A regular reader of the Blog who calls herself or himself “New York City Public School Parent” decided to fact check Eva Moskowitz’s claim that she does not cherrypick the students at her Success Academy charter chain. Like NYCPSP, I have long been troubled by the media’s tendency to accept test scores on state tests without considering such important questions as demographics (Does she really enroll the same proportion of students with disabilities, including serious disabilities, as nearby public schools? The same proportion of English learners?), attrition (what percent of the students who are enrolled in third grade remain until eighth grade?). On another thread, NYCPSP pointed out that 87:000 economically disadvantaged students In grades 3rd through 8th grade scored proficient or above on the NY State Math exam. “To put that in perspective — Those 87,000 3rd through 8th grade students living in poverty who attend NYC public schools who score proficient and above is more than 4 times the TOTAL 3rd through 8th grade population of the entire Boston Public School system.” Thus, if a charter school or chain chooses carefully and removes the laggards, It can produce spectacular results.

She/he writes:

“Moskowitz urges those who would “try to explain away our results” to consider Bronx 2, a school in the network whose demographics are similar to nearby PS 55. Yet this is a misleading suggestion, because an overall comparison shows that Success still serves fewer students from both groups and therefore can maintain higher scores.”

“In my opinion, this is the big lie. Moskowitz’ challenges people to “explain away our results” but critics don’t spend the time to gather the numbers and figures from the NYSED data website that would allow them to debunk this great lie. Bronx 2 doesn’t have “similar demographics to PS 55” and it doesn’t have similar demographics to Bronx District 9 where it is supposed to draw its students.

“It is easy to check the data at NYSED. On the state math tests, only 259 of the 413 Success Academy Bronx 2 students taking the state math tests were economically disadvantaged. That’s 63%. It is a shockingly low figure when you consider that Bronx 2 serves the students in Bronx District 9, where over 90% of the students taking the state exams were economically disadvantaged.

“And at nearly PS 55, which Moskowitz claims has similar demographics, over 92% of the students taking the state math test were economically disadvantaged! PS 55 serves even MORE of its’ share of the very poorest students while Success Academy Bronx 2 teaches 30% fewer poor students than they should be teaching. It takes a special chutzpah for Eva Moskowitz to claim Bronx 2 serves similar demographics. But she is smug in her knowledge that journalists almost never bother to analyze the data themselves. Instead her critics use unconvincing vague arguments “she doesn’t serve her share of special needs kids” which Moskowitz loves because she can easily dismiss it as “but that doesn’t even begin to explain my 99% passing rates”.

“Moskowitz can’t explain away the extraordinarily low number of poor students she serves in districts that have over 90% poor students that easily.

“And that very low % of economically disadvantaged students in Bronx 1 should have been a huge red flag whenever a journalist reports on a charter network who justifies its expansion by their claim of wanting to teach at-risk students failed by public schools.

“Here is the second red flag that journalists ignore:

“Despite Eva Moskowitz convincing lots of affluent white folks that getting 259 poor students in Bronx District 9 to pass a state test is a “miracle”, it turns out that in the District 9 pool from which she draws students there were 2,777 economically disadvantaged students passing state math tests who were taught in underfunded public schools. That is TEN TIMES the number of proficient students in the surrounding District 9 public schools than at Success Academy Bronx 2. There are too many truly ignorant and racist Success Academy cheerleaders who act as if there are no high performing children among the economically disadvantaged so how could Moskowitz cherry pick enough to fill her school? But that is another great lie that she gets away with. There are 10 times as many very poor students doing well in the public schools surrounding her district. It is just that they are not concentrated in a single, very rich charter school.

“Now how do we know that Eva Moskowitz cherry picks those few hundred economically disadvantaged students in SA Bronx 2 from among the thousands of proficient students? Because of Moskowitz own actions.

“Some of Moskowitz’ longest wait lists are in the Bronx. But in that very poor District 9 where her single Success Academy school has nearly 1/3 fewer poor students than it should have, has she opened a second school to address this great need for good schools?

“The answer is, of course, that Moskowitz still has only ONE school in all of District 9. One of the poorest NYC districts, and she has only one school.

“Compare that to District 2, Manhattan, one of the very richest districts where Moskowitz’ first two schools served MORE middle class and affluent students than economically disadvantaged ones. Guess where Moskowitz just located a 3rd school? District 2. What about all those poor kids stuck in failing schools in the Bronx where she challenged critics to prove that she could have possibly have cherry picked her students?

“But Moskowitz could very easily could and did cherry pick students in Bronx 2 and the fact that she has 3 times as many schools that give priority to the students who live in one of the richest NYC school districts than schools that give priority to the students who live in one of the poorest demonstrates exactly how ridiculous her claims that she doesn’t cherry pick really are. If she didn’t cherry pick and believed her own lies that she is doing this for poor kids trapped in failing schools, she would have 3 times as many schools in Bronx District 9 than she has in Manhattan District 2. Not the other way around.

“I wish a journalist would ask her to her face why she keeps opening new schools in rich districts where her wait lists are shortest.

“The very few times that a journalist does their research and asks a follow-up question — as John Merrow did in that PBS report — Eva Moskowitz sputters and shifts and looks like a liar. That should be happening every time she is interviewed by a journalist. Instead they just let her get away with her dishonest premises as she did here when she claims Bronx 2 shows that she is a miracle worker! Without her schools not a single poor kid in the entire district would ever get a good education. The fact that there are 10x as many District 9 public school students doing as well as her far less disadvantaged cherry picked group is never ever mentioned and she gets away with that very big lie. Without the need to squirm and prevaricate and look like the dishonest person she is during the John Merrow interview.

“It’s nice to have everyone accept your dishonest premise when you are promoting yourself as the savior. Eva Moskowitz feels very good because she knows that very few journalists ever bother to do their homework. They read the press releases and ask a question and write down her “response to critics” without including the data that shows just how much of an outright lie her claims were. It’s similar to the reporting we saw during the campaign where Trump would say so many outright lies and the reporters would say “but the other side says this” and leaves the public to think that the truth is a matter of opinion and not fact.

“There are reams of data that prove that Success Academy cherry picks. I didn’t even mention Success Academy’s own commissioned 2017 MDRC study that buried a few very inconvenient facts in footnotes. Do you know that in this charter school that parents are supposedly desperate to send their children, half the lottery winners don’t enroll their kids? “Of the lottery winners in the sample (both kindergarten and first-grade entrants), about 82 percent attended a welcome meeting. Approximately 61 percent of lottery winners attended student registration, 54 percent attended a uniform fitting, and 50 percent attended a dress rehearsal. With few exceptions, lottery winners who did not attend an activity did not attend subsequent activities. Ultimately, about 50 percent of lottery winners enrolled in Success Academy schools in the 2010-2011 school year.”

“Mysteriously – throughout all those “pre-enrollment” meetings – Success loses an extraordinarily number of students. 82% of those parents desperate for the great SA education attended an enrollment meeting but only 61% attend student registration. And then Success loses another chunk of students who registered and only 50% make it to the first day of school.

“The fact that Success Academy’s documented attrition rate — which includes ONLY those 50% of lottery winning students whose parents didn’t give out their supposedly coveted spots after attending during those pre-enrollment meetings — is STILL higher than almost every other charter network in NYC should also be a huge red flag. Even among the most motivated families who stick it out through all the pre-enrollment meetings, Success still rids themselves of a number that SHOULD make every journalist and certainly their oversight agency ask questions.

“The data shows exactly how Success Academy cherry picks. The fact that Moskowitz gets away with that challenge shows how little journalists understand the data.”