Andrew Tobias writes about the economy and politics. I recently subscribed to his blog. I received a post gushing about Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters, swallowing every claim she makes, and I wrote back to him. He has many links, which I would have to add by hand, so include only Eva’s report.

Here is the exchange:

From Andrew Tobias:


SUCCESS!!!

Next week your kids or grandkids start school, but here is the report card for Success Academy charter schools — #1 in New York State.

With 46 schools and 15,500 students this year, the Success Academy network is now the size of the state’s 7th largest school district. On this year’s state exams, 95% of Success students passed math and 84% passed [English] — making Success #1 for student achievement in New York State.

As long-time readers of this page know, over and over (and over and over): the Success Academy methods work, are replicable, and are free for the taking by any teacher or principal or school board member who wants to give them a try.

Consider this: with an average household income of just $32,191 — versus $291,242 for the kids in Scarsdale and $129,375 for the kids in Chappaqua — and with just 9% of its kids white or Asian versus 86% in Scarsdale and 88% in Chappaqua — the Success Academy public school kids outperformed both the Chappaqua and the Scarsdale kids. Chappaqua and Scarsdale are outstanding school districts, deserving of high praise, ranked near the top in the state. But Success Academy kids did better.

And consider this: of all 2400 public elementary schools in New York State, Success had 14 of the top 30.

Citywide, just 29% of the kids of color (and 61% of the white kids) passed the English test — versus 83% of the kids of color at Success Academy schools. In math, the results were even a little more dramatic.

New York’s 46 Success Academy schools are non-profit, public schools. Students are selected by lottery — not aptitude. With the Success results well known throughout the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods, almost every parent signs up for the lottery.

What Success Academy is accomplishing helps not just each student who succeeds (which is to say, almost all of them, and which would be important enough) but it also, thereby — and for all the generations that will follow — breaks the cycle of poverty and despair, of teenage pregnancy and crime, that so drag our society down.

What if all schools adopted variations of the Success methods — or any others that worked — so a lottery were not needed?

Imagine the impact on our nation’s future well-being if almost all her kids succeeded.

I wrote back:

Dear Andrew,

My friend Linda Gottlieb recommended your blog to me and I enjoy it.

However, I was shocked to read your praise for Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain this morning.

It is not replicable. It costs far more than real public schools. It “Succeeds” by attrition and exclusion.

Its schools do not “backfill,” meaning no new students are accepted after third grade, so every succeeding class gets smaller.

The chain does not accept students who don’t speak English or students with serious disabilities. Those students go to public schools.

It has the highest teacher turnover rate of any school in New York City, in some schools, 50-60% of the teachers leave every year. That doesn’t happen in good schools.

Eva M. has her own PAC and uses it to shower money on Cuomo and favored legislators.

Her board includes billionaires like Daniel Loeb, who also gives to the GOP Congress. She has a huge resource advantage over public schools in her neighborhood (http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-secrets-to-their-success.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FCqnJA+%28Jersey+Jazzman%29)

I have met with many SA teachers. They tell me they spend most of the year on test prep until the state tests are over. Yet despite these stellar test scores, the graduates of her eighth grade can’t manage to pass the entry exam for Stuyvesant or Bronx Science or the other exam schools. In the first two classes, not a single one passed the citywide exam for the selective high schools. In the third year, only two did. They didn’t prep for those tests.

Eva welcomed Ivanka and Paul Ryan to see her “miracle.” Dan Loeb, the chairman of her board, recently called the state’s top black legislator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, worse than the KKK because of her opposition to charters. Meanwhile, Loeb supports the group of breakaway Democrats in the State Senate who keep the Republicans in control and able to block all progressive legislation. SUNY told Eva that if Loeb doesn’t step down, she won’t get any more charters.

How could public schools replicate what she does? Who would take the kids who have cerebral palsy? Who would take the kids who don’t speak English? Where would the kids go who are slow learners? Should we throw them all away, as she does?

The NAACP recently released a report critical of charters because of their exclusionary practices and refusal to be held accountable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/07/26/naacp-report-charter-schools-not-a-substitute-for-traditional-public-schools-and-many-need-reform/?utm_term=.1e148b0796af

I suggest you do some research before you make such a misguided proposal. If you picked stocks like you pick schools, you would be bankrupt.

Diane Ravitch