Six eighth grade students at Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain Success Academy passed the examination for New York City’s elite high schools. This is the first time that any student from Success Academy has passed the rigorous exam in the three years that she had students in this grade.
Moskowitz offered this information in a meeting with the New York Daily News editorial board.
Six students out of 54 Success Academy eighth-graders who took the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test were offered seats in 2016 at one of the elite high schools that rely on the test, like Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech or Bronx Science, Moskowitz said in a wide-ranging interview with the Daily News Editorial Board.
That’s up from zero kids who gained seats in 2014 and 2015.
The performance is below the city average acceptance rate of nearly 19%. However, all of the Success Academy kids who took the test and gained acceptance are black or Hispanic, making her acceptance rate of 11% about twice the citywide average for students of color. Only 4% of black students and 6% of Hispanic students who took the test got offers in 2016.
“It’s a rigorous test, and the kids have to prepare for it,” Moskowitz said. “Truth be told, our kids, most of them did not study for it. They took it cold.”
Students who pass the difficult test often practice for months, and there’s a cottage industry of prep firms that train kids specifically for the exam.
But Moskowitz said the Success Academy kids who got in did so without the drilling.
“I’m very proud of the fact that our kids are flexible thinkers,” Moskowitz said. “They have read a lot and done a lot of mathematics.”
Just under a quarter of Success Academy eighth-graders took the test, roughly the same as the city average for black and Hispanic kids.
Moskowitz says that the kids didn’t take any practice tests, didn’t drill, didn’t need any extra help to get ready.
She makes it sound easy because all of her students are “flexible thinkers” who have done a lot of reading and mathematics.
But if this is so, why did only six of 54 students who took the test pass it? Why not all 54? The 54 are “just under a quarter” of the charter chain’s eighth graders. Why didn’t all 220 or so take the test and pass it? Aren’t they all flexible thinkers who have done a lot of reading and mathematics? Shouldn’t they all be able to sit for the exam without any preparation?
Bear in mind that the 220 who finished eighth grade are about 40% of those who started, reflecting a 60% attrition rate. With their “grit” and the academic prowess learned at SA charters, why were only six students able to pass the exams?
Stanford economist Caroline Hoxby wrote a study in 2009 that was widely hailed by charter advocates, claiming that students in NYC charters nearly closed the “Scarsdale-Harlem” achievement gap. The implication was that attendance in a charter school for eight years would raise the achievement of all charter students, not just six of 220, or even six of 54.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So if Success Academy’s style of teaching creates such “flexible thinkers” who don’t need any test prep for the elite high school entrance exam, why do they need so much test prep for the grades 3-8 tests?
Exactly! It is nonsense. It is just another example of Eva Moskowitz’ pathological need to exaggerate every accomplishment. Such nonsense. “We don’t need to prep for the SHSAT because our students are so well-taught, but we need to excessively prep them for the state tests?” Really?
NYC parent: that is the puzzle. If the students are so well-prepared that they can take a rigorous exam with no preparation, take it “cold,” as the saying goes, what about the other members of the same class who have had the same training since first grade? Why only 6?
I like data, so when I see Eva Moskowitz doing her usual exaggerated claims, I always check the NY State ED website to see how misleading she is trying to be.
The latest information is for last year’s 7th grade class (the cohort who took the SHSAT this year), who are listed in the data for 3 Success Academy schools — Harlem 1, Harlem 3, and Harlem 4. They total 242 students, so presumably only 220 remained for 8th grade.
Harlem 1 – 75 7th graders but only 40 are economically disadvantaged
Harlem 3 – 113 7th graders but only 77 are economically disadvantaged
Harlem 4 – 54 7th graders and only 35 are economically disadvantaged
242 total 7th graders, 152 or just under 63% are economically disadvantaged
There were 51095 total Black and Latino 7th graders in the NYC school system and just under 81% are economically disadvantaged.
So, all we know from this Daily News article is that in the class of 242 total 7th graders, 152 were economically disadvantaged and 90 were not.
Comparing Success Academy’s 63% poor with ALL NYC Black and Latino students in public schools who are 81% poor, one certainly would expect that it would place significantly more students in specialized high schools.
But the PROPER comparison is to other schools in which XXX number of Black and Latino students sat for the exam and how many of them got in. There are probably some failing schools in which many sat and none got in. And there are probably some excellent schools where far more than 11% of the Black and Latino students who sat for the exam got in. If a middle school encourages only the best students to take the exam and discourages the worst students from taking it, they will have fewer students taking it but a higher “pass rate”. And a middle school that encourages all students to take the exam even if they are very unlikely to pass will have a lower “pass rate”.
If a middle school is one of the top performing in the state and yet not very many students sit for the SHSAT, why not? Especially when apparently all students are encouraged to “take it cold”.
“If a middle school is one of the top performing in the state and yet not very many students sit for the SHSAT, why not?”
Stockholm Syndrome?
That’s Eva, spinning as hard as she can, as per usual.
And, somewhat off topic, and it’s probably only me, but doesn’t Eva Moskowitz sort of look like Campbell Brown’s older sister? Most likely my own take on this, because they are “sisters under the skin” in a lot of ways.
Predictable. You lost a precious talking point–the SHSAT “failure” means they cheat on NYSED tests! It means they are churning out rote memorizers who can’t learn!–so now you are moving the goal posts. Sad!
And…….Tim, you’re extremely predictable, yourself. Sad.
Tim,
Getting 3% of the graduating class into elite schools is not much of a bragging point
Absolutely right, Tim. For two years, Diane has been pointing out their not passing as proof that they were doing well on state tests due to test prep. You and I pointed out that the expected percentage would have resulted in 1 or 2 kids and was hardly something to hang a conclusion on.
Now, they have twice the expected number and everyone has to change their story. I knew this day would come because it’s the way of blocking reform. Move the goalposts. Make up your mind and then look for facts that support your position. If the facts no longer fit, pretend you never said they were important and hope nobody calls you on it.
John, I never said that SA needed to get one or two kids into Stuyvesant or Bronx Science to prove its success. Find the quote. I believe that a charter chain that is funded by billionaires, that raised $30 million in one year, that boasts about how it has created a new model for urban education, etc., should produce 8th graders who are all capable of passing the exam for Stuy and Bronx Science.
Zorba: Have a heart…
Non Sequitur is trying very hard to deflect attention from the posting by creating his own straw man and beating up on him.
Only this “him” is “himself.”
No need to add to his misery.
He’ll do the job just fine without having to Dial up anybody else’s help.
😎
LOL! Well, he’s not the only one, KTA. 😀
Tim, do you believe Eva Moskowitz when she says the 54 students who took the test did so cold, with no test prep at all?
And if that was the case, why would she prep the students excessively for the same state tests that no smart student ever preps for, and have them take the SHSAT cold?
Why does she have to be excessively dishonest about her accomplishments? It is like she is hard wired to be dishonest. I know some children like that who cannot boast and say things that you know are complete lies.
It is great that 6 students got in. Most decent middle schools have 6 students getting in, and Success Academy is a good middle school. But why do all her accomplishments need to be exaggerated x 1000??
When you hear a braggart, you assume that deep down they are very insecure about themselves. Why is Success Academy so insecure about their own accomplishments that they need to exaggerate them all the time? Do you have any insight?
Timotecitito ya habló.
What’s funny is how after it was pointed out that none of Success’s students got into the selective school, what do you know?
6 out of 54 suddenly did.
Gee, not fishy at all. From 0 several years in a row to 6.
John says:
“they have twice the expected number….”
I want to know how you came to know what the “expected number” is supposed to be?
You seem to think that if next year Success Academy only allows 10 students to take the test and gets 5 of them into specialized high schools, you can then claim that they have 15 times the “expected number”!
Funny, when it comes to serving at-risk students, you never care at all whether Success Academy is serving the “expected number” or is serving far fewer. When it comes to serving kids with disabilities, you never care at all whether Success Academy is serving the “expected number”.
But when it comes to taking a selected number of students from a school and seeing how many pass a test, that is what you consider REAL data!
The people of America are so grateful that you aren’t a scientist who studies the effects of drugs because based on your kind of thinking, you’d hold out some of the most dangerous and ineffective drugs as being 100% successful! The drug company carefully selected 10 out of 100 patients to “test” the drug, and voila! – they all got better. So it works 100% of the time. Or better yet: They started 100 patients on the drug and 50% of them mysteriously dropped out of the study for reasons that no one is allowed to know. But the ones who stayed in the study did well, so that’s a 100% cure rate!
When a school with extraordinary results has an attrition rate that is twice as high as a school similar to it in all ways except for the fact that its results aren’t nearly as good, red flags should be raised. When a study of a drug with miraculous cure rates suffers patient drop out rates twice as high as the drop out rates of another drug whose cure rates are far worse, red flags should be raised. Because patients don’t refuse to take drugs that are providing miraculous cure rates unless something is wrong. And parents don’t pull their children from schools having miraculous results unless something is wrong. And when that something going wrong happens significantly more than it does in similar drug studies and similar schools that are supposedly “worse”, that something should be investigated. Pretending it is easily ignored is the mark of someone who has money invested in the outcome.
John, you seem to think that if Success Academy can pick the 5 kids to take the test who will pass it, and is correct, their 100% passing rate demonstrates it has achieved some miracle of education. All it is shown is an ability to pick the “winners” when it comes to which kids are worthy and which they pretend don’t exist.
I sure hope you don’t trust that a drug company who picks the healthiest patients to test their drugs and then claims 100% cure rates is a model of excellence and ethical behavior. Is that really what you think?
When someone like Moskowitz says, “truth be told,” I expect truth even less than when she doesn’t say it.
“Truth be Told”
Truth be told
I never lie
Hot is cold
And live is die
“Testing Cold”
Truth be told
They took it cold
With AC blast
In freezing class
“Truth be told, our kids, most of them did not study,” got me wondering what number in six is “most of them.” I think she meant most of the 54 who took the test did not study, not most of the six who passed.
I’d wager all six, and perhaps a score more, of the ones $uccess had high hopes for passing were driven through hours of mandatory, bubble-cheeked test prep or face suspension. But, it takes guts for parents and students to leak Eva’s secrets and denigrate her brand, so we’ll probably never know.
Oh yeah, I forgot to celebrate. I’m sorry. I was busy trying to figure out how to keep teaching with all the public funding being drained.
Hello.
If I understand correctly, Success Academy did twice as well as the local public high school when one compares similar types of students. Seems like something to be celebrated but some readers cannot do that.
When people start working for the kids and not themselves the income disparity will be reduced.
Now let’s start discussing those executive salaries
because it’s all about the kids.
Those students did twice as well but had been filtered down by 60%. Add those kids back in and the math might be a bit different.
You don’t understand correctly.
There is no “local public high school”. And the comparison is to other 8th graders in NYC public MIDDLE schools.
There are something like 80,000 8th graders. 54 Success Academy students — who are SIGNIFICANTLY less disadvantaged than the average NYC public school 8th grader — took the SHSAT test. 11% passed.
Some public middle schools placed a much higher % of students in specialized high schools. Some public middle schools placed a much lower % of students.
For what it’s worth, the public middle schools that are the “tops in the state” according to NY state test scores placed higher than 11% of their “test-taking” students in specialized high schools. Many placed far more than 11% of ALL their students! Success Academy is one of those, but their SHSAT results do not reflect it.
^^^to clarify — Success Academy is one of those middle schools that is supposedly “tops in the state” when it comes to state test scores. But when it comes to the SHSAT, a disproportionately small number of Success Academy students take it and a disproportionately small number of students pass. If a middle school is really as high performing as Success Academy claims to be as per their state test scores, an 11% pass rate on the SHSAT when only a selected number of students are taking it is very, very low.
Mr. Tom Magnanimous said: “When people start working for the kids and not themselves the income disparity will be reduced.”
I’m always amazed at the stunning hypocrisy of Success Academy defenders. Eva’s board is composed of the very people whose wealth depends on widespread, persistent, poverty wages.
These are the same hedge funders & corporate titans whose personal billions in salaries & bonuses are derived by keeping wages at rock bottom for the people who choose to spend their lives educating children.
These are the same hedge funders & corporate titans whose personal billions in salaries & bonuses are derived from worldwide child labor and desperately poor people who have nowhere else to go for work.
The fundamental cause of the massive income disparity starts with Tom and his cohort of billionaire privatizers.
In his self-righteous concern for poor kids, Mr. Magnanimous Tom neglected to mention Success Academy’s Board-of-Billionaires’ lack of accountability for their own amoral and immoral behaviors.
Their business of financing & owning corporations that subcontract to subcontractors, who then subcontract to subcontractors, ad nauseum, allows them to distance themselves from worker abuse, wage theft, poison air, water, worker injuries & death. No one ends up being accountable for lawbreaking and deplorable working conditions.
But by all means let’s dismantle the public ed system and make it a mirror image of Eva’s board’s business model.
Maybe we should be more concerned that there are selective enrollment *public* schools that require one single test to get in in the first place. (And, yes, the same applies to Chicago.) Personally, I favor neighborhood schools where kids don’t have to be on the bus at 7:00 a.m. (and get home at the same time as downtown cubicle warren denizens). Each neighborhood school should be able to provide at least roughly what every kid needs. Again, I went to high school in po-dunk Indiana where “selective enrollment” schools were simply not possible. Yet we managed to have honors programs, special needs programs, vocational programs, languages, electives, athletics, extracurriculars, you name it. Sure, probably not every student got everything they wanted, but we got what we needed, whether we were planning on college, trades, or whatever.
I agree with you. I think most comprehensive high schools do a good job serving all the needs of all members of the bell shaped curve. None of these charters could serve the diverse needs of all students as well as most public schools. That’s why most of the charters don’t even try. It is easier to pick off the easier to educate, and leave the troubled and expensive students in the public schools. This practice is unfair to the public schools that now have to do more with less money, and they have changed the dynamics of the school population by siphoning off the compliant students.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
6 made it out of 220 and according to Eva Moskowitz that’s great — really?
6 out of 220 is one fact that Eva should have left alone from her holy that thou pulpit
There are no bragging rights here and with her boasting that this is evidence of her greatness, I think it will backfire and cause more people to take notice of this lying, overpaid, autocratic, child abusing psycho fraud.
Oooh, Lloyd, harsh. I love it! You’re my kind of guy. 😀
That is 6 out the 550 students who would have been in 8th grade if they hadn’t been edged out and not replaced.
Let us never let the scam that is selective attrition fall from plain view. It is the only thing that props up this charade and needs to be out where everyone can see it at all times.
Good point. 6 out of 550 it is.
The next comment says it is 6 out of 1650
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF EVA’S SCHOLARS should pass every single test at 100%. Nothing less is acceptable. That she would boast that 6 scholars out of 54 passed the test signals to me that under her own theories, every single administrator and principal and teacher should be FIRED and replace with a new troupe of TFAers. Eva Moskowitless disgusts me to me common core.
No doubt Eva Moskowitz agrees with you.
Therefore in the future, she will carefully make sure the only students allowed to sit for the SHSAT are the ones who have proven through practices tests that they will do well.
FYI – that is EXACTLY how it works with the state tests! Kids are failed, suspended, and humiliated in grades K – 2 and the weakest test takers don’t make it to 3rd grade. It gets Success Academy all kinds of accolades from people who only care about the students who pass — not the ones who are weeded out. Even other charter schools get fed up by how misleading those statistics are.
You have to be very stupid in math to think that 100% passing with all the kids who won the Kindergarten lottery except the few who moved too far away to stay in the school is the same thing as 100% passing rates with the students we allow to get to 3rd grade because they have proven that they can pass the test!
But there are certainly not very smart billionaires who fund Success Academy who don’t understand the difference. Or even worse, do understand the difference but because they believe the kids who enter Success Academy and are found to be wanting and weeded out are not worthy. At all. They should rot.
I think the comparison should be public school black and Hispanic kids versus Success Academy black and Hispanic kids.
Ms. Ravitch’s column says 6 passed of 54 who took the test or about 11 percent and that rate is actually more than double the rate of public schools (blacks 4% and Hispanics 6% who took the test).
But, Tom, the public schools don’t claim to produce 100% scholars. SuccessAcademy does.
Diane, what does your statement about 100% scholars even mean?
It certainly doesn’t explain you abandoning your position that the passing rate on SHSAT is a significant data point. It was for you last year and the year before, now it’s not?
I guess only in this echo chamber can you be so nonchalant about picking and choosing facts to support positions instead of the other way around.
John,
I am pleased that 6 of Eva’s 220 scholars managed to pass the high school exam. But that’s a very low bar for a lavishly funded charter chain that boasts of”cracking the code of student success.” May I assume that the code was cracked for 2.7%?
It’s called “compositional effects.”
Or howzabout comparing apples to apples not apples to oranges.
Or as the late Gerald Bracey put it, “when comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable.”
But then again, when $ucce$$ Academy has to spend $131,000+ for t-shirts and beanies to compete against those high-spending public schools that have been and are organizing massive political rallies to fight charter excellence—?!?😳!?!—
Well, all’s fair in love of ROI and war to win market share.
😎
Tom Hauck and John,
81% of the public school Black and Hispanic 7th grade students last year were economically disadvantaged.
63% of the Success Academy 7th grade students last year were economically disadvantaged.
Since those were the students taking the exam this year, is that the comparison you want to make? That a population that is 28% more economically disadvantaged did not place as many students in specialized high schools as Success Academy?
The passing rate of a charter school network depends entirely on which students and how many took the SHSAT. If a charter school encourages all their students to take it, but 5 pass, they will have a much lower passing rate than a charter school that only encourages the top performers to take it and 5 pass. Especially if the students who sit for the SHSAT from that school turn out to be disproportionately middle class instead of poor.
But your response is perfect for a Success Academy defender! Congratulations!
Because it’s so similar to Success Academy claiming that 100% of the 3rd graders passed the exam in one of their schools and when you look closely you find that 40% of the economically disadvantaged 2nd graders simply disappeared before 3rd grade and weren’t tested! That’s what happened at Success Academy Bed Stuy 1 last year. It’s fantastic because as long as you leave out the 40% of poor kids who went MIA from last year’s 2nd grade, you have 100% passing rates!
“100% passing rates” indeed! Just like “11% of our students scored high on the SHSAT”! That is, 11% of the students who took the SHSAT, and no doubt the students who are MIA are similar to the 2nd graders who go MIA when it comes to 3rd grade state testing the next year.
I have an idea — maybe next year Eva Moskowitz can limit her SHSAT testing pool to just 10% of the best students in order to achieve an even higher pass rate! I’m sure she is kicking herself for allowing most of those 54 kids to take the exam and surely won’t make the same mistake again next year. The more “not quite up to snuff” students who can be discouraged from sitting for the exam, the higher her pass rate will be. Just like for the 3rd grade tests! Discourage kids from taking it (at Bed Stuy 1, by failing 2nd graders or other tactics to get them out of the school before 3rd grade testing). Given how very hard Success Academy works to achieve “high passing rates” in elementary school (by eliminating the poor test-takers), does anyone doubt that even higher passing rates on the SHSAT will be forthcoming? Success Academy just needs to eliminate even more of the lower performing test-takers to achieve perfection!
Middle school children are not “scholars,” and no amount of repetition will change that.
Thanks for your reply, dianeravitch. As you know sometimes it takes time (months or years) for a product of a public school to get caught up to their grade level even with one on one instruction. How long have the kids who did not take the test and the 48 remaining kids who did take the test been in the Success Academy?
Tom,
Success Academy is well known for not “backfilling” that is, taking kids in later grades. Their enrollment drops each year and is not replenished. Of course, SA is also known for getting rid of difficulty cult students.
It’s not sensible to talk of helping kids who came in from the public schools. Eva said she doesn’t want them because they would ruin “the culture” she strives to create.
Based on these factors, it appears that the 220 graduating students in 8th grade have been enrolled in SA since K or 1st grade.
What the hell is a “product of a public school”???
Wow. That’s quite an insightful observation, Tom- children develop and learn at vastly different rates and ages. Why didn’t educators listen to Piaget back in the 1930’s?
Tom Hauck,
What an excellent question! I would certainly like to know that, too.
What if it turned out that very few of the 54 students who took the test actually started in Kindergarten? What if most of them were students who were allowed to join to fill the many spots of the students weeded out over the first few years of school?
Did you know that a child who wants to join Success Academy’s first or 2nd grade class is given a test and told that they can’t join their rightful grade but must agree to repeat a year if they want to enroll? Guess how many low performers that eliminates from backfilling a spot? And guess how much room that leaves for a child who might have a very high lottery number but – surprise! — is the only child to “pass” that test that signifies he is worthy of a 2nd grade spot at Success Academy?
Maybe Success Academy doesn’t lose half or more of the at-risk kids who win the Kindergarten lottery — the only grade in which they cannot discourage an unwanted child by telling his family he can’t join the grade they won the lottery for because he isn’t up to the school’s high standards. Or maybe a good number of that Kindergarten class end up back at failing underfunded public schools (“by choice” of course) or are held back over and over again until their parents get the message that their child is never going to advance to 3rd grade.
Someone should study what really happens to kids at Success Academy. But don’t worry, as long as they have the billionaires on their board to make sure that the only oversight is by SUNY — which actually publicly laughed when they were told about empty seats at a charter school claiming thousands on the wait list because they knew it was just “a glitch”! Isn’t that amusing?
It’s a shame we will never know the answer to your question. But we do know for sure that at Success Academy Bed Stuy 1 last year, the number of economically disadvantaged 3rd graders who took the state test was 40% LESS than the number of economically disadvantaged kids who began 2nd grade the year before. Poof!! 40% of the low income 2nd graders disappearing in a puff of smoke who didn’t take that test. And no one cares – least of all you, I’m sure.
Tom.
Are your kids, products? Or, is it just other people’s kids? Does your family agree with you, that your value is equivalent to a disposable product in a human capital pipeline?
Is there any way of knowing which school they got into — the test cutoffs and percent black / hispanic at the test schools differ.
On top of the missing attrition facts etc. this is another important data point.
Blind and anosmic squirrel.
Nice touch.
Anyone who sees this as successful, and believes Evil Moskawitless should take this large scale and replicate it, needs his head examined. So a school can start at K or 1 with 1000 kids, and by the time they reach 8th grade have 200 kids, and 6 pass. Oh, I know that isn’t the correct math, but she doesn’t backfill and gets rid of the kids who can’t cut it so by the time the incoming class graduates, she is left with a fraction of her starters, and not 100% of what is less passes the test(s). Wrong. Everything with SA is wrong. That Eva can boast about her success is laughable.
Also, we are talking about only 220 students hear. In a city the size of NYC, that is negligible and no indication that her “culture” would scale to the 1 million students in 1800 schools.
The ONLY “innovation” Eva wants to replicate is her funding pipeline. Her educational strategies come straight out of the 19th century.
jcgrim wrote, ” Her educational strategies come straight out of the 19th century.”
IOW, Darwinian
Or Dickensian. “Please, sir, I want some more.”
Sharon in NYC & Zorba, consider the American Indian Boarding Schools circa 1890’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools
“when students arrived at the boarding schools, their lives usually altered dramatically. They were given short haircuts (a source of shame for boys of many tribes), uniforms, and English names; sometimes these were based on their own, other times they were assigned at random, and sometimes children chose new names. They were not allowed to speak their own languages, even between each other, and they were expected to attend church services and encouraged to convert to Christianity. Discipline was stiff in many schools (as it was in families and other areas of society), and it often included chores and punishments.[14]
The following is a quote from Anna Moore regarding the Phoenix Indian School:
If we were not finished [scrubbing the dining room floors] when the 8 a.m. whistle sounded, the dining room matron would go around strapping us while we were still on our hands and knees.[16]”
jcgrim, yes, I’ve read about the practices at the boarding schools for Native American children. I agree that there’s a case to be made for SA’s similar tactics meant to wipe out cultural identities among her “scholars” of color.
However, “Darwinian” is, I think, even more on target. SA is all about “survival of the fittest”.
Eva’s twisted version of Oliver Twist
“Please sir, I want some Common Core”
Unbeknownst to most people is the fact that the Common Core is really the rotten, moldy, wormy, core of an apple.
From the field of economics, I’ve come across the publications of a few university women, who I infer defend/support (based on the papers I’ve read), free market views.
I read the work of Caroline Hoxby in that light (not surprisingly, she is associated with Hoover and SIEPR, with which Joshua Rauh is affiliated. Critics describe SIEPR as the Stanford Institute for the Evisceration of People’s Retirement). Sarah Turner and Leora Friedberg, are, surprisingly, at the public, University of Virginia. Amy Finklestein is at MIT.(MIT economics grads include Rauh and free market blogger, Steven Levitt. The Koch Bros. and their father are graduates of MIT. One of the brothers is a lifetime board member.)
I would like to correct my impression, if a reader is aware of work, from the women, that supports or defends common goods.
Papers published by the NBER are not refereed and, I am not aware of refereeing for TIAA Institute papers, either. Some free market viewpoint papers are published at those two places. State Budget Solutions, a Koch organization, that, at one time, listed at its site, ALEC, as a partner, has, on a least one occasion picked up a TIAA paper. It was the one co-written with the VP of the Arnold Foundation.
Another thing we don’t know is how the students were selected to take the test. IN such a controlling culture as Success, the odds are that the weaker students were heavily discouraged from sitting for the exam. It really is a perfect situation for a place like that to manipulate.
“odds are that the weaker students were heavily discouraged from sitting for the exam….”
Of course this happened. That is exactly the modus operandi for the state tests. Unfortunately, since the weakest students can’t opt out of those state tests, Success Academy uses whatever it can use to let those students and their families know how much misery they will target on the child who isn’t up to snuff so wouldn’t a nice public school be better?
Fortunately for the 8th graders at Success Academy, they can remain in the school and not take the SHSAT. So their lack of success will not impact Eva Moskowitz’ pathological need to brag about test scores. Can you imagine if all 220 students were tested and the pass rate dropped to a minuscule 2.3%? Half those poor kids would have to be hounded out of the 8th grade in service to achieving “high passing rates” that impress certain ignorant people who don’t understand that passing percentages depend on how ruthlessly you cull the kids allowed to take the exam in the first place.
My son and a good number of his classmates tested this year and he was neither encouraged or discouraged by the Success to take the test. It was a matter of preference. The decision was made solely by our family.
OK tim – you WIN!
Now that Eva has proved that her program works for poor black and brown children, could you please ask her to reveal the secrets to scholarly success. Think of the millions of black and brown children mired in generational poverty and trapped in “failing schools” that could be set free by the SA miracle!
It would be amoral for Eva to just brag Tim. Why is she holding back on her secret sauce? Methodologies, techniques, and programs that could be the salvation for America’s underclass! Eva, please don’t bogart your amazing recipe for academic success, the ed-world is begging for the big reveal. Thanking you in advance.
The math is incomplete:
Assuming the cohort for each of the last three years started out with 550 kids in kindergarten, only 6 out of 1650 students enrolled at Success Academy have passed the exam over the last three years. Therefore, their average pass rate is far less than 1% (it is 0.3%).
It is really 6 out of 1650 for the past three years–assuming each kindergarten cohort started out with 550 students. That is an average pass rate far lower than 1% (only about 0.3%).
If 6 out of 54 of my students passed the state test in Texas (the STAAR), I’d get non-renewed (we only have one 1-year contracts in Dallas ISD, so firing isn’t necessary–they just non-renew us).
Obviously, what these kids are getting out of Success is not success.
6 out of 54 is a joke for a school that claims to be exceptional.
If a pricey private school in Dallas only got 6 out of 54 admitted into selective colleges, parents would run from that private school like their feet were on fire.
6 out of 220. And what happened to the rest 204!? Still served for Slave Academy!? Oh wait.
Whoops, meant “214.”
One of the oddest things about this NY Daily News “Exclusive” is why this would come out in June.
Eighth graders were given their results in early March. Why would the NY Daily News do a story 3 months later and call it an “exclusive”? Is it because of the bad press that Success Academy just received when yet another judge did not buy their exaggerated claims that they offer something so special that they should not be subject to any oversight in how they run a pre-k that will serve many affluent students in three of their wealthiest schools?
By the way, a recent insideschools.org article goes beyond the NY Daily News reprinting of a press release and provides some data for comparison:
“We found, for example, that almost 55 percent of Asian 7th-graders who scored Level 4 on EITHER math or ELA tests in the 2012–13 school year are now wrapping up sophomore years at specialized high schools that use the SHSAT for admissions. However, only about 16 percent of such Black or Hispanic 7th-graders are now in one of these specialized schools.”
At Success Academy, there were 3 middle schools with 10 or more high performing Black and Hispanic 7th graders. At those schools, 170 7th graders scored a 4 on their 7th grade math exam. But a total of only 5 — or less than 3% of those 170 high scoring 7th graders at Success Academy — scored high enough on the SHSAT to be admitted to a specialized high school.
Let’s repeat that again — in public schools, 16% of the total number of Black and Hispanic students who scored a 4 in either the math or ELA state test now attend specialized high schools. 16% scored high enough to get in (And that does not include the students who got in and chose not to go).
And one charter network is bragging because less than 3% of their high scoring students tested high enough for a specialized high school.
Congratulations should go to the 5 Success Academy students that scored well and got in. But it is truly outrageous that a news organization would present this as a meaningful accomplishment when high scoring Black and Hispanic students educated in public schools are getting admitted at a rate 5 times as high! Apparently, the much better results that public middle schools have with those high achieving Black and Hispanic 7th graders is not worthy of mention. But a charter school chain getting results that are less than 1/5 that of public schools gets a news exclusive as if they have accomplished a miracle?
What nonsense. Why do so many students at Success Academy who do well on the state tests fare so poorly on the SHSAT? What can they learn from public schools where more than 5 times as many of the high scoring Black and Hispanic students ALSO do well on the SHSAT? That is a question the NY Daily News should have asked.
http://insideschools.org/blog/item/1001083-tough-test-ahead-bringing-racial-diversity-to-new-york’s-specialized-high-schools
Scary how hard they’re pushing ed tech in the ed reform echo chamber. Bill Gates is basically a full-time salesperson for it now:
“In education, there are two types of school visits, he added. “When you get discouraged and don’t think anything can happen, visit KIPP, Green Dot Public Schools, Summit, Rocketship, High Tech High” to get inspired, he said. “Then, if you think that’s great, visit a college with a 19 percent completion rate.”
These are the people who get nearly exclusive access to lawmakers.
The wild claims are just outlandish. Gates says one ed tech program is “the future of math” and they all swoon.
The conflicts of interest run all through it- the people who are selling the product are also the people evaluating the product (the kids are just product testers).
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-04-20-bill-gates-3-pronged-approach-to-serving-the-new-majority-of-american-students
“A former top Indiana education official’s role in the sale of $1.7 million worth of videoconferencing equipment to the state by Cisco Systems Inc., where he worked before and after holding that state position, has added to calls to strengthen Indiana’s ethics laws amid a recent spate of boundary-pushing incidents.”
It actually gets worse. He’s now both in the statehouse and on the College Board.
The complete ethical collapse in government puts a much higher burden on school boards and public school administrators to RESIST sales pitches.
Buy NOTHING these people recommend without independent, careful review. The presumption should be they have a conflict. If they won’t police themselves then someone else has to do it for them.
There’s no law that says anyone has to buy what any random ed reformer is selling.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2014/08/20/ethics-waiver-question-m-education-contract/14346253/
“Success!”
Successful path
Is student pick
Successful math
Is cherry pick
I’m curious as to why this is news now. Specialized high school notification letters went out in March. Maybe they had to wait for the attrition rounds.
There is no such thing as attrition rounds at specialized high schools. Every student who scored high enough for a spot was notified in March. And so were their middle schools, since students had to accept or decline their spots through the middle school. More than two months ago.
However, there is something called a Discovery Program in which low-income students who scored just under the cut off for admittance attend a 6 week program and if they do well, get spots in that specialized high school. So I suppose it is possible that one or more of the 6 Success Academy students was just recently notified of acceptance into that program.
But I would assume this did not include kids in the later notification Discovery program. Why? Because the passing rate of all Black and Hispanic students cited in the article did not include the Discovery program. So unless their was an intent to mislead, those students would not be included.
I’m curious to know how these 6 children will adapt to these high schools next year. The mode of instruction at SA and these Specialized HS will be different.
Well, for one thing, they won’t have to sit ramrod straight at their desks with their hands folded on the top of the desk where they can be seen and track the teacher with their eyes or risk punishment.
They won’t be embarrassed in front of an entire class and chewed out because they made a mistake on a math worksheet.
They won’t have to walk in straight lines through the halls in total silence with their cheeks puffed out.
The parents of children who are a challenge to teach won’t be bullied by the autocratic, opaque and often inferior and fraudulent Charter school to remove their child from the school because he doesn’t fit the docile, easy to control and manipulate, test taking profile Eva wants.
In fact, they will be “FREE” to socialize, make friends and talk probably even in a chatty class where the students, in my experience, are all abuzz with each other before the bell rings and the teacher has to get their attention off of each other to get the teaching started.
In addition, teachers will be “FREE” to chose and go off lesson plan when a magic teaching moment appears and the teacher can’t resist to take advantage of it like the time during the first gulf war under the 1st President Bush when one of my students stopped by my desk before class started to let me know her brother was in Iraq fighting against Saddam. I asked her if I could share that with the class, and when I did it was obvious this was important to every student in the class. The planned lesson was put on hold and we talked. Then from that talk a new assignment emerged. The new assignment, with approval from an entire class eager to get started, was to write letters to her brother and his unit so they’d know they were not alone and were appreciated and supported for what they were doing.
But first, before they started to write, they learned what a proper format was for a letter and I wrote an example on the board with participation from an entire class. When the time came for each student to write their own letter, there wasn’t a sound as every head in the class leaned forward over paper and guided the hand holding the pen to write.
These Success Academy children who were fortunate enough to gain admittance to those specialized high schools will no doubt think that they have been set free to be actual students, learners, and just plain human beings.
And Lloyd, your classes sound like they were great.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the “no excuses” charter schools could provide such education?
And, for that matter, wouldn’t it be great if many if the public school teachers could be freed from the strictures of “teaching to the test” and go back to actual…….teaching.
YES EXCUSES: I’m intrigued by Eva’s implication that the SHSAT needs some kind of special, separate prep. I took it cold back in the day and got into Stuy. Sure, there are afterschool prep programs (which Eva apparently didn’t offer) but isn’t it just catch-up to a general set of knowledge and skills all schools are supposed to offer to advanced learners anyway?
This is more evidence that SA is teaching to tests, but even more worrisome was this year’s ELA which had passages from a book some schools covered deeply during the school year and others didn’t. At best this is arbitrarily benefiting some schools at random, but if the same corporate reformers that design the tests also steer schools to packaged curriculum that include specific tested materials, it’s a set up.
Also related is Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa’s response to the question of the SHSAT exams resulting in racial segregation. She said they will be exploring other admittance criteria to address the imbalance.
I have seen posts by people implying that in past years Success Academy (and some other very wealthy schools) were able to purchase exclusive state test prep materials directly from Pearson, the designer of the test. These were specially made by Pearson for a select group of handpicked and connected schools and not available to any public schools. The suggestion was that this special “test prep” material was extremely closely aligned with the actual test.
I have no idea whether it is true. But I do know that Eva Moskowitz’ claim that almost every one of those 56 kids took the test cold is about as believable as her claim that over 20% of the 5 and 6 year old children who were lucky enough to win lottery spots for one of her schools turned out to all be naturally violent children — so violent that Success Academy had no choice but to suspend all those nasty and violent 5 year olds again and again. Over 20% of them! Which one of her claims do you find more believable?
It’s especially ridiculous for her to say that no test prep is necessary for the SHSAT– kids can take it “cold” — but for some reason it is necessary to massively prep her students for years for the state tests.
I wonder if some or all of those 6 kids are going to be part of the recently announced Discovery program that some specialized high schools are having for low-income students who scored below the cut off. Those students deserve spots, but if 2 or 3 of those 6 students are part of the Discovery program, claiming an 11% passing rate is purposely misleading although certainly typical of the kind of exaggerated claims that Success Academy frequently makes. Their real passing rate would be a much lower 7% or even 5% if they quietly are including students chosen for Discovery, while using for comparison a statistic that excludes all those students in public schools.
I prefer to assume that in fact, all 6 of those students scored above the cut off to be placed in a high school but for some mysterious reason Eva Moskowitz decided not to tell anyone for 3 months – apparently waiting for a time when she was embarrassed by a judge’s decision about her pre-k and wanted her PR staff to release some good news.
If she waited 3 months because she is including some students who are part of the Discovery Program that was just announced, then once again, she is making the kind of exaggerated claims that she is famous for.
Perhaps the reason so few sit for the tests is that Moscowitz wants to keep her best test takers in house for her high school.
BTW, when I went to Success’s homepage to check that there is ideed a high school, the following message crawls across the page in a box on the right:
“No, Mr. Mayor – we won’t shut up about your misrule of the schools.”
It’s the headline from an article by no other than Campbell Brown in the NY Post. http://nypost.com/2016/06/03/no-mr-mayor-we-wont-shut-up-about-your-misrule-of-the-schools/
Seems rather inappropriate to me and not much in the way of modeling behavior for children.
Another OPINION piece by Campbell Brown, so one-sided and full of lies its ridiculous. One can NEVER respond to Campbell’s lies b/c she either posts at her own billionaire website where it is so lopsided I can’t even visit, or opinion pieces that don’t even concern her. Did CB become a hired mouth for Eva? I don’t get it. Someone should feed her some truth that can’t be denied. I really hate when I come across one of her “pieces” where no dissenting side is allowed to post.
Campbell Brown is on the Network Board if Directors of SA charter schools.
Scary, right?
Imagine if they actually believe what they say.
You gotta belieeeeeve.
I’m surprised they don’t have their own late night televangelist program with Eva as the preacher.