Arthur Goldstein, veteran teacher, writes here about the special privileges available to Eva.
Not only did she hire her son to teach AP economics while he is still in college, but last year he taught middle-school math.
Just goes to show: Wealth has its privileges. Or, to paraphrase the great Mel Brooks, “It’s good to be the Queen.”
Eva Moskowitz has made a career of telling the world how UFT teachers suck. We devote our lives to helping the city’s children and that’s an unpardonable crime. Only she has the secret sauce that leads to an amazing 20% of her students graduating over at the Moskowitz Academy. You might say, but Eva, we graduate that many on a very bad year. That doesn’t matter because there are no excuses over in Moskowitz World. I mean no excuses for us.
And we know that she’s right. Otherwise, why would hedge funders be taking suitcases of cash and buying off easy targets like Andrew Cuomo? Why would the last Democratic president have hired Arne Duncan to push charter schools and whatever programs flowed from the ample posterior of Bill Gates? Why would we all be bribed to Race to the Top and be judged via junk science? They must be right because they have all that money. Who cares if research fails to support their ideas, or if the American Statistical Association rates them as nonsense?
Now some people might say that the incredible churn of charter teachers is an issue. How can you have institutional memory when year after year you lose most of your people? How do kids feel coming year after year and seeing the teachers they may well love gone and never coming back? Is that how you do role modeling? None of that is important. Otherwise why would all those people with all that money keep supporting Eva?
Furthermore, Moskowitz Academies have high standards. No excuses. If you screw up, be prepared to suffer. Eva Moskowitz doesn’t pay herself almost a million dollars a year to put up with your nonsense. They hire only the best teachers charter pay and working conditions can provide. The fact that they can’t hold on to the overwhelming majority of them is only a testament to the selfishness of teachers. They aren’t focused on the test scores because they want to have lives. Some of them want to get married and even have children.
But in Moskowitz World, there are no excuses. Make the kids pass the tests. No excuses and no time for that nonsense. Except for Eva, of course, who is in fact married with children. I wasn’t actually aware she had children until I read Chalkbeat, the publication that covers All Things Moskowitz All the Time. It turns out that Eva has hired her 19-year-old son to teach economics.
A lot of people shook their heads in wonder when Eva and her BFFs wanted charters to certify their own teachers. I mean, shouldn’t teachers graduate from college? In Moskowitz World, that seems not to be a prerequisite. This is particularly true if you happen to be Son of Moskowitz. Here’s yet another innovation from Moskowitz World:
Michaud says Culver Moskowitz makes minimum wage, as he did last year as an intern at Success Academy Harlem East, a middle school. Santiago, Venner, and a former student said he taught eighth-grade math classes there last year.
Wow. Teachers making minimum wage. Betsy DeVos is probably rolling over in her coffin this morning wondering why she didn’t think of that. And then there’s that other tidbit–while reformy Chalkbeat is all over Moskowitz Junior teaching economics, this isn’t the first time they’ve set him up as a teacher. Maybe they think teaching math while being totally unqualified doesn’t merit mention, but teaching economics is beyond the pale.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you for the lovely ironic tone of this post. I find it shocking that New York, which has some of the highest educational demands on professional teachers including a Master’s Degree for permanent certification, would give this well connected lady the time of the day, let alone the keys to city. Her existence and the level at which the state caters to her whims are outrageous. New York is behaving like a “banana republic” not a representative democracy. The fact that the governor and SUNY are all bending to her will while they work to undermine a public institution is treachery of the worst kind. It is a slap in the face to legitimate professional teachers throughout the state.
So well said. I am remembering now how, as an upstate-NY kid in he ’60’s contemplating teaching, how proud I was that a NYS teaching certificate was reciprocated in CA– then the two top-of-the-mark standards. How far they both have fallen.
“New York is behaving like a banana republic.”
Would you expect something different with a monkey in charge?
“Republican Empire”
Banana Republic in
Empire State
Run by Republican
Demo, of late
Not to quibble, SDP, but perhaps better to compare our simian governor to a chimpanzee, which are known for their aggression and territoriality…
Chimpanzees are smart
I believe Andrew is related to the Rhee-sus monkey
“Bungle in the Jungle”
Cuomo beats his chest
Like Tarzan of the Jungle
Says he is “The Best”
Although he’s just a bungle
Cuomo grows banans
To give to all his flunkies
Has a lot of fans
Who really are just 🐒’s
Dang, didn’t work. Let me try again”
Dwayne: long time since I heard that one. It is getting humid in here.
“Public” schools as family businesses! Why not? We have TWO charter chains in Ohio where the owners employ close family members in the executive ranks.
No one does anything about it. Apparently it’s A-OK.
When are they going to realize that this is a niche, a distraction, not a real solution. You can’t drop more than half of your original cohort and call yourself a “success.” New York is supporting shameful colonialism, and harming public schools to pay for it.
The real story is the lack of oversight by the SUNY Charter Institute. Don’t forget that the chair of the board, Joseph Belluck, insisted that Eva Moskowitz should be given full power to train her own teachers — and Belluck is very angry that the NY State Regents dared to challenge the charter oversight board on this.
And Culver apparently taught last year, too, so this is with the full approval of Joseph Belluck who says anyone who Moskowitz says is fine is what he will accept without question.
Belluck and the SUNY Charter Institute should be investigated because this is not the first time, nor the 2nd time, nor the third time that they have done Moskowitz’ bidding and ignored myriad of parent complaints because they always take Moskowitz’ word as gold. No investigations needed. There is a lot of corruption in the board that needs to be brought to light by a real reporter’s investigation.
So true, & I am sick to death of the corrupt behavior of the SUNY Charter Institute, backed up by the NYS Bd of Regents, backed up by Gov Cuomo. They seem to delight in promoting the decline of a once-great state for education [when I was a NYS kid ’50’s-’70]. Very depresing,
If Moskowitz’s son is 19, and he taught Math at SA last year, he didn’t just not graduate from college yet, he probably only just started college and is an underclassman!
No matter. That’s precisely the kind of experience David Coleman had in education before he got high powered jobs working in education, such as at McKinsey, then assuming the role as architect of the developmentally inappropriate Common Core standards for all public school students in the nation, and now as prez of the College Board. He had no formal training or experience as an educator, just a short stint in a school, a mom who worked in education, and ultimately a degree from a top college, albeit not in education. This is also similar to former federal Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s background, education and experience. (i.e., lack of qualifications as an educator).
Getting top education jobs has been all about nepotism & cronyism in this country for awhile now. Prepare to see Moskowitz’s kid following in those footsteps and touting how he struggled through college making only minimum wage as a “teacher” (while supported by his non-educator mom’s million dollar salary as a charter school CEO.)
Columbia School of General Studies is not Columbia College. It is not selective.
The School of General Studies is selective, albeit not like Columbia College. But it is for non-traditional students. For students who have had at least one year break in their studies. So it would be unusual to have a “19 or 20” year old in the college as there would not be much time for him to take at least a year break, as apparently is a requirement. And that suggests that last year when he taught math, he would have had very little college. I presume Columbia would not have bent their rules to admit any student who did not have at least a year’s break in their education. But perhaps that is naive of me.
The average age at the Columbia School of General Studies is 26, and according to their website, “they usually have 8 to 10 more years of experience in life than traditional college students.” So having a student of traditional age is unusual for this non-traditional program.
Just to set the record straight: Coleman’s only teaching experience was as a reading tutor in inner-city New Haven schools while an undergraduate at Yale; he went on to study Eng Lit and Philosophy at Oxbridge and Cambridge. Almost immediately upon completing post-grad work, he partnered w/Jason Zimba & proceeded as a testing consultant.
P.S., his Eng Lit studies were in poetry, which led him to study The New Criticism – he seems to have missed the memo where New Criticism was debunked, & went on to make it the basis for CCSS-ELA which we are now stuck w/, 50 yrs after it passed into the ether.
Kind of reminds me of high-stakes VAM, a warmed-over version lf ’80’s MBO which was ditched soon after… Why does Ed keep ending up w/30-y.o. debunked ideology??
“Coleman’s only teaching experience was as a reading tutor in inner-city New Haven schools while an undergraduate at Yale…”
My point exactly. Coleman’s experience was very limited, but Arne Duncan’s experience was even more constrained. There are similarities though. Duncan attended his mom’s after-school program as a child and played basketball with the disadvantaged kids in the area. All of them had moms working in education, but very minimal work experience and no formal training in education themselves, yet that launched them on very high-paid careers which gave them a lot of power over education in this country.
Only genuine educators seem to have a problem with such people having unmerited leverage and control over our schools –and getting the big bucks for doing it.
The New Criticism is complete BS
Here’s why
“Close Painting ”
Though artist does his work “up close”
He must step back to see the most
For context is the reference frame
Which consecrates the work for fame
Does her son then inherit the family business?
Someone better look at some records. They may find out he owns a charter chain in 20 years.
Such an odd definition of “public” in reformland. It means “publicly funded”, apparently, and nothing more.
Under their definition, every defense contractor is “public”.
“Under their definition, every defense contractor is “public”.”
They, including Obama, typically use the euphemism “public-private partnerships” these days to describe privatization, so that it sounds benign. The primary problem with charters is the lack of regulations in most places, which let non-educator entrepreneurs run schools and get away with milking the system to their personal benefit.
In education, there is a much more effective model that has been out there for decades, in Early Childhood Education. Since Preschool is not compulsory and most children ages 0 – 5 who go to school attend private programs in state licensed child care centers, government funds have been going to those programs for years, such as to support kids who are at-risk, have special needs and who are from low income families. There haven’t been a lot of scandals there, so states like mine decided to situate Universal Preschool mostly in those locations, too, since public elementary schools aren’t already set up to meet the needs of younger kids the way that child care centers are.
It’s not perfect, but the main reason we haven’t seen huge problems is because there are so many regulations for private child care centers, as required by cities, states and the federal government, since those are our most vulnerable kids. (Thank G-d politicians in most areas recognized they warrant protections!) So the people who teach there must meet minimum qualifications and preschool owners can’t just throw unqualified friends and relatives into classrooms with kids. Even when preschools have multiple sites, I’ve never heard of issues around the self-dealing, double dipping and real-estate scams that charter chains have going on so often either, where they’ve figure out nefarious ways to set up management companies so they can pay their company to manage the program, pay themselves high salaries for administration, as well as pay rent at outrageous rates to themselves –all with free tax dollars.
But we are in an era of deregulation now, so unless there is a lot of public outrage, things are likely to continue, if not worsen, in the charter world and elsewhere. I will never understand why consumers fell for the Libertarian hoax that people running companies can be trusted to do the right thing and don’t need regulatory oversight.
I can confirm your assessment of PreK programs- at least, in central NJ– as a ‘special’ [for-lang enrichment] to a spectrum of PreK’s over 18 yrs, including private PreK’s, employee daycare centers, & commercial-chain PreK’s.
However, my caution: as State monies get involved [subsidizing poor kids], bureaucracy takes hold, & w/it, micromgt of curriculum. I have seen employee daycares prostitute themselves to get add’l enrollment from needy local kids [these were hospital-affiliated daycares suffering budget cuts]: recess & phys ed disappeared along w/sand-tables & toys, replaced w/age-inappropriate seat-time at reading & math circles [for 3-y,o,’s!]. And at commercial-chain daycares plumping enrollment with a state-subsidized-tuition kids: too much seat time, & age-inappropriate ‘worksheet’ product, connected willy-nilly to ‘achievement’ stats
Those are aspects of private child care programs that can be and are regulated by states and cities. This includes requiring that developmentally appropriate practices be implemented, having specific space requirements for children, providing lists of age-appropriate materials and furniture that classrooms must be stocked with, requiring that certain schedules and child-teacher ratios be maintained, requiring that specific activities be provided, including minimum requirements for how much indoor and outdoor play kids are engaged in each day, etc.
There is variability in the regulations across states, but the field of Early Childhood Education has provided a lot of guidance, including the National Association of the Education of Young Children which accredits child care centers. In my state, private child care centers for young children have to comply with many more state and city regulations than there are for programs that serve young children in public schools.
YES. “They, including Obama, typically use the euphemism “public-private partnerships” these days to describe privatization, so that it sounds benign.” Scamming the public by simply changing up the terminology.
Homeless Educator, thanks for all the good input. The stds & regs you mentioned are in evidence at every type of PreK I’ve encountered, clearly they’re taken seriously & probably audited regularly. Yet I see a stark difference in curriculum at schools w/ lower-income parents. At one of them I was there during the changeover, & it was connected to qualifying for Abbott-district funds. And timing [2010-11] suggests a trickle-down of NCLB/ CCSS approach into our PreK’s.
I can’t find justification at the state’s PreK stds site. For example, HighScope and Creative Curriculum are state-approved; both recommend play-based, student-initiated activity. All the PreK’s have the activity areas that support this, but at lower-income schools they’re pushed to the edges to make room for the long tables/ chairs where students spend a lot of time at teacher-directed, same-for-every-kid activities. Looks to me like state-micromanaged stds/ assessments.
Thanks, Bethree5!
Since NCLB & RttT, we have seen attempts to push down academic curriculum into Preschool, due to high-stakes testing and the fact that, unfortunately, the Common Core did precisely that to Kindergarten, where it’s now expected that children will read “with purpose and understanding.” In most instances, that can be prevented for children in licensed child care centers, due to state regs, all of which are located here: https://childcareta.acf.hhs.gov/licensing
However, I looked at the NJ regs and though generally they look pretty good, I see a loophole that could be exploited. Although it says the following, I think that some people would take the portion of that last line (which I placed in bold) and run with it, by imposing rigid teacher-directed academic instruction while claiming that kids were given choices and didn’t have to participate:
“SUBCHAPTER 6. PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
3A:52-6.1 Activities
(a) The center shall develop and provide a variety of children’s planned activities, geared to the ages and developmental levels of the children served, that:
1. Promote the development of language, thinking and problem-solving skills, curiosity, exploration, large and small muscles, coordination and movement skills, social competence, self-esteem, and positive self-identity; and
2. Are relevant to the cultural background of the children and foster intercultural awareness.
(b) The staff member(s) specified in N.J.A.C. 3A:52-4.5 who are responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of the center’s daily activities shall ensure that:
1. Time frames for each activity are geared to the age and developmental level of each child served and are flexible enough to accommodate spontaneous occurrences or children’s suggestions and inquiries;
2. Children have opportunities to choose materials freely and materials are accessible at all times except during lunch and nap time;
3. Children are presented with and encouraged to participate in a mixture of active and quiet experiences;
4. Both staff-directed and child-selected activities are provided;
5. Children are:
i. Encouraged, but not required, to participate in every group activity; and
ii. Provided with the time and space within the area to be apart from the group and to participate in an alternate activity if they choose to do so;
6. Children are provided with daily structured and unstructured developmentally appropriate indoor and outdoor energetic physical activity as follows:
i. At least 30 total minutes daily for children receiving child care less than four hours;
ii. At least 60 total minutes daily for children receiving child care more than four hours; and
iii. Whenever feasible, and unless the child is eating, sleeping, needs to complete a seated activity, or is ill, children shall not be inactive for more than 30 minutes“
Why is anyone surprised?
The rich and infamous don’t “think” they are above the law or rules do not apply to them – it’s not even on their radar and just do it.
All they know is doing what they want, when they want, however they want with zero thought that it might not be the world works or how it affects anyone else.
There is no “means to an end” in their bubble, it’s all ends. Theirs.
Chauncey Gardnier is in the White House
Green Acres Eva Gabor in the Department of Education
Atlas Shrugged
November, folks, November!
I just finished “wretching.”
If she wants to prove her son is qualified to teach AP Economics, sit him down and give him the AP Eco test. After all test scores are everything in Eva’s world. If he achieves a score of 5 I will retract the comment
He is not a college graduate. He is not certified to teach in New York State, which has high standards for new teachers.
What is a standard but a bunch of hot air if not “enforced”?
Standards…
A “discourse
that defends appropriation and privilege, and the structures of inequity in which they
flourish.”
Unfortunately, you can get a 5 on many AP tests without having a good grasp of the material.
That’s one of the primary reasons that many colleges no longer give college course credit even for a score of 5.
Great idea.
I mean it’s a great idea to give him that AP test. After that we’ll give him every test every teacher has to take. And if he passes, he can go to school for four years like every real teacher did and get his initial certificate.
Arthur Goldstein was channeling Peter Greene on this one. Bravo! Side splitting! Evil Eva deserves only the most poisoned pens, the most pointed sarcasm.
Which law allows non-credentialed persons to teach in New York charter schools. It all sounds so surreal.
I know that they have been pushing for creating their own “credential” process, but is this kind of thing rampant? California “public” schools must have credentialed instructors with bachelors degrees, albeit their credentials may be of the emergency or intern types.
Just look at Eva Moskowitz’ twitter account where she posted a photo with Joseph Belluck, chair of the SUNY Charter Institute:
@MoskowitzEva
Thank you @jbelluck for your visit this week! It was a pleasure to speak and share @SuccessCharters’ teacher training with you.
10:22 AM – 3 Aug 2018
I wonder if they discussed how well trained her son Culver Moskowitz was and how they can recruit other 20 year olds to teach when their overworked teachers quit.
^^And any enterprising education reporter who gets Belluck on the record as to why the SUNY Charter Institute never investigates any of the myriad of complaints from parents should use this photo of Belluck doing all the oversight he will ever do.
Remarkable what she gets away with. Thank you for the shout out!
I knew that Eva had kids from the infamous incident of when the whole family taunted protestors.
Apparently, parents and children of special ed. kids who’d been unfairly kicked out or pressured into leaving Success Academy were protesting, so the the whole Moskowitz clan picked up one of the posters and started mocking them, cackling maniacally like The Joker or The Riddler. Photos were taken such as this: (the tallest one with the black hair and navy blue hoodie appears to be the wunderkind educator Culver)
Here’s my comment about this photo:
“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:
Look at it again with this Joker laughs montage as the soundtrack:
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!”
“Yeah,” chimes in hubby Eric, “I JUST LOVE making special ed kids and their parents cry.”
Eva concurs, “Me too! Well, we’re never gonna know if we CAN actually make that bunch o wussies cry if we don’t try. Put on your coats and let’s get to it!”
Then they all run outside:
Look at the picture, and the words on it: (from this article)
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/08/federal-court-rules-lawsuit-vs-success.html
POSTER CAPTION:
”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!
As one commenter elsewhere put it, the Moskowitz clan come off like the soldier torturers of Abu Ghraib. Here’s a couple photos to remind you of that sh%#-show:
It’s similar in the sense that in both instances, the perpetrators think that they did nothing wrong, and, even if they did, feel beyond the reach of punishment by any ruling authority.
It’s almost as if, by holding the poster up, then acting this way for photographers, Eva & family are saying back:
“Yeah, we DO abuse and kick out special ed. kids. 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 SUNY’s Joe Belluck, 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 who are suing Eva & Co., 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 the jury to peruse 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’s the original article:
https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2018/08/federal-court-rules-lawsuit-vs-success.html