ARE PUBLIC schools; they’re just a different kind of PUBLIC school.”
The children of my upper income friends attend schools such a “Larchmont Charter” or whatever, and express gratitude:
“This is great. We get a private school education, and have classes filled with kids who are like my own (READ: white, middle/upper income), and doncha know it? IT”S FREE!!!!”
These are folks that could afford private school, and would have paid for private school otherwise, had not this charter school model not been invented. This just means that increasingly, less and less and less money is now going to the schools that educate the lower income and/or immigrant population. That, in turn, will lead to lower “test scores” and “failure” that will be then used to justify converting those schools and turning them over to the charter chains catering to lower income children. It’s a downward spiral, that was knowingly and deliberately designed to operate that way.
With both of these “private” “quasi-private”(charter) school models, again, the schools don’t have to educate ALL the public, eschewing those who are the most expensive and cumbersome to educate — special ed., English Language Learners, immigrants, homeless, foster care, kids with behavior issues. In contrast to schools that are under the control and oversight of a local, democratically-elected school board, parents have no mechanism or means by which they can complain or ask for changes, or whatever.
Parents who are upset with Success Academy for whatever reason — abusive treatment, or harassment geared to force the parent to “choose” to leave —- cannot go to the NYC school board to voice their objections, or to demand any kind of remedy or redress.
Instead, those parents are then directed to Success Academy’s “authorizer”, SUNY, whom we all know are in Eva’s back pocket, and won’t do squat when a parent contacts them.
Instead, SUNY doesn’t even respond. On the rare instances when they do respond, they carry out Eva’s marching orders and tell the complaining parents in so many words, “S.A. schools are schools of choice, so if you don’t like how your school is being run, then LEAVE! S.A. schools can’t be all things to all students, so GET LOST!”
And those parents and students do leave, most without raising any objection. With the latest lawsuits, that’s starting to change.
In this manner, there’s virtually no difference between charters like Success Academy and any other private school in New York City or elsewhere.
I was at the 2007 NEA convention where, early in his 2008 run, Obama told 10,000 teachers, “We need to support and save our public schools, instead of abandoning them and handing out vouchers.”
Then, once elected, he embarks on a plan — and appoints a Secretary of Ed. — that promotes the unbridled expansion of the virtual equivalent of latter model — the one he seemingly condemns in his speech — in the form of privately-managed charter schools.
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People can see for themselves how “objective” Campbell Brown is. Read her “news” site.
You won’t find a single positive story about any public school in the country.
https://www.the74million.org/
Give me a break. This isn’t “data” and it isn’t “reporting”. Ms. Brown must think people are morons.
I suggest everyone read on the ed reform side. Try all of them- Education Post, Gates, Broad, Dell, Walton. They all cover the same “issues” at the same time, and what’s noticeably absent is ANY coverage of strong public schools.
The most disturbing part is how closely the Obama Administration tracks the echo chamber. It’s seamless- the echo chamber picks it up and promotes whatever they’re selling and President Obama’s appointees are right there with them. It’s seamless,which shouldn’t surprise anyone since there’s a revolving door between The Movement and government. They are literally the same 150 people. It’s the same names over and over and over. Complete and utter capture.
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Chiara, I just did a little Ngram exercise, comparing Google’s scans of books with references to public schools and charter schools. There you will find a visual conformation of your many comments about the overwhelming power of the charter industry in creating self referential information.
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Remember EDUSHYSTER’s expose just before THE 74 just went on-line?
A prominent (unnamed) reporter interviewed for a job with Campbell’s THE 74, then reported back to Edushyster the astonishing conversation she had while interviewing.
One of Campbell’s functionaries told the reporter applying to work there that THE 74’s reporters — including her, should she get hired — would be barred from doing any reporting that was critical of charter schools, or of school privatization, and that any charter school scandals — even those that hit the mainstream media and became national stories — must be ignored as well.
Here’s that story:
http://edushyster.com/will-the-74-investigate-charter-scandals/
Well, that’s basically what’s happened. Regarding the recent scandals with Eva Moskowitz & Success Academy, scandals that got national coverage on PBS and elsewhere … as far as Campbell Brown, THE 74 and — in Ms. Lynton’s words — “the 74’s roster of smart, veteran journalists” are concerned, it’s like the Success Academy scandals never even happened.
They wrote not one word about all of that.
This is like back with the old Soviet news outlet TASS.
Well, we can now expect the same thing with LA School Report.
Another thing you notice is that in Edushyster’s article is that the operation that’s running THE 74 is the “Mercury” P.R. group, the same group that Walmart uses in its suppression of any budding unionism in its stores. Mercury operatives even pretended to be journalists at an anti-Walmart rally in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.
Mercury is also in charge of PR for … wait for it … Eli Broad’s “Great Public Schools Now” plan to convert half of LAUSD school to privately-managed charter schools.
So Mercury is running L.A. School Report — controlling 100% of its content — where it will report on Eli Broad’s “Great Public Schools Now” privatization plan, which Mercury is also doing P.R. for.
WTF???!!!!
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…and at CB’s Billionaire funded site, you can’t comment. Nothing to combat the lies that those twits write. I can’t stand that site, full of lies and more lies.
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Jack, doesn’t Mercury also now do PR for Success Academy?
And aren’t they the PR agent for the Governor of Michigan so that he can pretend that all the children poisoned by lead in Flint, Michigan are just as expendable as all the at-risk kids who disappear from Success Academy after being humiliated, suspended, and punished by the “model teachers” so expert at making those very young children feel like the losers that Success Academy believes they are?
I think Mercury is expert in making the public believe that some kids matter more than other kids and the ones that don’t can be “disappeared” or poisoned and we should all accept that is their fate.
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Yes, Mercury does PR for Success and for Governor Snyder. Crisis control seems to be their specialty.
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Why doesn’t Campbell Brown choose to send her own children to Success? Oh wait, she cares so much about what an excellent option SA is for families, but actions speak louder than words. Revealed preferences make her a hypocrite.
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