Gary Rubinstein was curious about how students in the Success Academy high school fared on the mandatory state Regents examinations. He called and called to state offices, but he got a run-around. Two days after he blogged about it, he learned the answer to his question: Success Academy, which is celebrated for producing high test scores, has an exemption from the state so its high school students do not have to take the Regents exams required of all others. (The only exception to the mandate is a group of small, project-based schools called The Consortium schools, who offer portfolio assessments instead of state tests; they received an exemption about 20 years ago.)
Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of the SA charter chain, receives millions of dollars from benefactors every year in recognition of the high test scores of her charters.
Success Academy has gotten so much attention (and money) for their high 3-8 test scores that it is only natural to wonder how the few older students they have in their schools have fared after 8th grade. One thing we know is that Success Academy eighth graders have not done well on the specialized high school entrance exam to gain admissions to one of the eight specialized high schools. They have had three cohorts of students take the entrance exam and the first two cohorts had no students gain admission and the third cohort had six students out of two hundred eligible gain admission to one of the eight specialized high schools.
Rubinstein found this very puzzling: Why would a school that prided itself on turning students into “little test-taking machines” avoid the Regents exams? He has a few theories about that. Read his post to find out what he believes explains this special case of avoiding the required tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Eva Moskowitch is the PT Barnum of our time. This witch has been doing whatever she wants to do and toils with the state regarding any type of structure of supervision from the state. This witch wants to claim that charter schools are “public” schools using PT Barnum smoke and mirrors.
Moskowitch collects public monies and gets free school space/rent paid yet moskowitch hides statistics and any type of over sight from the state but then goes on crying to the NYCDOE for MORE space inside NYCDOE school buildings taking away precious space from the REAL public school kids and especially our kids with IEPs which Moskowitch despises. We are living in a corrupt time people with human beings so corrupt, so dishonest, so self indulged, so strange, so entitled, so look at me i am the greatest all for the good of their own makings no matter who suffers on their way to utopia.
NYCDOE feeds her all of her displays of political priviledge. It is part of the problem.
what perplexes me, is how that looney-tune who is president gets away with what HE does,. Apparently I am not alone
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-administration-anti-environment_us_58507c5ae4b0ee009eb44512
The election featured the intervention of a hostile government — an evidently successful intervention, at that. Since the election, Trump has refused to resolve “ethical and business conflicts that seem to violate the Constitution,” among other problems, Lithwick and Cohen write.
“There’s no shortage of legal theories and possibilities that could challenge Mr. Trump’s anointment, but they come from political outsiders rather than the Democratic Party itself,” they add. “Contrast the Democrats’ do-nothingness to what we know the Republicans would have done.”
Apparently, I am not alone in wondering where are THE DEMOCRATS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-dangerous-diss-of-the-cia/2016/12/12/19337e88-c095-11e6-897f-918837dae0ae_story.html?utm_term=.13598b7bdad7
It’s a charter school, Diane. They’re the darlings of politicians. They don’t have to follow the same rules as the unfashionable public sector schools:
“Charter authorizing matters, and we need to be active within states to make sure they are doing the right thing @JohnKingatED #FutureofEd”
The Obama Administration not only promoted unregulated charter growth in states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. they made it a condition of RttT.
Now that they’re a month away from leaving office they get around to saying charters have to play by the rules. It’s too late to clean up their record as cheerleaders. They were handing out tens of millions in funds for new charter schools in Ohio WHILE every newspaper in the state was reporting the schools were completely unregulated.
Not credible. In the tank for charter schools.
This.
No one ever asked about this before? Thousands of ed reform orgs, and no one ever asked what the Regents scores were?
Echo chamber. Ed reform is a closed circle so they don’t even come up with good questions, let alone “answers”.
“We need high bar for entrance into charter world; not sensible to have 40 authorizers in Michigan.” @PCunningham57
No one in DC knew ed reform was a disaster in Michigan? Really?
How about Ohio? Were they aware what was happening in Ohio? Pennsylvania? Missed that state too?
Do they think they maybe should re-examine charter cheerleading in every state and city? Given that they had no idea what was happening re: ed reform in a huge swathe of less fashionable states?
From the article:
“The first Regents exams were administered way back in 1866 and they have been one of the more successful examples of a standardized testing program in the country.”
I guess that may be true if one considers that it is find and dandy that the government through its public schools discriminates against many students through the Regents exam which sorts, separates and ranks the students, rewarding some and punishing others. It’s not okay to discriminate by all other out of control of the individual characteristics, gender, race, eye/hair color, etc. . . . So why is it okay for the government to discriminate against some students via their mental capabilities? And that is exactly what the Regents exam does. To hell with those who can’t successfully (sic) take a test.
Is it too early to take Regents for Success Academy children?
he was referring to their high school
Not sure what you mean????
It not just that they don’t have to take the Regents exams. They probably aren’t taking the Regents courses either. Makes one wonder why Eva would want her “scholars” to skip this fairly comprehensive curriculum – including Common Core algebra, geometry and CC language arts. Not so scholarly after all. Unless they are deep into AP or IB courses.
The truth of it is that SA probably does not employ certified teachers for many of these courses. I wonder if SA even has decent high school level science labs.
Even the Consortium schools have to take the ELA Regents – they are exempt from all others and instead have a rigorous process of portfolio evaluations that are assessed by a common rubric. How is it possible that Success charter schools do not have to take the Regents? How are students being evaluated? Eva really does make up her own rules. Do other charter chains have to take Regents?
So how do I get this for my son who had a significant speech and language delay and is on the autistic spectrum? He, the schools and me as his mom have worked for the last 3 years endlessly, tirelessly and with many tears of frustration to get him prepared for these regents for they are the only way we have been told to get him a hs diploma so he can be a productice member of society. I pay lots of money in school taxes and to find out tht some students are exempt from these exams has my blood boiling. How to expose this further and seek some sort of equality in our public schools on Long Island?
Ilene,
Find a lawyer to represent you and other parents of children with special needs and sue the NY State Education Department. Your child deserves an exemption far more than the children at Success Academy.