Teacher educator Alan Singer is one of the most persistent critics of the draconian disciplinary policies of Eva Moskowitz’s charter chain, which is celebrated for its sky-high test scores. In this post, he reviews her “great” literacy curriculum and finds it not so great.
He bristles at her repeated use of the word “great,” which keeps reminding him of Donald Trump. Great, great, great! The best! None better!
He reminds us that what is not so great about the Success Academy charter chain is its treatment of children, its high teacher turnover, and its incessant boasting.
He reviews her curriculum and notes:
According to Eva’s “great” curriculum, (1) Great writers always have a strong, key idea; (2) Great writers always include evidence that develops, supports, or proves their idea; (3) Great writers always organize their writing so that it’s simple and clear and avoids redundancy; (4) Great writers always reread their writing and make it better by revising; (5) Great writers always check that their grammar, punctuation, and spelling are correct.
I think Eva should have included a sixth component in her guidelines for “great writers.” Great writers do not plagiarize. These “tactics” appear to come come straight from the New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards without any citation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I always suspected Mark Twain was a no talent hack.
Certified educators need to unite, we have been talking about these profit charters for decades. Eva is all about the money and minority children are making her a fortune. Parents need to wake up and hold these pretend educators feet to the fire.
Show up parents and take charge. We have plenty of people who were pushed thru school and have no concept on how to handle the world of thinking. It’s every race not just minorities who have issues with difficult concepts..
As an ESL teacher who is also a certified reading teaching in New York State, I agree with Singer’s appraisal of the program. Most of Eva’s suggestions and selections are reasonable, but there is nothing new, magical or proprietary about what she suggests other than the degree to which she attempts to control the direction of the instruction. I also agree with Singer’s issue with “detextualization.” If students are reading the “Outsiders” with an underlying theme of facism, it makes perfect sense for a teacher to provide students with the historical information associated with the concept. In other words context is valuable for building an understanding of big ideas. Decontextualization is also one of the downfalls of the CCSS which attempts to test students on reading selections that are void of context. The depth of understanding is much greater when big ideas are woven together through context. At least this is what I have learned from teaching reluctant readers over several decades.
Eva’s grade 7 curriculum has five units. Each is based on a different central reading. Teachers are instructed that they are responsible to “get 100% of your scholars independently reading at least four books per month”; to get “100% of your scholars completing nightly literacy homework that will develop them as readers and writers,” and “getting any of your scholars who are still reading below grade level, as measured by the Fountas & Pinnell Reading Assessment, to a Level Z.”
We really have fundamentally different ideas about raising children, Eva and I.
We would never tell our children someone else was responsible for how they do in school.
We never did tell our grown children that, because it’s 1. not true and 2. not helpful to them to adopt that attitude in their lives.
I’ll pass on Eva’s life lessons. This may keep her employees in line and properly frightened and subservient but I’m not really interested in her 1950’s management theories and I think that’s a terrible approach as far as children.
Another example I can use of plagiarism when I talk to my students about what plagiarism looks like. I appreciate the examples, but I’m horrified that Moskowitz is getting away with it.
It sounds like some recent college grad did some research at education websites and plagiarized some of the curriculum suggestions they found at those websites.
Then Moskowitz and her team added their “rules” that demand that their inexperienced teachers understand that their teaching would be judged on whether the students in their class met standards to provide the incentive for them to treat them in the way that will encourage them to leave.
Then Moskowitz and her team added their “rules” that demand that parents do all the work that the inexperienced teachers lack any knowledge to do when a child does not thrive in a classroom run by inexperienced teachers. I love how Moskowitz built in her excuse for massive failure with the poorest at-risk kids — if they fail, its is YOUR fault, you parents, because you weren’t good enough. The scapegoating of parents and children that Success Academy builds into its “education philosophy” is shocking.
There is something ugly about a charter network CEO who believes that scapegoating young children and their parents to hide her own failures is what normal people do. There is something ugly about a charter network CEO who believes that making 5 and 6 year old students who she wants out of her school feel humiliated and labeling them as violent and dangerous is what normal, ethical, adults with normal consciences and hearts do. They do not. But it explains Moskowitz’ willingness to go to the mat to make sure Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education. When you see every action in terms of how it benefits you, and only how it benefits you, you are Eva Moskowitz and you will work very hard for Betsy DeVos’ confirmation. She reminds me most of Donald Trump in that way. Everything is always about what benefits him the most. Sure some people may benefit from a Trump policy, but if many people are terribly harmed, he’s fine with that as long as the policy benefits him. That is pretty much how Success Academy is run – not what is good, but what will benefit Moskowitz the most.
By the way, I think this talk about this “great” Success Academy literacy program should address the elephant in the room — that Moskowitz regularly flunks extraordinarily high numbers of at-risk students — and there is nothing in there about what happens when huge numbers of students are flunked and have to do the entire curriculum again the next year.
From the Uft Newspaper
http://www.uft.org/editorials/success#
Success Academy was awash in celebration in June when it graduated its first high school seniors. Founder Eva Moskowitz reportedly shed tears of joy. She had so much to be proud of! Twelve years after opening its first school, the city’s largest charter network was sending all of its first high school graduating class to college. All 16 of them.
You read that right: Only 16 students made it through 12 years of Success Academy schooling. News reports say the Class of 2018 started out with 73 students.
The rate of attrition is startling — and telling. Critics say students who are the toughest to serve are pushed out of Success schools. We’ve seen the video of a Success teacher humiliating a 2nd-grade student. Success Academy parents have gone on the record complaining that their children are suspended for minor infractions, the kind of misbehavior that most public school teachers learn to handle with aplomb before continuing with the day’s lesson. The New York Times reported that one Brooklyn principal had a “Got to Go” list of 16 students that he wanted out. In addition to reports of those pressured to leave, classes inevitably shrink as students quit the school for whatever reason because Success schools do not accept newcomers after the 4th grade, according to press reports.
Who’s left in the Success classroom? It seems fewer students with fewer issues and higher average reading and math scores. It’s a brutal business model, a winner-take-all system that subverts the idea of public education. The Success approach is more akin to a reality show where someone is booted off the island every week. Even so, Eva Moskowitz is once again demanding more space from the very public schools that serve ALL children.
As the school year came to a close, the New York Daily News reported that students at another Success Academy high school were circulating an online petition demanding the school revise its summer homework, which required the students to read five books over the eight-week summer break. The writer of the petition states: “The number of my peers I have seen crying and having panic attacks in the hallways is depressing.”
Their plea is sad beyond words. School should be an awakening to the joy of learning, not a grueling marathon to endure.
One thing to note:
Eva Moskowitz WILL listen to parents — as long as those parents are educated and affluent.
She has regularly changed her policies when college educated affluent parents complain. Whenever at-risk kids had “meltdowns”, Moskowitz claimed they were violent and needed to be suspended — even if they were 5 or 6 years old. When the at-risk children who were often African-American had a “meltdown”, Success Academy profiled them as “violent” and the clear evidence of this is that in one school, 18% of the Kindergarten and first graders in a SA school with virtually no white students were issued out of school suspensions — Moskowitz no doubt would insist those awful young children’s violent outbursts demanded it (unfortunately for the many at-risk kids who are suspended, gullible journalists who assume those children must be violent have never questioned Moskowitz about this.)
On the other hand, a group of parents at Success Academy Hudson Yards Middle School — which is disproportionately white and affluent compared to some other Success Academy middle schools — complained that their children were being treated the same way that at-risk students of color are treated. (Their principal had been trained in one of those Success Academy middle schools that have virtually no white students and was doing exactly what they did there.) Eva Moskowitz hurriedly met with those parents and reassured them that their children’s feeling were very important and made sure those children weren’t treated so harshly anymore.
At no time did Moskowitz dismiss those affluent parents concern and tell them their children’s “meltdowns” were simply a sign of their violent natures that were the fault of their lousy parenting skills. Moskowitz reserves those kinds of attacks for non-white 6 year old children whose parents aren’t quite as wealthy and connected. If it is one of those parents complaining, Moskowitz will even release the private records of a kid if he crosses her!
Moskowitz shortened the hours of Success Academy when white and affluent parents complained that the long day interfered with the paid after school sports teams and other activities they wanted their kids to participate in.
I don’t know if the children of the affluent parents are old enough to be part of the homework petition, but if the affluent parents complain, you can bet that the policy will be changed.
If it the at-risk parents complain, Moskowitz will blame them and their children for being undeserving of a Success Academy education.
“These ‘tactics’ appear to come come straight from the New York State Next Generation English Language Arts Learning Standards without any citation.”
Eva thinks because she added so many “greats” that there is no need to add a citation because she revised the state standards.
I hope Alan Singer took screen shots because it wouldn’t surprise me if all the instances of plagiarism are now changed.
Too bad Oscar Wilde never attended SUCCESS.