Eva Moskowitz has rented the Rockefeller Center Radio City Music Hall for her charter chain’s annual test-prep rally.
The charter network’s dance team will perform, school officials will present awards to students for academic excellence and Moskowitz will deliver a keynote speech.
Eva Moskowitz photo angers protesters outside her home
Moskowitz and Success Academy grabbed headlines in 2016 when the network purchased ground-floor classroom space in a luxury Midtown tower for nearly $68 million.
Success Academy reported $49 million in net assets in 2014 and received at least $35 million from hedge fund billionaires in 2016.
The privately run, publicly funded charter network operates 41 city schools with three more set to open this year.
Two years ago, the Success Academy charter chain spent $734,000 on a pep rally in Albany to seek more public funding for their well-funded schools.
At that time, Politico reported:
Success and Families for Excellent Schools, the pro-charter group that officially organized the rallies, have denied requests to disclose its spending on the events, but financial documents obtained by POLITICO New York indicate the network spent at least $734,000 on the 2015 rally.
The spending included $71,900 for the beanies and $62,795 for the T-shirts, according to receipts submitted to Success’s board of directors.
“T-shirts are a critical part of large-scale events,” said one receipt. “They help get the event’s message across, demonstrate mass participation, and provide the primary visual that captures the public’s attention.”
The network also spent $539,923 on busing and $59,375 on lunches for the rally.
The Albany rally represented just a small fraction of Success’s total spending on political advocacy and its public image, according to several internal financial documents.
Success Academy is such a financial powerhouse that one has to wonder why it is funded with public money when it can blow away millions of fabulous rentals and T-shirts and beanies. Real public schools need money for basics. They can’t afford to rent Radio City Music Hall or spend $71,900 on beanies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
I can’t print my thoughts on this one. Too vulgar.
Obscene.
Public schools here were doing test prep rallies for a while- they seem to have petered out, thank God. They all gradually returned to their senses after ed reform Test Mania peaked- around 2010.
That’s been interesting to watch over 4 kids thru public schools, how public schools went test-crazy and then scaled it back. They were way ahead of the national ed reform narrative- there was some kind of quiet recognition that this had become completely insane a good five years ahead of the ed reform realization. I found it comforting that despite all that pressure they scaled it back without a lot of hoopla and fanfare.
In Ohio our state legislators were LITERALLY the last people to realize they were testing too much. By the time they held “hearings” they were all but irrelevant – most public schools had moved on several years earlier 🙂
“. . . after ed reform Test Mania peaked- around 2010.”
No, Chiara it hasn’t peaked, it is still growing stronger but in a quieter fashion since the push back, like opt out, grew. Now it’s testing all the time still with the BS tests as it was before. Competency Based Education just buries all the testing within the curriculum.
Oh, sure and I’m betting it’s different in every school but ours really did change and it had nothing to do with any pronouncements from the White House because it predated all that. The testing isn’t front and center anymore. They genuinely dialed it back.
More and more that kind of quiet abstention interests me. Obviously public schools have to comply with laws but there’s no requirement for public schools to actively and enthusiastically adopt all this stuff.
They really are allowed to use common sense because they knew the testing was dominating the culture no matter how many times they were told it was 1 or 2 or 3% of the year. They started to ABSTAIN from some of this – that interests me- not RESIST but simply not play along. That has potential in my opinion 🙂
I’m glad that is happening in your district but I’m talking overall in American public education. And I agree that not playing the rah rah game is a start, but I only see it as the adminimals covering their own asses from the just criticism by the parents. You don’t see them not doing the tests. You don’t see them risking their jobs to not implement educational malpractices such as the testing. A malpractice is a malpractice and all involved from the teachers to the adminimals are still doing them causing much harm to the students by denying them the best teaching and learning environment that they can. And even worse probably silently implementing the CBE and “individualized” computer training-I won’t call it teaching and learning.
Still GAGA Good Germans one and all of those who implement these malpractices.
“Success”
It’s all about the show
A Radio Music day
It’s never what you know
But only what you say
This is a disgrace and plainly put its in your face “real” public schools.. I mean if we do not live in a dictatorship then I am fregan out of my mind. This is supposedly a public school and they are spending all this money??? You fregan bastad the nerve to put this crap right into our faces and still have the balls to call youself a “public school”!!!!! Where is the outrage and how do they get away with it??? We are truly living in a dictatorship country with those who have money and those who do not. People working in the real public schools should really be outraged!!!!!! Moskowitch \has a real pair of balls let me tell ya and the biatch gets away with it which is mind blowing
One can only hope that the real education Gods are watching these creeps and payback is a bitch as well as karma. I mean, you cannot have the gaul and spend all this money and then complain to the city that you want the city to pay their rent!!!!!!! This is a dictatorship people and you are living in it.
But it is a great marketing tool for applications. That’s a part of the point. Here in Detroit, that’s how the charters get so many apps. Free tablet or something. Then claim demand is up.
Reblogged this on BLOGGYWOCKY and commented:
So…….while public schools (real public schools) get their funding cut so that money can be shoveled to the charter schools, Eva spends 3/4 of a million dollars of taxpayer money or more on fancy pep rallies, beanies, t-shirts, etc?
What, if they absolutely had to have a pep rally, they couldn’t have had one in the school’s gym or cafeteria, or in a public park?
This is obscene. Imagine what that money could have done for several struggling public schools.
If there is a Hell, then Satan is waiting for Eva.
I thought Evita was Satan.
Actually, after having seen her talk in St. Louis the other month, she came across as just another school crusader trying to save the masses from those public school union thug teachers and the monstrous system that they have devised.
It was a good act.
But, just like these test prep pep rallies are, an act, have nothing of value to add to the teaching and learning process. All show and no go!
Nah. She’s evil, but not that evil, compared to what has gone on in this world and what others have done.
She aspires to be one of Satan’s minions.
I am reminded of a great political story attributed to Bob Dole (who, whatever you may think of him, is one the funniest politicians around, especially in private) about when former presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon represented the U.S. at, if I remember correctly, Anwar Sadat’s funeral. Seeing the three former presidents, Dole supposedly said, “Look, see no evil, hear no evil, evil.” Eva’s got good company.
Duane, Eva Moskowitz is not just another school crusader.
The guy who runs KIPP is just another school crusader. Whether you like him or not, the words that come out of his mouth generally have some relationship to the truth and education seems to be his primary goal.
Eva Moskowitz’ is the reform movement’s version of Donald Trump. Some of the statements that have come out of her mouth — the ones with no relationship to the truth — get dismissed by pro-charter folks as “Eva just being Eva” just like Trump’s outright lies get dismissed by his acolytes as “just Trump being Trump”.
Does anyone believe Eva Moskowitz when she says that Betsy DeVos really cares about all children and will be a terrific Secy of Education making all children better off? Do they believe her when she claims that her schools serving at-risk kindergarten and first graders had suspension rates as high as 20% because those very young children were all violent and dangerous and she was just responding to that?
Both Trump and Moskowitz seem to value people (or children) who help them serve their ultimate goal — which usually involves self-promotion. When other people (or children) no longer help serve that, they are expendable.
And both are being underwritten by right wing billionaires because in promoting themselves, they are also promoting the goals that those billionaires want.
But like Trump, I’m sure she comes off as someone “trying to save the masses” because they are both incredibly good at selling themselves.
You bet he is waiting for her. There is a chair in Hell which already has her name on it.
I used to work at a public school with no budget for pencils or paper. No money for a librarian s the library was permanently closed. Multiple classes had to share one set of textbooks, so teachers were encouraged to make photocopy packets. There was one copier for the whole building (administration and teachers), it broke a few weeks into the school year and was not fixed, so teachers went to print shops and made copies from their personal budgets.
It is an outrage that a charter schools get taxpayer support and then spend money on real estate and propaganda.
And couldn’t your school have made good use of just a fraction of what Evita (pardon me, Eva) spent on just one fancy pep rally?
This country’s priorities are so screwed up. 😔
Insane.
Selfish. And evil.
They’re not crazy, they know exactly what they’re doing. They have no feelings, no souls.
I hope Eva Moskowitz invites her favorite person, Betsy DeVos, so she can demonstrate to our new Secretary of Education how all schools should be.
And I hope the parents at Success Academy put on a great show to show Betsy DeVos how much they appreciate how she only has the best interests of the students at heart, just like Ms. Moskowitz does.
Be careful of what you wish for!
Because ol Betsy will have her choice mantra reinforced.
That’s right!
The Success Academy parents will have their children used to promote Betsy DeVos’ agenda. The Success Academy parents will have their children used to normalize Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump.
And while some may disagree with the right wing agenda of DeVos, the parents will be consoled by the many millions that will be donated by some of Trump’s biggest donors. After all, it wasn’t long ago that one of the Trump campaign’s biggest donors, John Paulson, gave Success Academy $8.5 million dollars in one evening!
No doubt there is plenty more where that came from — thanks for a job well done endorsing Betsy DeVos and providing cover for the Trump agenda.
Because the parents should embrace the fact that trading the welfare of other people’s children to enrich your own children is exactly the philosophy of their kids’ charter school.
Maybe public school parents will have a sit-in at the NY DoEd office that oversees Success Academies, on the day of the Radio City rally.
NYCDOE does not oversee Success. Its charter authorizer is SUNY, and SUNY does precious little oversight.
an important distinction; too many districts walk away from responsibility by handing both control and massive money over to a “charter” department/authorizer.
Choosing a venue known for entertainment does not change the fact that this is a mandatory attendance event. These kids have no choice. Oh, the irony.
Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
Moskovitz’ rental of Renting Radio City Music Hall for a Pre-Test Pep Rally is a great metaphor for everything wrong with for profit charter schools and “reform”…
agree – In plain sight, this rally shows how misguided these people are, what a waste of time and money. It is the wrong message to send to the students. If you have a struggling student who is doing their best to keep up, they do not need extra external and public pressure – like it is their ‘choice’ or will, how they do, in comparison with a student who is better situated – so many factors play into how well students fare on tests. Tests should be taken in a quiet, private manner and the results should be reviewed by the teacher or administration, only to help analyse where a student needs help. It is not game day. It is not a competition.
Agree. This is advertising for Eva and for every policy that favors test-centric schools.
This. Makes. Me. Sick.
Do you remember when NYC Mayor DiBlasio was demanding that Success Academy Schools follow the pre-existing law and pay rent to the district for co-locating on pre-existing traditional public school campuses — money to fund those traditional public schools?
Eva spent $1 million dollars so that her high-end Madison Avenue ad agency could respond for her. They then produced and broadcast non-stop commercials with simpering low-income, black-‘n-brown S.A. kids looking at the camera — sounding and looking like Oliver Twist asking for more — crying about how the evil mayor was about to throw them all into the street.
However, she can still spend $60 million dollars for Wall Street offices, $700,000 on a 1-hour rally ($70,000 just for beanies and T-shirts), and on and on …
She then had her bought-and-paid-for legislators and governor change the law requiring charter schools to pay the NYC school district — which, in effect, is starving the traditional public schools even more of funding.
She’s like a villain out of a Frank Capra movie.
And then she gave her strongest endorsement to Betsy DeVos — she used all the kids in her schools and their families to make that endorsement seem like it had the force of thousands of school children who needed DeVos. And their families remained completely silent.
Corporate Ed. reformer Campbell Brown is on the Success Academy Board of Directors. She even calls herself “a soldier in Eva’s army”:
( 01:36 – )
( 01:36 – )
CAMPBELL BROWN: ” … I’m a soldier in Eva’s Army. … the accomplishments of Eva and the team that makes (the SUCCESS ACADEMY schools) possible. It amazes me that anyone would dare try to put a chokehold on the most exciting, innovative things happening in public education right now. … there is no compromise possible. …
” .. ”
“I’m sorry. Both sides do not have merit, and when the lives of children are literally hanging in the balance, you can’t play referee. If we want to do what he know is right, what we know is truly right, then we have not choice, and there is no compromise possible.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Meanwhile, Campbell sends her own children to the rich kids’ private school Heschel, which is run in the exact opposite manner to Success Academy — in terms of curriculum, discipline, philosophy, and uniforms (Campbell’s kids don’t have to buy and wear those hideous and expensive blue and orange uniforms — and backpacks — from L.L. Bean.)
http://www.heschel.org/
The Abraham Joshua Heschel School: Mission
Gee, I wonder how Heschel’s test-prep rally is going to compare to Success Academy’s Radio City Music Hall extravaganza?
Oh wait, that’s right. Heschel NEVER HAS TEST PREP RALLIES, because the school places ZERO emphasis on standardized tests. Heschel kids take a watered-down version of standardized testing, one that is used by rich kids’ private schools across the country — and their teachers or the school itself are not judged or evaluated by these scores.
from the link immediately above:
HESCHEL:
“In an open and engaging academic setting, the school’s curriculum interweaves the best of both Jewish and general knowledge and culture throughout the school day.
“The school’s approach to education is governed by profound respect for students. It nurtures their curiosity, cultivates their imagination, encourages creative expression, values their initiative and engenders critical thinking skills. The school is committed to development of the whole child and supports each student’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical and spiritual growth. In addition, the school seeks to create an environment that encourages the professional and personal growth of teachers, administrators, and staff.
“Among the Central goals of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School are the following:
“Fostering a lifelong love of learning. The school seeks to develop the understanding that the discovery of personal meaning and the growth of individual identity can emerge from the rigors of study.
“Creating an environment of intellectual challenge and academic excellence.
“Creating an ethical learning community that inspires its students to become responsible, active, compassionate citizens and leaders in the Jewish and world communities.
“Cultivating the spiritual lives of its students and the nurturing of their commitment to Jewish values. The school helps students learn about and respect a range of Jewish practices and encourages them to embody these traditions in the way they live their lives; students learn the skills that enable them to participate fully in Jewish life.
“Building of bridges between different sectors of the Jewish community, and between the Jewish community and other communities, as expressions of our religious imperative to unite human beings through justice, shared humanity and mutual respect.
“Fostering in its students a deep commitment to and a lifelong relationship with the State of Israel and its language, culture and people, in recognition of the centrality of the State of Israel to Jewish identity and to the Jewish people.”
=======================================
Here’s more of what you can get at Heschel—a comprehensive Arts Curriculum—
one that is impossible at public schools thanks to so much its funding going to Pearson and the other Common Core-related vendors:
http://www.heschel.org/page.cfm?p=1130
From the link above:
The Arts at Heschel
“As students are exposed to a multitude of media in their daily lives, art courses can help them navigate the unfolding context of contemporary culture and technology in order to understand and find meaning in the possibilities through creating and analyzing.
“The Visual Arts department is rooted in the school’s vision that the discovery of personal meaning and the growth of individual identity can emerge from the rigors of study, of student centered inquiry and the development of a sensitive eye, a discerning mind and skillful hand.
“Music as non-verbal expression continues to say something universal, essential, and native to even the humblest of involved seekers. Music education, therefore, must stand alone as an important and necessary part of the total learning and growing process.”
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And here’s what happens at Heschel in Grades 1-5 (i.e. “Lower School”) :
The Abraham Joshua Heschel School: Lower School
http://www.heschel.org/page.cfm?p=16
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Lower School
“It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Heschel Lower School. We hope you will learn about our philosophy and curriculum. If you have additional questions after you have read through the website, please contact us.
“The Lower School comprises grades 1-5 and offers a rich and rigorous curriculum in both general and Judaic studies. Every part of the school day is planned to offer each student a challenging, well-supported, and nurturing environment. Our highly qualified and enthusiastic faculty brings the curriculum to life through analysis of text, thoughtful discussion, projects, and field trips.
“In all areas, the emphasis is on thinking and questioning. Jewish traditions form the basis for teaching ethical values and the imperative to treat others as we would like to be treated.
“As you walk through the Lower School, you will see children happily engaged. The classrooms and hallways are alive with students learning, studying, singing, praying, and playing with joy. You will learn a great deal about us from our website, and we hope you will schedule a visit to experience the spirit of our faculty and students.”
Dina Bray
Lower School Head
Does that sound like David Coleman’s “no-one-cares-what-students-think” Common Core currriculum?
Cambpell, in effect, you spend tens of thousands of dollars of money to make sure that your own children are, figuratively speaking, kept as far away from Common Core as your money can manage:
Check out these costs:
http://www.heschel.org/page.cfm?p=232
According to the above link, this is what Campbell pays
FOR EACH CHILD (she has 2 or 3… I forget):
=======================================
Tuition for the 2014-2015 school year is as follows:
N $26,125
PK $35,775
K $36,050
1 $37,425
2 $37,425
3 $38,150
4 $38,150
5 $38,150
6 $38,800
7 $38,800
8 $38,800
9 $39,650
10 $39,650
11 $39,650
12 $40,225
Campbell, since you think Common Core is so great, I’m sure that you and/or your husband have stormed into the offices of the administrators of your Heschel, and demanded they implement Common Core standards, curriculum, and testing forthwith… with threats to remove your kids if this doesn’t occur?
Well, we all know that ain’t gonna happen.
So in short, the opinion of Obama, Rhee, Huffman, Duncan, John King, and Campbell Brown:
“Common Core rules!!! Just keep it the-hell away from my own kids.”
Oy!
So basically, they are saying that what’s “good enough” for your kids, is not “good enough” for our kids, because, don’t you see, out kids are so “special.” And we can afford to send them to schools that cost as much as college tuition.
{{Sigh}}