White billionaire Dan Loeb likes to hector black people about their duty towards children who are black and brown. He is an exemplar of white privilege. He is chair of the board of Success Academy, which sifts and sorts the children it wants and tosses the others back to public schools. It has remarkably high scores because most of the children it accepts drop out or are pushed out.
Loeb likes to lecture black officials. He compared the black Democratic leader of the State Senate to the Ku Klux Klan and said she was worse.
Now it has been revealed that he has sent hectoring emails to a black deputy mayor in the DeBlasio administration, in a supercilious condescending effort to educate him about the superiority of charter schools. Loeb accused the deputy mayor of pulling strings to get his child into a popular neighborhood public middle school, a charge first leveled by Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post.
Loeb thinks the city should give Eva Moskowitz as many schools as she wants, rent-free. Loeb is contemptuous of the public schools that enroll 90% of the children. With his billions, Success Academy could pay its own way. It is a chain created for gifted children of color—willing to conform to SA rules without question—that dares to call itself a “model” for all public schools.
Dan Loeb has a problem with black adults. He likes to lecture them on their duties to their race. He is the personification of colonialism and paternalism. He is also a demonstration of why tax rates for the .01% are too low.
Sadly, the DeBlasio administration just gave Success Academy another 1,000 seats, expanding its little but well-funded empire.
The city public schools enroll 1.1 Million students. Success Academy will grow to 16,000 students.
And another billionaire, Julian Robertson, just gave the SA chain $20 Million to “share its lessons.”
Lessons: select the best, push out the rest.
I wish Success Academy would take responsibility for one very impoverished district in New York City—every student, no exceptions—and show everyone how to work its magic.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wish this man would just. shut. up.
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And go away, like to his estate in the Hamptons.
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Mercer is enough . Keep him in the city.
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“City officials noted the de Blasio administration has identified 5,000 seats for Success Academy students over the last four years. The network will gain an additional 1,000 seats through the space deals brokered Monday.”
It’s a good thing de Blasio’s a progressive. Just think how many SA seat he might have identified if he weren’t.
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Exactly!
Eva’s billionaire buddies ran a $6 Million TV campaign against De Blasio when he first dared to cross her. He won’t try that again!
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With the overwhelming victory he just had . Now would be the time to weather another media assault. And while he is at it he could attack the .01 percent to pay their fair share. To really do something for the children of NYC .
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Yup. Strike while the iron is hot.
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dienne,
The thing I find most offensive about your non-stop attacks on Mayor de Blasio is that you ignore how much he has tried to fight the Success Academy juggernaut and rich charter networks in general.
And you ignore how much “progressives” like the one Bernie Sanders endorsed in Virginia fight to legitimize these charter chains.
Maybe if Bernie Sanders spent a little more time speaking out against charters instead of endorsing the so-called “progressive” DFER candidates to turn Virginia into a pro-charter state with a Cuomo-like Governor, I wouldn’t think of you as being such a hypocrite.
Watching Bernie Sanders sitting next to the man most responsible for undermining Bill de Blasio’s progressive fight against charters AND giving Andrew Cuomo progressive creds by talking about how much he “cares” about poor kids should make you reserve your criticisms for Bernie Sanders. Not Bill de Blasio.
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How is giving SA 5000 seats “fighting” charters? He’s followed the Obama plan pretty well as far as I can see. Say a lot of progressive things to progressive audiences. In private, give the corporatists and the right-wingers exactly what they want. Come back to the progressives and pretend you fought the hard fight and, gee, look how much worse it could have been. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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Incidentally, your whataboutism is really getting tiring. We’re not talking about Bernie right now. Can you for once talk about de Blasio without bringing up Bernie?
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Dienne, for whatever it’s worth, De Blasio did try early in his first term to push back against Moskowitz, but then had his ass handed to him by our reptilian Governor.
He received no help whatsoever from the UFT or NYSUT (the NY State federation of teacher union locals), who remained shamefully silent while Moskowitz closed her sweatshops on a school day and forced children, parents and teachers to go up to Albany for a demonstration where Cuomo spoke in their favor.
I think in his heart he truly is against charter schools, but has received no support in fighting them; the union bears more responsibility than he does, since in twenty years it has done absolutely nothing to combat them. In fact they’ve done less than nothing, since in its folly and captivity by so-called reform ideology, the union mis-leadership opened its own charter schools, which were both train wrecks.
I have a lot of issues with how De Blasio is running the Department of Education, since he kept almost all of so-called reform predators and parasites brought in by Bloomberg (whom the union allows to get away with murder), including the dreadful Carmen Farina, but if he had received some support from people, he might have some more backbone on the charter issue.
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Michael – fair enough. I guess I assumed since he kept all the predators and parasites that he must support charter schools too.
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Tried but apparently failed to post a similar comment earlier. My understanding of state law (which has dimmed on account of my siege-like mind) is that the Blaz has limited power over this stuff. His choice, as I recall, is that NYC either must find DOE space for charters or pay the bill for whatever space charters end up renting.
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My “sieve-like mind,” that is.
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“Can we once talk about de Blasio without talking about Bernie?”
Sure, we can talk about everything de Blasio has done for public schools including establishing renewal schools and sticking to it despite attacks from reformers about how those kids haven’t all turned into top performing scholars yet, like they do when they go to charters. We can talk about universal pre-k.
But since you ONLY want to post your dishonest innuendoes about how corrupt he is over and over again, what am I supposed to do? Let you smear Bill de Blasio?
And THIS, dienne, is typical of the very nasty and dishonest character attacks you frequently post to smear de Blasio:
“Say a lot of progressive things to progressive audiences. In private, give the corporatists and the right-wingers exactly what they want. ”
Who are you to demand that I’m not allowed to defend one of the strongest supporters of public education currently holding office from your dishonest smears and innuendo in which you work very hard to undermine him? And why are you so focused on attacking pro-public school politicians like de Blasio as lying fake progressives when you give a pass to far more charter friendly politicians like Tom Perriello and Elizabeth Warren. Why the hypocrisy?
I watch you smearing the politicians who are STRONGEST supporters of public education while giving a pass to the politicians who have been wishy washy or are owned by DFER and wonder what your real agenda is. Because it certainly doesn’t appear to be supporting public education.
If you truly believed de Blasio “could be” a lying tool of the right wingers because he wasn’t supporting public schools enough, you would believe Perriello and Sanders and Warren were even MORE corrupt. But you don’t. They haven’t come close to standing up for public schools as much as de Blasio has and yet it is de Blasio who you attack as corrupt and never those “DFER friendly” politicians who you admire. It is de Blasio who you nastily imply is giving corporatists and right wingers what they want IN PRIVATE while falsely presenting himself as progressive. You have repeatedly posted dishonest innuendoes about a politician who has been a much stronger supporter of public schools than almost any politician you can name. So why are you doing it?
Maybe you have some reason for this double standard but it sure looks fishy to me. Maybe it is just a coincidence that you are parroting the right wing troll attacks on Mayor de Blasio when you make your nasty innuendoes about how he is probably secretly doing the right wingers’ bidding and LYING about being a progressive, But the fact is, that is exactly the attacks that the right wing trolls were making on social media about de Blasio.
So I find it odd to hear you repeating those nasty innuendoes about de Blasio now as you repeated the nasty innuendoes about Hillary Clinton. They both deserved criticism. But you didn’t just criticize them — you make it clear that you believe they are merely masquerading as progressive and secretly conspiring with the right wing to do their bidding. Maybe you are just proof that the right wing propaganda will always find willing believers. But you post statements here that are pure right wing innuendo like “Say a lot of progressive things to progressive audiences. In private, give the corporatists and the right-wingers exactly what they want”. And whether you are intentionally trying to push those dishonest attacks to undermine politicians who are strongly pro-public school or simply a willing believer in whatever propaganda right wingers want you to believe, I will not let your dishonest smears about de Blasio go unanswered.
dienne, maybe this will help you understand why your posts are so offensive to me:
Imagine if I started posting the nastiest attacks on the one politician in Ohio (or wherever you live) who has fought very hard to support public education in your state and you knew how hard that person had worked for public education. And you knew that the billionaires who hate public education want that politician to be defeated. And you saw that I was posting exactly the same nasty innuendoes that the right wingers who have been trying to defeat this politician have been pushing — attacks designed to convince voters that this strong supporter of public schools was secretly a corrupt sell out.
I certainly hope that if I did such an abhorrent thing, you would be suspicious as to why I was working so hard to undermine one of the few politicians in either the Democrat or progressive movement who actually supported public schools strongly.
When someone who claims to be a strong supporter of public education keeps repeating nasty character attacks on pro-public school politicians while giving the pro-charter politicians a pass whenever they support the education reform agenda, then something is very wrong.
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“Branded for Success”
Eva’s brand
Is “Tests R Us”
“Worst” are canned
And “best” are bussed
“Chartering a Course to $ucce$$”
The lesson of the charter
The key to their $ucce$$
Is focus on the “smarter”
Eliminate the rest
“Successful Turnarounds”
Eva’s found,
Without a doubt,
That “turn-around”
Means “turn ’em out”
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“School Choice”
Charter picking,
Like cherry picking,
Selects the very best.
The ones who bore
The highest score
On every single test
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“The Charter Secret to Small Class Size”
To keep the classes small
You just suspend the chaff
You don’t suspend them all
Just quarter to a half
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“The Cuckoo’s Nest”
Birds of a charter
Flock together
Lay their eggs in public schools
Feed from a mother
Of another
In a land where cuckoo rules
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There are more,but this comment box is too small to contain them all
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Wonderful, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more 🙂
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What was his sin? Not enough mindless cheerleading for charters? Did he commit the ultimate betrayal and actually support an existing public school? He must be purged immediately. They really demand 100% fealty to The Mission.
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Buery was formerly the head of the Children’s Aid Society and in that capacity he directed the opening of the (very successful) Children’s Aid charter school in a disadvantaged neighborhood in the Bronx.
As such he was widely viewed as being the de Blasio’s administration unofficial liaison to the charter school community. I imagine these conversations had to do with the mayor’s foot-dragging in finding (as required by state law) space and/or money for charter schools to open and expand.
Buery is a pleasant, brilliant, and very accomplished man, but in these exchanges his claim that his child didn’t get special admissions treatment is nothing less than a spectacular untruth. An unconnected parent would not have even been allowed to apply for middle school until he had actually established residency in New York City, and he would not have in a million years gotten into the wildly popular competitive middle school his son attends without participating in the regular admissions cycle. A case can be made that this sort of exception is reasonable if it helps attract high-level talent to city government, but there should be honesty and transparency about what happened.
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Tim,
That is untrue. My grandson spent two years in California, and when he returned, he and his parents visited half a dozen wonderful middle schools who welcomed his application. No, not because of me.
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Chancellor’s Regulation A-125 could not be clearer on this matter: you have to be a full-time New York City resident to have your child participate in the middle school application process.
An unconnected non-resident child wouldn’t have had meetings with high-level DOE officials at Tweed. He would have been told to visit a “Family Welcome Center” in June when his family actually lived in New York City, and he certainly wouldn’t have been given a made-up “appeals” seat at one of the most popular middle schools in NYC.
Click to access 09-17%20Buery%20Letter.pdf
Personally, I don’t think there should be different rules or unwritten rules for government workers, no matter how talented they are. No one should be punished for this, but it is ludicrously wrong for Buery to say that he didn’t receive special treatment; he clearly, obviously, and most definitely did.
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He lives in the neighborhood of the school where his child is enrolled
When people move from out of town, they can interview even though they missed the deadline. There are many principals who ignore the Chancellors Reg.
Stop playing puppet.
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Good, so we agree that the rules were ignored and that he received special treatment. Obviously there is a process for when people move, but it doesn’t begin until they actually live in the district. We can disagree about whether it is appropriate to bend the rules for VIPs.
Click to access A12542017Posting.pdf
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Tim,
Eva bends the rules every day. Stop whining. We are lucky to have Buery, and lucky he chose a public school, not a no-excuses sham of a school.
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@Tim – How much did Success Academy pay NY1 to put their fluff piece in rotation over Veterans Day weekend? Also, why is Success Academy recruiting teachers from Oklahoma City? New York City is the largest metropolitan area in the US. Why would any employer here have to recruit from the Midwest?
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I’m not watching NY1 out of respect for the Spectrum cable workers’ strike, so I have no idea what you are referring to.
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The important question is how many lobsters are there in the world. The whole world.
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Tim,
The claims that Richard Buery’s son was given his seat illegally were INVESTIGATED. We can all read the investigation report.
That’s more than I can say for any of the dozens of allegations against Success Academy presented by a myriad of students and their parents. Not one investigation. Not one.
Where are all the SUNY Charter Institute’s reports investigating all the wrongdoing reported in the press? Where are all the SUNY Charter Institute’s reports investigating the parents complaints about their unwanted children’s mistreatment by the school?
I guess when white folks do something wrong, you don’t think they need an investigation but when African-American folks who aren’t obeying Loeb and Moskowitz’ orders as they are supposed to be doing ARE investigated and cleared, then you have the chutzpah to imply they still did something wrong.
Daniel Loeb would be proud of you, Tim!
No doubt Loeb and Moskowitz wish they could put Buery on their “got to go lists” that they use to get rid of so many unwanted children. If only Buery were 5 they could have suspended him from Kindergarten for failing to obey their orders.
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I have to say it was a relief in the end to read the Times article about the email exchange, “Despite the tenor of many of Mr. Loeb’s missives, Mr. Buery mostly replied gently. ‘Everyone who disagrees with you about something isn’t despicable or a bad person. We’d all get a lot further if we could keep that in mind,’ he wrote to Mr. Loeb earlier this year. ‘Hope you’re having a beautiful day.'”
Mr. Buery is a model of grace. You see, the way Loeb treats others is the way Rheeformers at my school treat me. I had a couple victories recently and they resorted to name calling. I woke up this morning with that heavy on my mind, so I came to dianeravitch.net for solace in shared experience. I found it.
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I don’t know why my phone changed Buery to Huerta.
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InService, as the saying goes, Dan Loeb is not fit to shine Richard Buery’s shoes.
One is a snob, the other is a gentleman.
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I really think black folks should create their own “Me, too”. The fact that Buery endured this nonsense for years is offensive. I guess this behavior is what got Loeb the reputation for being a “well-known jerk” in the financial world. Loeb and other Success Academy fanatics exhibit evangelical behavior that to me suggest mental illness. While the financial world may tolerate such odd behavior in a high revenue producer, the rest of us are not impressed or swayed. He just looks crazy.
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I am sorry you had that crummy experience. My heart goes out to all you pubsch teachers, many of whom are treated like gum sticking to a shoe. I am lucky to be a PT free-lance special to PreK, but could not do w/o my sugar daddy working his tail off as an engineer. My kids were well-educated by folks like you: KUDOS!
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Thank you. The fight for social justice goes on. I get hurt. I keep going. The students show me why. The students show me how.
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I have to admit to being a complete chickens***. All the way back in college 50 yrs ago I chose to avoid academia (college or public K12) as it struck me as a seriously back-biting environment. I stuck one toe in as a private-sch teacher– was treated very well & loved it but left after a few yrs (a) feeling the need to get out of the classroom/ lit world [into constr/engrg biz familiar to me thro fam biz]– & (b) getting that I was immature re: classroom mgt & would prob’ly be more capable after raising kids.
By the time I returned I understood I was too self-willed to tolerate any more bureaucracy [had enough in corp world tho not back-biting like academia]. Very lucky to be able to develop my own free-lance early-for-lang-learning pgm, peddle it to regional PreK’s, but it’s a dream job that only breaks even ;-).
You & others on this board are doing the really hard work, & I thank you all by paying hi RE taxes, going to BOEd mtgs, writing to local reps, & voting for those w/solid pro-public-ed position.
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Dan Loeb is the perfect reflection of Success Academy’s philosophy. That’s why Eva Moskowitz will support him no matter what he does.
As long as an African-American adult obeys his orders, Loeb is good with their behavior. If they dare to express an opinion contrary to that which the great Dan Loeb knows is correct, Dan Loeb goes on the attack to belittle and demean them. You must NOT disagree with the marching orders given by Dan Loeb.
Eva Moskowitz is good as long as African-American children correctly obey every rule and regulation given to them and “learn” as they ordered to learn by their teachers. If not, their infractions are duly noted and they are humiliated and punished. If those humiliated children act out, she notes that it is only because the violent nature that she finds in so many of the African-American 5 year olds who win her lottery. Which somehow isn’t present in nearly as high of a number among the white 5 year olds who do.
It is worth checking out Success Academy’s own reported suspension rates by race to see that white students are suspended much less frequently.
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^^And if you think that the group of parents at Hudson Yards Middle School who complained about the shocking treatment of their kids were a group of at-risk parents, I have a bridge to sell you. And if you think Eva Moskowitz goes out of her way to meet with at-risk parents who complain about their school’s harsh treatment at the hands of a Success Academy administrator or teacher who treats their children the way Dan Loeb treats Richard Buery, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell ya.
The African-American principal tried to treat the affluent children who are disproportionately clustered at the Hudson Yards Middle School the exact same way the administrators treat the low-income non-white children at the Harlem Middle Schools are treated.
How silly of him not to understand that some kids need to be understood and other kids need to be punished.
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It does appear as if Success Academy moved all their students from their old D2 middle school to the new location. I used to come across their students regularly on the M7 and M11 heading uptown in the afternoons, but have yet to see any this year. These kids were getting off in the 70s and 80s, so not Harlem residents.
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“Select the best?”
No, select the most compliant, and the Devil take the rest…
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Sorry I am out of the loop as a NJ’an, & can only comment that this guy Loeb is obviously a flaming ahole as evidenced by his emails, & SA should be ashamed to have him on their board, but then SA clearly has no shame as we have been observing for quite a while.
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He isn’t just on the board.
He is CHAIR of the board. He is the person calling the shots, along with his biggest admirer, Eva Moskowitz.
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Good lord.
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Once again, I apologise on behalf of all Australians for giving the world Rupert Murdoch.
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Senator Alexander, DOE, and ESSA: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/25/lamar-alexander-betsy-devos-259443
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