In a stunning setback for Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain, a judge ruled that the charters must submit to the city’s regulations for Pre-K if it expects to receive city funding. Moskowitz had sued to reject any city authority over her charter schools, even though nearly a dozen other charter schools agreed to sign the city’s contract for Pre-K.
Moskowitz vowed to appeal, insisting that she has a right to public funds without any oversight other than her authorizer, the State University of New York, which gives her free rein.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s today’s vocabulary word: Chutzpah.
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more like a pair of balls
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Awwwww…poor Eva and her fellow billionaires. For once, they’ll have to follow a public law if it wants the public’s money instead of “writing” them with the public’s money for which they don’t have to follow…..
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Of course she’s going to appeal. She’s one of those self-entitled overgrown brats who thinks the rules don’t apply to her.
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She probably took it to the courts when her mother grounded her for breaking the household rules in junior high and high school.
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The public should demand the elimination of SUNY’s role, whatever it is, in facilitating
the privatization of education. Next in the privatization cross-hairs, SUNY and other public universities.
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What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If universities are coming up with these teacher ranking scales, I want an exit exam for college graduates to rank university professors.
Let’s see how much value they add. I’m very “data-driven”, like they are. I’m also wary of people who promote policies they wouldn’t apply to themselves. What gives with that? Why is none of this edu-market applied to the people who promote it?
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The SUNY Charter Institute needs to be investigated by a reporter.
There would be some very basic questions that no reporter has asked:
Does SUNY care if a charter school gives out of school suspensions to over 20% of their most at-risk 5 and 6 year old children or do they believe any charter operator who tells them that all those children are doing such violent things in their Kindergarten class that suspending them is the only appropriate punishing?
Why has SUNY never questioned what was going on in a charter school Kindergarten and first grade class where 20% of the students are “supposedly” acting out violently they need to be suspended?
Are the SUNY Charter Institute board racists? Is the reason that SUNY never once questioned a charter school operator who claimed that some of her schools had huge numbers of violent 5 year olds because those 5 year olds were minority children and not white?
Has SUNY ever examined what happens to every at-risk 5 year old student who has won the Success Academy lottery for Kindergarten and yet has not made it to 3rd grade testing with their cohort? Are 30% of them missing? Are 50% of them missing? Are even more missing from schools with high suspension rates?
Is SUNY’s racism the reason that the board has never wondered or cared? Is it the same racism that made them accept without question a charter school operator’s claim that so many 5 year olds in her school were violent?
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Inside Higher Ed reported on the Gates data push in universities, a couple of years ago. Impatient Opportunists implied last year that they expected a role in determining which professors are performing to their expectations.
When politicians, with hands out for campaign donations, get to pick college administrators, IMO, you get Aspen-type toadies.
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Well, obviously. She’s just a better and more noble person than the other principals, or whatever it is she calls herself- “CEO” probably?
They have bad intentions (self interest) and she has good intentions (noble and self-sacrificing) and you’ll just have to trust that’s true, because it so obviously is and they repeat it constantly.
This is a great question I have never heard discussed in the ed reform echo chamber:
“I’m all for training teachers to be as good as possible. But the existence of a bell curve of quality is pretty much inevitable everywhere. So why are politicians and academics so obsessed with teachers? Why not a national campaign called “A Nation at Risk” declaring that policing is in crisis and we won’t rest until we’ve fired all the bad ones and put in place a comprehensive quality testing regime that rates every single police officer in the country?
I’m serious about this. Every profession has a top ten percent and a bottom 3 percent. Every profession would be better if more of its members were as good as the top 10 percent while the bottom 3 percent were systematically fired. This is, frankly, so obvious, that it barely even deserves to be called an observation, let alone an insight. And yet, we all ooh and ah when these banalities are applied to teachers. What’s the deal with this?”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/06/wed-be-better-if-every-human-were-good-top-10-percent-humans
As someone who DOESN’T “ooh and ah” when these banalities are presented as unique insight, I’m curious about this myself.
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I think the top 1% (Best and brightest”) have been looking at things the wrong way all along.
Instead of trying to make everyone as smart as them, what they really need is their own planet where everyone will already be just like them.
Perhaps we could get NASA to help them in that regard. Mars might be a good place for the “Best and Brightest”.
I think it would be a win win for everyone.
The 1% will get their own planet to destroy as they see fit and the rest of us can live our lives in peace.
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Come to think of it, it’s probably not feasible to send the 1% off to Mars, but just sending off the billionaires would probably be feasible and would probably solve most of the problems we currently face.
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I think Eva Moskowitz is the perfect vice presidential running mate for Donald Trump.
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Then they could remake “The Clash of the Titans” and call it “The Clash of the Egos.”
Donald and Eva do have certain similarities, don’t they?
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Is it possible they are twins and because Eva was a girl their parents gave her away through adoption? If not, then maybe Eva is the half sister he never knew existed from an affair of one of his parents.
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Lloyd, we could add a whole lot of people to that egotistical, self-entitled gene pool.
Bill Gates, the Waltons, Michelle Rhee, Rahm Emanuel, Campbell Brown, Arne Duncan, John B. King, Jr., and on and on and on.
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Maybe they are all covert test tube babies, a genetic experiment in creating the perfect ruthless psychopath, the master race to rule us all. I wonder who the donor father and mothers were — John D. Rockefeller maybe?
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{{Shudder}}
Although, you don’t even need genetic experiments to explain such people. Many of them grew up in very favorable circumstances, and learned that they were “favored” and they could do anything they wanted to without repercussions.
Others didn’t grow up in those circumstances, but because they succeeded later in life, they came to believe that they were “golden.”
Either way, they believe that their opinions matter way more than those of “the peons.”
Obviously, to them, those of us who are “peons” are the “losers” and therefore, our experience, and our wants, needs, beliefs, and those of our children, our grandchildren, our students and their parents, are beneath contempt as far as they are concerned. 😦
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Lord Acton’s famous quote helps explain who the rich and powerful are corrupt and don’t know it. They think they are right no matter what and anyone that disagrees with them is ignorant, a fool or a extremist/terrorists of some kind.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Just having a lot of wealth makes one powerful in addition to the fact that money buys power.
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Sadly, Lloyd, this is all too true.
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“She came in through the bathroom window Protected by a silver spoon But now she sucks her thumb and wanders By the banks of her own lagoon. Didn’t anybody tell her?”
Eva, before you decide to jump into the “pond” established by the gov, consider the
“rules”…If you want to survive and thrive in that pond, you do what the “head” tells
you to do. You may claim the (fish) head is rotten but it is still the head.
Go hiss in your own pit…
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Rejectification. Eva de-valorized. Another episode of defeatatization.
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The only reason Eva Moskowitz is pursuing this is because the majority of those pre-ks were designed to serve schools where most parents were middle class and white. And one of the others was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the city where very rich residents experienced a baby boom recently and whose kids Success Academy is desperate to serve.
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Anyone have a direct link to the contract that needs to be signed?
I can imagine some annoyance at a provision like this that I see in a FAQ:
Q. Can a Provider have more than three (3) instructional field trips per school year as long as the budgeted amount is not exceeded?
A. No. Providers are limited to three paid trips per class per school year.
http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/A9F48CEA-25FE-4BC5-81C9-8D2104A35525/118944/FAQ.docx
And see plenty of grumbling from folks other than E.M. about NYC/DOE pre-k oversight here:
http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/02/slow-start-for-city-pre-k-in-charter-schools-019338
But in a quick search I find remarkably little analysis of what the contract states, and what may or may not be sensible in its provisions.
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Since it is contract for serving tens of thousands of students, I am sure there are various provisions that are annoying.
But, FWIW, this says providers are limited to 3 PAID trips per class per school year. That would not prohibit a pre-k from having an unpaid class trip.
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NYC public school parent: and all those trips could be paid out of the monies—
Not spent on beanies and t-shirts.
Of course, $131,000 plus dollars doesn’t go a long way these days what with hiring Chief Scaling Officers and such…
😎
P.S. Link: http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2016/05/internal-documents-lay-out-threats-to-the-success-academy-model-101592
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Thanks. I’ve found some additional detail here:
Click to access prek_policy_handbook_finaldraft_onlineversion.pdf
e.g.:
• Students may not be taken on field trips that require transportation before January 1st of the school year.
• No more than three field trips involving transportation may be provided in a given school year.
[…]
• There is no limit on the number of neighborhood walks that can take place during the school year.
• Students may not be required to walk more than 10 blocks or ½ of a mile (one way). If you choose an off-site location more than 10 blocks or ½ of a mile from your pre-K program site, you must provide students with transportation and follow all policies noted in the Field Trips Involving Transportation section above.
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Stephen Ronan, why can’t Success Academy’s copious PRIVATE funds pay for the additional field trips?
Are you implying that Success Academy would not be able to use public funds to bus the pre-k children to the many rallies they hold for “educational” purposes? Is that Eva Moskowitz’ concern?
How many “field trip rallies” so that Success Academy pre-k students can lobby to take funding from public schools and direct it to charter schools do you think our tax dollars should pay for?
But thank you for providing insight that Success Academy is demanding more “pro-charter rallies/field trips” for their pre-k classes that are paid for by tax payer dollars. I guess 3 is not enough.
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“Stephen Ronan, why can’t Success Academy’s copious PRIVATE funds pay for the additional field trips?”
Are you certain that the language in my previous posting only refers to publicly funded trips, e.g. this language:
“• Students may not be taken on field trips that require transportation before January 1st of the school year.
• No more than three field trips involving transportation may be provided in a given school year.”
You might be right in that assumption, but I’m not certain of that. I still would like to see the actual contract language.
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Stephen Ronan,
I posted that based on your earlier link. Now that I have read the later link, you may very well be correct that the pre-k children can only take 3 field trips ON BUSES for pre-k. They can do walking field trips.
I have no doubt that such a provision is “sensible” when applied to pre-ks educating tens of thousands of students. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a reasonable argument to be made that 4 field trips on buses, or 5, or a dozen on buses isn’t also “sensible”. I could make an argument that it isn’t “sensible” to severely punish and humiliate a child who is wearing the wrong color socks one day and eventually suspend him from school if it happens more than 2 or 3 times. You could argue that a rule like that is entirely “sensible” and doesn’t target children whose parents may not be able to wash and dry clothes easily.
I can point to lots of “rules” that would cause other schools to grumble. Tough. If you don’t want to play by the rules, don’t play. Or lobby properly to change them for EVERYONE. If you are right about the rule being unfair, it will change. But saying “I am right and that means I don’t have to follow them” is a very obnoxious way for an educator who wants to teach 4 years to behave. Is that a lesson for the kids? If you think a rule is wrong, you should throw a fit and refuse to follow them?
Or maybe that’s what you – and Success Academy’s board and administration – believe. If so, we shall agree to disagree.
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I have had some small experience being invited by public authorities to sign contracts that variously seemed sensible and silly.
Whether I would characterize E.M.s declining to sign this particular contract as entitled obnoxiousness and “throwing a fit” or a reasonable, hardball negotiating tactic that may benefit others less inclined to make waves would depend on my achieving an adequate understanding of the contract’s provisions and how sensible they seem. Till then, I’m reserving judgment.
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Do trips to Albany or other political events, count as field trips?
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It’s not a hardball tactic to not sign a contract if the person offering it is only interested in paying someone to do the work who will sign it.
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^^sorry, hit reply too soon.
A hardball tactic means you are saying “negotiate with me if you want me”.
What Eva Moskowitz is doing is called a temper tantrum. She is not looking to negotiate, she is looking to use her special connections to somehow punish Mayor de Blasio for not doing whatever she asked. It worked before. Parenting 101 — if your toddler throws a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his way and he gets rewarded for it, he will continue to throw temper tantrums to get his way. Since throwing a temper tantrum worked so well before, she will continue to do so as long as it gets her what she wants. So the question is whether NY State – via Cuomo and his allies in Albany who are raking in the donations from billionaires who want Eva Moskowitz to have her way – will reward this behavior.
Maybe they can take money from the budget for food stamps for the poor so that Eva Moskowitz can open a pre-k for the disproportionately white and middle class families who are currently at at Success Academy Union Square and Cobble Hill and Bensonhurst. I mean, if you really cared about serving as many at-risk kids as you could, why wouldn’t you make sure most of the pre-ks are where there are the fewest at-risk kids in your entire network?
Makes sense to me.
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She is misleading parents and attempting to mislead the public, again. No one is stopping her from offering a pre-K program, privately funded. Of course, self-financing pre-K probably means she’ll need to divert funds from her rally budget.
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…and from her Wall Street? Park Avenue? office fancy diggs.
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Judge Rule: The Empress of Slave Academy is not above law.
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I would like to share that in the recent NYC budget negotiations the Brandeis High School Complex, where Upper West Success Academy is co-located, received $285,000 for a yard upgrade. The high schools in that complex presumably use the yard, but probably not as much as a grammar school like Success Academy. To me it is offensive that public money continues to be spent on this privately-managed and -funded business, while they busy themselves litigating and lobbying for more public funds.
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It is WORSE than that.
That $285,000 cost will be charged as part of the allocation for each public school student in NYC while charter school students get a free ride.
So the reformers will claim NYC is “spending” $20,000 per pupil in public schools because it will include that $285,000 and every other cost that helps charter schools but they refuse to be charged for.
So then charter schools will claim “see how much money those public schools are getting and still failing. they are wasting it. And we deserve more because we are better”.
And the more kids in charter schools, the fewer public school kids to charge that $285,000 cost! So the more charters there are, the more public school students will be charged to pay for the overhead of the charter school kids. And the less those public school students will actually get for their own education.
Given that the most vulnerable and most expensive at-risk kids are in the public schools, it shows how completely lacking in morals or ethics the charter school folks are. They WANT to starve those schools serving the most vulnerable kids because deep down, the charter school folks believe that the strivers among them will come to charters and the remaining kids deserve to rot. So of course the reformers are delighted to mislead people who think that public schools spend all this money on the most vulnerable at-risk students when the truth is that the actual school based budgets are significantly smaller than any charter schools.
And it isn’t the fault of the “bureaucracy” that charters claim is unnecessary. It is the fault of the charters who happily use that bureaucracy for free when they need it, but expect public school students to be charged for it all because they refuse to pay their fair share.
Shameful.
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Bloomberg is gone so moskowitch is crying like a baby. My question is how greedy can you get in life?? Free rent, free space and priority given to the charter schools from nycdoe but eva is a spoiled brat and wants bloomberg for a 4th term so she can get more of what she wants. This is really becoming a sad story here in nyc with this moskowitch crying out loud and causing havoc for the tax payers who are already giving her blood money
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