Leonie Haimson reports here on a federal court decision to allow a lawsuit to proceed against Success Academy.
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/08/federal-court-rules-lawsuit-vs-success.html
“This week, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled that a lawsuit vs Success Academy could go forward to trial on behalf of some of the children who were on the “Got to go” list put together by the principal of Success Academy Fort Greene, Candido Brown. These children were subsequently pushed out out of the school.The decision is here.
“While the school claims they simply made “errors in judgement,” the practice of repeatedly suspending kids and calling ACS on their parents if they don’t pick them up promptly in the middle of the school day is a common practice at Success, used to persuade parents to pull their children out of the school. Other methods commonly used by the school include calling the police to take unruly children either to the precinct house or to a hospital emergency room.”
She also notes:
“Meanwhile, NYSED reported today that last year it had overpaid charter schools and underpaid NYC from federal Title II funds. The spreadsheet is here, revealing that Success charter schools were overpaid by $1.5 million; and NYC public schools underpaid by $7.1 million, which will only be repaid slowly over four years.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It would be very useful if the lawsuit against Success Academy was able to bring to light the following information:
Since Success Academy has been established, how many parents each year have accepted their lottery spot and how many never enrolled their child after attending required pre-enrollment meetings?
How many of the parents of children with special needs who won lottery spots actually accepted them? And what is the breakdown of their child’s special needs? (There are mild special needs — like speech therapy — and their are more difficult special needs that severely impact learning.)
How many of the children with special needs who actually enrolled remained in the charter school and did they progress with their cohort, or were they flunked or suspended at any time in Kindergarten through 2nd grade?
What is the longitudinal attrition rate of all entering at-risk Kindergarten students who came to school for even one day? (In the NAACP report, one dad testified about how 5 or more children were identified on the first day of school and they were all gone within 10 days — but those students who leave soon after enrolling — but before October 1 — should be included.)
Success Academy staff — both those who have left and those who remain — should be interviewed under oath as to how they address a child having issues in their classes. It is clear that they have staff who specialize in dealing with these kids and identifying them. It would be good to learn more about them.
What percentage of at-risk Success Academy students are held back at least one year? How many have special needs?
What percentage of at-risk Success Academy students have been suspended at least once? How many of those suspended in Kindergarten and first grade were later found to have special needs?
Great questions!
50% of the kids who get into the lottery do not attend the school. The data is here: https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/2017_Success_Academy.pdf
Holy guacamole! One must click the link to Leonie’s report and the link to the decision, and read the decision. It’s amazing. Here:
Click to access USCOURTS-nyed-1_15-cv-07058-0.pdf
SA’s methods are beyond comprehension. They are going to have to change. A lot. What they are doing now is clearly an unsustainable business model. Get ready for SA to fold.
Why do you think it is unsustainable?
Success Academy, with 17,000 students, is teaching 1.5% of the 1.1 million students in the NYC public schools.
Even with funding issues and teaching a population that is disproportionately economically disadvantaged, the NYC public schools have state test proficiency rates of 36 – 40%. That means there are – very conservatively speaking — 400,000 students in the NYC school system who would be welcome at Success Academy.
Moskowitz has unlimited money to market to them, unlimited resources to offer to them, and unlimited help to lobby to underfund and undermine the public schools that are her competition for them.
Moskowitz is now teaching 17,000 students — she could expand to teach twice as many students and still be able to cherry pick since even expanding to twice the size would only be 3% of the 1.1 million NYC public school students. 3% of the students in a city where nearly 40% of the students are proficient, and if you eliminate the ELL and special needs students, the % of proficient students is even higher.
The only thing Eva Moskowitz needs to be sustainable, is the freedom to continue to use the egregious practices noted in your link. No one is stopping her from doing so — least of all the SUNY Charter Institute that is supposed to be overseeing charters but instead does whatever Moskowitz demands. Among the things that the SUNY Charter Institute has done because Moskowiotz demanded it is: approving renewals for her charters early, allowing her to stop giving priority to at-risk children, allowing her to locate schools in affluent neighborhoods. Among the other things that SUNY has not questioned once is Moskowitz suspending 18% — 18%!!! of the Kindergarten and first graders in one of her charters that actually serves a lot of at-risk students. Even the lawsuits have not made the SUNY Charter Institute curious about her practices.
Can you imagine a charter school with virtually no white students suspending 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds in their Kindergarten and first grades and the state oversight board not wondering what was going on? Can you imagine that same oversight board hearing Moskowitz explaining that all those Kindergarten children act out violently and not questioning it? Would it surprise you to know that the Success Academy school that had that 18% suspension rate for Kindergarten and first graders had virtually no white students and the SUNY Charter Institute is composed of mostly white businessmen and lawyers?
What if you learned that group of white lawyers and businessmen who showed no curiosity about all the 5 year old lottery winners that Moskowitz tells them are violent ALSO now insist that Moskowitz should be given special leave to train her own teachers? Because that is what happened. Even though those mostly white lawyers and businessmen appointed by Andrew Cuomo knew that Moskowitz was running charter schools that sometimes suspended 18% of their 5 and 6 year olds Evidently, they thought that was a sign of excellently trained teachers! And they wanted more!
You better believe that Success Academy is sustainable. As long as the SUNY Charter Institute and Andrew Cuomo are in the pockets of the billionaires who fund her, it is sustainable. As long as Moskowitz keeps doing nice things they want like endorsing Betsy DeVos and embarking on a PR effort to get the DeVos nomination approved, it is sustainable.
It is sustainable until her cheerleader/overseers at the SUNY Charter Institute board are replaced and that won’t happen until Andrew Cuomo is defeated by Cynthia Nixon.
If Cuomo wins again, Moskowitz will be training her own teachers and continuing these practices with SUNY cheering them on.
Good news.
I hope there is no wiggle room and more on theunconsciounable practices are revealed. You can bet the EVA will pullout every legal and political trick she can to win.
The under payment and over payment- I’m sure it was just an innocent mistake, like Ohio’s experience with ECOT.
“A picture is worth a thousand years.”
What’s indescribably creepy is the picture accompanying Leonie’s article. Apparently, there were protests outside Eva house, protests about the very things that the judge just found both Eva and her organization likely guilty of, or likely enough to be guilty of that he rejected Eva lawyers’ calls for a dismissal, and instead called for a trial.
Look at this photo, I’m utterly gobsmaked, and wondering:
What sick, demented thought process led $800,000/year-salaried Eva, her husband Eric, and their three spoiled brat kids to run outside, grab away a poster from a protestor, and make a laughing, mocking pose with that poster for news photographers.
“Eric! Kids! Wanna go have some fun?! Let’s go outside and mentally torment and abuse the protestors!”
“”Sounds great, Honey!”* replies Eric Grannis (Eva’s hubby.)
“Yeah, mom, we’re all down for it! Maybe if we’re cruel enough, we can even make of few of them actually cry!”
Eva chimes in, “Great idea! Well, we’re never gonna know if we CAN actually make that bunch o wussies cry, not if we don’t try. Put on your coats ‘n caps, let’s get to it!”
Then they all run outside
Look at the picture, and the words on it:
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/08/federal-court-rules-lawsuit-vs-success.html
*”Success Academy (led by Eva) threatens to call 9-1-1 on first graders (i.e. 6-7 year olds).
Check out the looks of pure evil and utter sadism on the faces of Eva and her family members. The son (or daughter) on the left with the red knitcap giving the thumbs-up really stands out in this regard.
Real funny, you family of creeps!
It’s almost as if, by holding it up, then acting as they are for photographers, Eva & familiy are saying back:
“Yeah, we DO do that. We admit to all of it, and so what if we do? We don’t give a sh#% about the damage that doing all this — and the other things — inflicts on the children and parents upon whom we inflict it. We’re gonna keep it up, and there’s not a damn thing any of you can do about it. We got Bloomberg, Klein, countless hedgefund billionaires, and tens of millions of dollars of lawyers protecting us. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Well guess again, Moskowitz family.
There actually IS something that your victims can do to challenge your evil. They can file a lawsuit, and take you all out to the metaphorical woodshed for a good ol’ fashioned metaphorical horse-whipping, and do it publicly (the woodshed part doesn’t really work with the public part, but who cares?)
If I were the plaintiffs, I would blow up that photo to the size of a garage door, glue onto a similarly-sized piece of plywood,. and enter it as an exhibit for the judge and jury to view, leaving it up for for as long as possible.
Or perhaps, while Eva’s on the stand, bring back the garage-door-size blow up and have the plaintiffs’ lawyers pummel her with questions, asking her to defend what she’s doing in that picture:
Here is again:
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/08/federal-court-rules-lawsuit-vs-success.html
Is that photograph real?
The reason I question it is because it is truly impossible to believe that the entire family could be so inconsiderate as to pose for the photo. It makes the entire family look so bad as to be unbelievable. So I wondered if someone changed the sign in photoshop.
Here, check it out:
If it’s photoshopped, it’s quite a good job. For example, look at the shadows of the hands/fingers holding to poster — the hands/fingers of Eva’s husband Eric, and that of her two kids. If it’s fake, that’s Hollywood-level CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery.)
I stand corrected after seeing other angles of this photo. Extremely weird.
One more thought:
those poor children:
They’re obviously growing up to be just as scummy and cruel and evil as their mother (and father, too, I suppose)
You called the photo and the Moskowitz’ clan’s Joker-like behavior in the video “extremely weird.”
Try “evil.”
Compare their behavior:
with
or this great compilation of all the Joker — human & cartoon
Looks like something Marie Antoinette might have done if cameras existed in her time.
I think it’s real. Here’s more and an even better photo angle: https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161123/east-harlem/eva-moskowitz-protest-trump-visit
It’s an old picture, from 2016, but still…OMG, if I saw that I would grab my kids and run screaming into the night.
Yep. That’s photo’s real.
This second angle photo cinches it.
Here’s the text from the above link:
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161123/east-harlem/eva-moskowitz-protest-trump-visit
“Success Academy CEO Mocks Protesters Rallying Against Trump
By Dartunorro Clark
“November 23, 2016 2:12pm
“Updated on November 25, 2016 9:32am
“HARLEM — “The head of Success Academy charter schools openly mocked protesters as they rallied against her apparent support for Donald Trump Wednesday.
“As a crowd gathered outside her East Harlem home, Moskowitz came out with her family, wished the crowd a “Happy Thanksgiving,” then posed smiling with a sign that read: “Success Academy Threatened to Call 911 on 1st Graders. #GotToGo.”
“The stunt drew hisses from protesters who were angry that she gave Ivanka Trump a tour of one of her Harlem schools.
“ ‘And you wonder why we’re angry,” said Zakiyah Ansari, the advocacy director for the Alliance for Quality education who organized the rally with other nonprofit organizations.
“Ivanka Trump visited Success Academy Harlem 1 charter school last Friday, apparently surprising even staffers there.
“The tour was given a day after Moskowitz quashed rumors that President-elect Trump would tap her to be head of the Department of Education in his cabinet.
“Ansari said she was appalled by the visit by the President-elect’s daughter because of the “the rhetoric and hate [President-elect Trump] has spewed for 18 months” against minority communities, particularly Muslims and Latinos.
““She had the audacity to bring this person into that school, which is 90 to 95 percent black and Latino,” she said.
“Mayor Bill de Blasio, with whom Moskowitz has often sparred, said earlier this month Trump’s White House is linked to white supremacists following the hiring of Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart Media, as a senior adviser.
“Moskowitz’s stunt Wednesday was also personal for Fatima Geidi, who pulled her son out of Upper West Success Academy two years ago.
““This is funny to her, but it is not funny,” Geidi said.
““What am I supposed to tell my black son?”
“Geidi was a part of a PBS documentary on Success Academy and spoke out against the school.
“Earlier this year, she filed a federal complaint against the school alleging discrimination and mistreatment against her son, who has special needs.
“Others said Moskowitz should be doing more to quell anxiety brewing from the election.
““What are the conversations like in the school?” said one woman at the rally.
“A representative from Success Academy did not respond to request for comment.
The protest about SA and its targeting of children reminds me of a nearby city school system. Some thirty years ago, their version of getting serious was to target disciplinary problems in the school system is an overt way. Carefully documenting the behavior of students who had been to the office too much, they assembled the last year group on stage at the first of the year in an assembly and escorted the offending group out the front door ceremoniously. They claimed the effect was a school without the bad apples that better served the majority of the students.
This is a philosophy that guides every type of organization. Unproductive workers are regularly fired. If the coach does not like a player, they are traded or dismissed from the team. Law firms ask some to be partners and not others. It works well for those who can sit in the catbird seat (I have never understood that phrase. Catbirds sit in the middle of dense foliage and talk all day). If you can select a few really good people from thousands, and you have a good feeling for the type of person you need, a good team may be assembled and you can successfully compete in the world of baseball or law.
That a school would choose this path, public or private, is disturbing on two counts. First, it is a faux competition. Education, unlike sports or even business, is a governmental function we have judged to be a necessary part of our democratic process. Whether it is carried out in a public or a private institution, it’s purpose is primarily to create a better informed citizenry capable of doing all those things that make better communities. As such, the degree to which schools help each child grow to understand their purpose in a better society becomes the entire focus of having school. If school exists only to ready people for a particular job or a series of jobs, it places the focus on the wrong sector of society.
Still, I understand the motivation of both SA and the public inner city high school described above. SA just wants to work with the perfect kid. Who would not? The inner city school grew tired of seeing bad influences in the school overcome good influences and sought to separate out those who poisoned the atmosphere with their lack of understanding about what is needed to contribute to a positive school environment. It is not the paradigm I would choose, but I understand.
This is why we must provide funding for public schools to help every child. Incarceration of offenders, a type of social removing of the individual, is everywhere failing to produce the kind of society we want. It is time to invest in children who are not doing well so that we end up with more citizens capable of adding to society.
“SA just wants to work with the perfect kid.”
And yet the New York state law law requires charters’ mission to be working with students at risk of academic failure. And yet those are exactly the students targeted for dismissal at Success Academy.
Good thing for Success Academy that the SUNY Charter Institute doesn’t care.
Clearly photoshopped, Jack.
I don’t think it was photoshopped, but I’m open to being convinced.
DNA Info is part of WNYC radio in New York City. I find it hard to believe that someone at WNYC decided to fake a photo to bolster an anti-Eva agenda, and that no one has caught on until just now.
If that were true, it would be quite a scandal — reminiscent of O.J.’s claim that the photos of him wearing Bruno Magli’s — the shoes matching bloody footprints at and leaving the crime scene — were photoshopped by the police as part of a police conspiracy to frame him. “I would never buy or wear those ugly-ass shoes,” O.J. claimed during the civil trial. Then they discovered multiple photos in multiple settings of him wearing those same shoes.
If you think that it was photoshopped, what’s your theory?
Was / is there an original of the Moskowitz clan holding a different, and more benign poster, with that poster later replaced via photoshop with the ” .. call 9-1-1 for 1st graders” poster ?
Was / is there an original picture of a different family (the kids the same size & ages of the three Moskowitz kids) holding the ” .. call 9-1-1 for 1st graders” poster, and then someone replaced the original family members heads with the heads of Eva, Eric, and their three spoiled kids where all the Moskowitz’ heads were smiling and cackling like the Joker (or the Riddler)?
If you can’t produced either of those two original photos, the greatest likelihood — nay, the downright certainty — is that the photo is the read deal. Look at it again:
Here’s the link to the DNA Info article, with the second angle photo:
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161123/east-harlem/eva-moskowitz-protest-trump-visit/
One more thought:
*those poor children(
They’re obviously growing up to be just as scummy and cruel and evil as their mother (and father, too, I suppose)
God save us all!
Wow, the apples don’t fall far from the trees.
The family that makes fun of the distress of parents of targeted special needs 6 year olds together, stays together.
It is still hard for me to believe this isn’t faked. But that’s because it is hard for me to fathom the pure joy in the faces of all the family. What a memory to share with the grandkids.
It’s a shame that the judge threw out two of their complaints: the students being in a hostile learning environment; the state-level complaints that ther students’ IEPs were not followed.
Particularly galling is that the state-level complaints were dismissed by the judge because the parents missed the 90-day requirement for initial filing. If they had sent complaint letters to the state commission they would have preserved their right to sue. Parents of children with IEPs typically are not aware that they need to file complaints within the 90-day period, else state-level remedies expire.
On a technicality, they would have recourse if SA had never informed them of the 90-day window (i.e., didn’t inform them of their rights when IEPs were conducted).
One more thought:
those poor children:
They’re obviously growing up to be just as scummy and cruel and evil as their mother (and father, too, I suppose)
You called the photo and the Moskowitz’ clan’s Joker-like behavior in the video “extremely weird.”
Try “evil.”
Compare their behavior:
with
or this great compilation of all the Joker — human & cartoon
Oh and try this experiment:
play the Joker compilation YouTube — just ABOVE — then scroll slightly up so the Moskowitz-family-w/poster photo fills the screen, with the audio of the former providing a soundtrack for the photo.
It’s truly the stuff of nightmares:
Hey, it’s a living. A very good living.
Yep, an $800,000-a-year salary living, at last count.
As Liberace one said, those five money-motivated lice are “laughing all the way to the bank.”
Again, view this photo with this accompanying soundtrack:
In case anyone still doubts it, the photograph of Moskowitz and her family making joking around during the protest is real. A friend of mine who was there called me after it happened to tell me about it. She was understandably shocked and appalled.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Think about the sequence:
1) Students with disabilities — and consequently already vulnerable through no fault of their own —are, as result, treated like sh#% while at Success Academy, as a means to …
2) Throw them out of Success Academy like so much trash;
3) Their parents attempt to stand up against this unconscionable, discriminatory, and illegal treatment via a protest (and later, a lawsuit);
4) The lead person responsible for this horrible treatment and her family members show up at the protest, and — compounding the damage already suffered bu the disabled kids and their parents — proceed to viciously ridicule and taunt them, laughing and acting like The Joker, rubbing their victims’ noses in it even more.
This is about as clear cut, black-‘n-white case of Good VS. Evil as one can imagine.
Please look at this tweet from Eva Moskowitz dated August 3, 2018 to understand exactly why Moskowitz does as she does (including having her family pose making fun of the parents whose kids she drums out):
“Thank you @jbelluck for your visit this week! It was a pleasure to speak and share @SuccessCharters’ teacher training with you.”
Isn’t that Andrew Cuomo donor and Cuomo’s appointed man to oversee Success Academy, Joseph Belluck? Remember, as long as Joseph Belluck is fine with Eva Moskowitz’ actions, nothing at all can be done unless parents of children sue in court. And the oversight agency that Joseph Belluck chairs — the SUNY Charter Institute — has not released any investigations into any Success Academy complaints. Belluck is delighted with 18% suspension rates for African-American and Latino 5 and 6 year old children if Eva tells him it was all the children’s fault. Belluck is delighted with a graduation class of 16 and doesn’t question why so many students would leave. Belluck is delighted when Moskowitz goes political and spends her time endorsing Betsy DeVos and demanding that DeVos be confirmed.
And worst of all, when Moskowitz demands that Belluck let her train her own teachers, Belluck says yes because they are doing such a great job! You’d think Belluck would wonder about the Success Academy trained teachers who claim that 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds in their school act out so violently that suspending them is the only way to deal with their violence, but instead Belluck hopes that more teachers can be trained by Moskowitz because apparently the fact that so many 5 year olds would supposedly act out violently is all on their own violent natures and the teachers are blameless.
I can’t help wondering whether Belluck would be so cavalier if it was white middle class kindergarten children being labeled as violent by Moskowitz.
But behind every person who will do and say anything to get what they want are enablers and the parents of special needs children drummed out of Success Academy have the SUNY Charter Institute to thank for it. It’s a shame the board of the SUNY Charter Institute can’t be sued for dereliction of duty.
But maybe in this lawsuit Joseph Belluck can be subpoenaed and forced to answer questions under oath. Can you imagine the cross examination: So when you saw the video of the model teacher demonstrating her model teaching training on an at-risk child, what did you do, Mr. Belluck? Did you bother to talk to the parent or the child being mistreated by one of Moskowitz’ model teachers that you want more of at the school? What did you do when you saw that in one school, 18% of the 5 and 6 year olds were given out of school suspensions? What did you do with the myriad of parent complaints?
Didn’t a judge rule that Eva’s parallel system of training and credentialing teachers was illegal?
Did that court ruling stop or change anything?
Yes, but I believe they are appealing that decision.
Belluck should be put under oath and I hope this lawsuit forces him to explain exactly how the SUNY Charter Institute knows that all the parents of special needs children are lying and justifies their refusal to ever investigate any of their complaints. I want Belluck to explain that he knows those parents are lying and only the woman who endorses Betsy DeVos must be believed. No need to bother with investigations as long as the SUNY Charter Institute trust the word of the woman who endorsed Betsy DeVos telling him that those special needs children are violent and deserve every punishment meted out by her highly trained teachers.
This photo speaks to what is wrong with charters. Their overseers are just as complicit as the CEOs — even more so. And they condone dishonesty the same way the Republican Congress condones the dishonesty of Trump.
The only way to change this is to vote them out — vote out Cuomo who appointed Belluck to do the bidding of billionaires who don’t care about special needs kids and make sure the SUNY Charter Institute doesn’t care either.
So while it’s on appeal, is Eva allowed to go ahead with her faux teacher credentialing program, or does she have to wait until and unless she prevails in her lawsuit?
Eva has an “over inflatedl” opinion of her herself. Everything I have read and heard about Eva, makes me take pause and wonder why she’s so bent on destroying public schools? I mean really dnestroying public schools and blaming public school teachers for the ills of a society is pure craziness and totally illogical, but it is mean and filled with vile. Does Eva want to remembered for her greed, her insatiable ego, and abusing the very students entrusted in her care? i doubt I.
For people like Eva, money and total power over others are their gods, and they will do be anything satisfy their egos. Problem is, once there, they go on to the next scam.
Thank you, Diane. Keep on. 🌺🌈
Those in the know – what consequences for SA can this lawsuit potentially have? Does it violate charter law? Would SUNY charter institute be involved?
(Sorry, I am not so good in Legalese)
It sounds like this:
http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2018/07/11/success-academy-files-lawsuit-against-bill-de-blasio-administration
may have been a preventative measure to dull the blow from this lawsuit