Here is a surprising combination. State officials today announced that Eva Moskowitz and her charter chain were guilty of violating the state privacy law regarding a student with special needs.
Tomorrow, Eva will participate in a panel about meeting the social and emotional needs of students.
Today:
On Thu, May 14, 2020, 10:41 AM Leonie Haimson wrote:
For immediate release: May 14, 2020
More information: Fatima Geidi, fatimageidi@gmail.com (646) 281-0449
Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329
Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy found guilty of violating NY State student privacy Law
The Chief Privacy Officer of the NY State Education Department issued a ruling on Tuesday May 12 that Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy had violated Education Law 2d, the state student privacy law, that prohibits the disclosure of personal student information without parental consent except under specific conditions required to provide a student’s education.
In 2015 and thereafter, Success Academy officials published exaggerated details from the education records of Fatima Geidi’s son when he was attending Upper West Success Academy, and shared them with reporters nationwide. They did this under Eva Moskowitz’ direction to retaliate against Ms. Geidi and her son, when they were interviewed on the PBS News Hour in 2015, about his repeated suspensions and the abusive treatment he suffered at the hands of school staff from first through third grade.
Ms. Geidi filed a student privacy complaint to the State Education Department in June of last year. In response to her complaint, Success Academy attorneys made a number of claims, including that the statute of limitations had lapsed, that charter schools were not subject to Education Law 2D, and that school officials have a First Amendment right to speak out about her child’s behavior. All those claims were dismissed in the decision released yesterday by the NYSED Chief Privacy Officer, Temitope Akinyemi.
The State Education Department has now ordered Success Academy to take a number of affirmative steps, including that administrators, staff and teachers must receive annual training in data privacy, security and the federal and state laws on student privacy, that they must develop a data privacy and security policy to be submitted to the State Education Department no later than July 1, 2020, and that after that policy is approved, it must be posted on the charter school’s website and notice be provided to all officers and employees.
As Fatima Geidi said, “I am happy that my son’s rights to privacy and hopefully all students at Success Academy from now on will be protected, and that Eva Moskowitz will be forced to stop using threats of disclosure as a weapon against any parent who dares speak out about the ways in which their children have been abused by her schools. However, I am disappointed that the Chief Privacy Officer did not order Ms. Moskowitz to take out the section of her memoirs, The Education of Eva Moskowitz, that allegedly describes the behavior of my son. I plan to ask my attorney to send a letter to Harper Collins, the book’s publishers, demanding that they delete that section of the book both because it contains lies and has now been found to violate both state and federal privacy law. If they refuse, we will then go to the Attorney General’s office for relief.”
Last year, the US Department of Education also found Ms. Moskowitz and Success Academy guilty of violating FERPA, the federal student privacy law. The official FERPA findings letter to Ms. Moskowitz is here. Yet Ms. Moskowitz launched an appeal of that ruling on similar First Amendment grounds, with the help of Jay Lefkowitz of Kirkland and Ellis to represent her in the appeal. Lefkowitz is the same attorney who negotiated a reduced sentence for Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious child sex abuser, in a controversial plea deal in Palm Beach County in 2007. Though Ms. Geidi has repeatedly asked the U.S. Department of Education about the outcome of this appeal, she has heard nothing in response.
As Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, pointed out: “Fatima’s son is not the only child whose privacy has been violated by Success Academy. Last year, Success shared details from the private education files of Lisa Vasquez’ daughter with reporters from Chalkbeat without her consent, after Ms. Vasquez spoke about how her daughter had been unfairly treated at Success Academy Prospect Heights. The SUNY Charter Institute also noted unspecified violations of FERPA by SAC Cobble Hill, SAC Crown Heights, SAC Fort Greene, SAC Harlem 2, and SAC Harlem 5 during site visits, noted in their Renewal reports. The time for Eva Moskowitz to comply with the law and stop violating the privacy of innocent children whose parents dare to reveal her schools’ cruel policies has long passed.”
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As for tomorrow’s panel, here it is:
WEBINAR Tomorrow! Social & emotional supports for students during Covid19
With the coronavirus outbreak disrupting nearly every aspect of our work and learning, educators nationwide have been scrambling to provide remote instruction to their students. But what are they and their schools doing to provide children with social and emotional supports during this tough time? And how do their strategies compare across the private, charter, and traditional public school sectors?
In partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), we will hold a moderated conversation with three outstanding school leaders, all of whom are working hard to attend to their pupils’ (and staff’s) social and emotional needs, while keeping academics moving forward.
Featured Speakers
Michael J. Petrilli, President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (moderator)
Juan Cabrera, Superintendent, El Paso ISD, Texas
Eva Moskowitz, CEO, Success Academy Schools
Kathleen Porter-Magee, Superintendent, Partnership for Inner-City Education
Schedule
1:00 p.m.: Introduction to CASEL CARES
1:05 p.m.: Introductory remarks by Michael Petrilli
1:10 p.m.: Moderator Q & A (45 minutes)*
1:55 p.m.: Closing remarks Michael Petrilli and sign off by CASEL
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What took so long?
This happened in December 2015, and the mother filed a complaint in January 2016.
And then she had to wait for four years and four months for authorities to respond to smoking gun evidence?
The wheels of justice grind slowly, too slowly, but at least the Ed Dept came to the correct conclusion. The so-called “punishment” is a joke!
Sent from my iPhone
>
Thank you.
It is the fact that this parent and child dared to cooperate with your reporting of the outrageously high suspension rates at Success Academy that led to the punishment Moskowitz meted out to them — publicly labeling a 6 year old child as a violent monster. It wasn’t enough for Moskowitz to get her billionaire funders to pressure PBS to go after you — she had to also destroy a young child.
Moskowitz could not do this to children if she wasn’t certain that the SUNY Charter Institute would always look the other way. Moskowitz could not do this to children if she wasn’t certain that lazy education journalists would not do what you (and Gary Rubinstein) did and actually look at the facts and figures.
The late PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler hurt his otherwise admirable legacy by looking for ways to discredit you instead of recognizing that he was helping give credibility and legitimacy to a woman who had released the private records of a young child to punish him for challenging the false narrative Moskowitz wanted the press to present. I wonder if he ever came to realize how wrong he was.
If anything, your reporting bent over backward to be fair to Success Academy (perhaps even too much so). But you challenged her false narrative and that made you her enemy.
And this child challenged her false narrative and that made him her enemy. And apparently Moskowitz only hires people who agree with her that it’s okay to go after anyone she believes is her enemy, regardless of their age.
The cruel arrogance of Moskowitz is stunning. She went to extreme lengths to punish a child with disabilities whom she & her so called school failed to educate. Apparently, IDEA rights & protections don’t apply to her. It seems clear that her edu-empire is not about educating children, it’s about building the power to crush anyone or any entity that challenges Success Academy’s rank incompetence.
That “panel of experts” on social emotional well-being has doubtless ruined the welll-being of many more children with their bad ideas on educating children.
How odd to have the “experts in education” announcement trailing this post. The roster of “deformers” is conspicuous for having bad ideas about education but the money to worm their way into any discussion.
The privacy issues are multiplying with on-line instruction. Districts think they are avoiding problems, or off loading these, if they provide a blanket waiver to the contractors they use for devices and software. I know that the ZOOM app has led to teachers sharing photos of students holding artwork or other projects under the chin,or showing their work at a table and with the student’s name in plain view. Perverts love these transgressions of privacy.
“….Success Academy officials published EXAGGERATED details from the education records of Fatima Geidi’s son….”
Exaggerated? Can you imagine the mindset of Eva Moskowitz and the people who work for her who jump to do her bidding and never questioned why their great leader would try to intentionally smear publicly a young child and attempt to ruin his life?
What did this poor child do to warrant Eva Moskowitz deciding to destroy him publicly?
He told the truth, and so did his mom.
But since the truth did not make Eva Moskowitz look good, that meant she would do anything she could to destroy him.
Why wouldn’t Eva Moskowitz EXAGGERATE what a child does so that the education reporters will print it and make the child look like the rest of the violent hellions that Eva Moskowitz’ and her minions keep implying disproportionately win lottery seats in her charters on the very rare occasion that a real journalist challenges her high suspension rates of Kindergarten and first graders? She knows that the education reporters in NYC won’t ask any inconvenient questions she doesn’t want them to ask.
Why wouldn’t Eva Moskowitz EXAGGERATE to smear a young child when she knows that so many education reporters in NYC would happily write an article that highlighted all the Success Academy claims about how violent and dangerous he was if that is what the Success Academy officials tell them? Education reporters in NYC seem to believe that it is fine to report on whatever a charter tells them — even if it is about a child’s violent nature — because they believe that including a short disclaimer like “the child’s mother disagrees” (or “union officials who hate charters disagree”) means that they were fair and balanced.
Eva Moskowitz is like Donald Trump. Like Trump, she absolutely believes that anyone who points out her dishonesty is fair game for her to destroy — even a child. And like Trump, she surrounds herself with people who will do her bidding, and the ones with an ounce of integrity or ethics walk away from Success Academy and are replaced by those who have none.
And like Trump, she knows that she can do whatever she wants and the SUNY Charter Institute — like the Republican Senate – will make up an excuse for why what she did was okay. At most, the SUNY Charter Institute will be like Susan Collins, remaining silent and if what Moskowitz does ends up getting publicized, they will “tut tut” while making sure that Moskowitz is empowered to continue to do whatever she wants.
This is a wrist slap that is better than nothing, which makes it astonishing because “nothing” is what is usually done.
Can this parent sue Success Academy for the damages Eva Moskowitz caused when she ignored privacy law and EXAGGERATED an anxious young child’s behavior in order to get the public to view that child as a monster?
Why would a grown woman who already had so much power demand that her “we’ll do anything you ask” staff publicly mischaracterize that child as a violent monster?
Because apparently, in order to work at Success Academy, you have to believe that anything that is good for Eva Moskowitz is fine.
There are some right thinking people who walk away from Success Academy, even if they once were true believers. Just like there are some right thinking conservatives who walk away from Trump. They may agree with the principle of having charter schools, or the principles of low-taxes on the rich, but they cannot look the other way when someone without any sense of what is right and what is wrong is empowered with no limits.
The people who are left are those who share the values of Eva Moskowitz and Trump that might makes right.
People like Robert Pondiscio and Michael Petrilli and Elizabeth Green at Chalkbeat are like Susan Collins. Like Susan Collins, those Moskowitz enablers might “tut tut” at something (while minimizing it as an anomaly) while they continue to push the false narrative that legitimizes, enables and empowers Eva Moskowitz to do this again and again. And like Susan Collins, next time it happens Pondiscio and Petrilli and Elizabeth Green will tut tut while they continue to act to empower her.
Will NY Post reporter Susan Edelman ever do a real expose of Success Academy using the easily obtainable facts and figures at the NY State data website that Gary Rubinstein pointed out on his blog? Will Eliza Shapiro? Will Elizabeth Green? Will they ever ask the SUNY Charter Institute how it is that they have done nothing to stop this? Don’t hold your breath.
Moskowitz is confident those reporters won’t ever challenge her. At best, they will use the “both siderism” that is the hallmark of cowardly journalists terrified of incurring the wrath of the right wing. “Both siderism” journalism is always about reporting all the misleading and dishonest propaganda Success Academy (and other charters) offer up to them in great detail, and then including a disclaimer that the mother of the child whose violent nature the newspaper has presented as fact disagrees that he is violent. Or a disclaimer that a partisan pro-union charter hater disagrees. Fair and balanced. Not.
Success Academy just graduated 98 students from a class that had over 140 students the previous year. And not one education reporter asked a question about what happened to those missing kids? Eva Moskowitz knows that questions she finds inconvenient to answer won’t ever be asked. And during the once a decade time that they are — as John Merrow did — she demonstrates how she will punish any child or parent who speaks out.
“Can this parent sue Success Academy for the damages Eva Moskowitz caused when she ignored privacy law and EXAGGERATED an anxious young child’s behavior in order to get the public to view that child as a monster?”
Here is some case law:
https://www.wrightslaw.com/info/damag.index.htm
Was Eva required to pay Fatima’s son’s attorney fees? Under IDEA, if the school looses a due process hearing and/or legal challenge, the school must pay for all of the parent’s attorney fees.
Given the extreme incompetence of Success, they could be sued out of existence.
By the way. Ohio loses again.
In an astonishing set of moves intended to prevent school boards and communities from jointly helping troubled schools, Ohio Senators transformed a 10-page bill from the House (HB70), into a 77 page “amended bill that called for the installation of unelected CEOs imbued with complete operational, managerial, and instructional control of school districts” and more. The Senate did this overnight. After several appeals, this case reached the state of Ohio Supreme Court with the verdict announced May 13, 2020.
This case centered on the plight of Youngstown City Schools. It was initiated by the Youngstown school board. Youngstown was in the process of addressing issues in the troubled district. Action was mandated by law for any district with a three-year history of receiving a grade of F on Ohio’s absurd report cards.
The Senate ignored legislative rules that required “three readings in every bill by each house on three different days,” including amended bills. The Senate also ignored Ohio laws provide that a city school district has the power “by referendum vote to determine for itself the number of members and the organization of the district board of education.”
This case has been through the courts, with multiple appeals by the Youngstown School Board, all of these ending in a Supreme Court ruling against the school board and in favor the radically changed bill pushed through the Senate overnight. In the opinion of Ohio’s Supreme Court, the 77-page version is perfectly legal The final bill requires:
–the state superintendent of public instruction to establish a five-member academic-distress commission (three members appointed by the state superintendent, one district teacher appointed by the president of the school board, and one member appointed by the mayor of the school district’s area).
–the appointed commission to appoint a chief executive officer (“CEO”), to be paid by the state and to serve “at the pleasure of the commission.”
–the CEO to exercise complete and unfettered operational, managerial, and instructional control over the district, including freedom to
—–replace school staff,
—–contract with a nonprofit or for-profit entity to manage and staff the school,
—–change the focus of the school’s curriculum,
—–reopen negotiations for existing collective-bargaining contracts,
—–permanently close a school,
—–convert public schools to charter schools
—–dissolve the district if no students remain in the district.
The Senators who amended H.B.70 also… bootlegged these provisions. The bill
–increased voucher eligibility to charter schools for any family regardless of income, and
–incentivized voucher payments to schools outside the district.
You can read the whole ruling and some of the testimony at the link below, including the dissent from one judge who is critical of the lead judge’s opinion and the conduct of Ohio’s General Assembly (page 29). This dissent refers to “the perfunctory and sanitized rendition of the facts outlined in the lead opinion,” and ”the General Assembly’s failure to follow the dictates of the Ohio Constitution.“
Ohio will be stuck with this rotten ram-rodded ruling until all of the bums who voted for this sham are thrown out of office.
https://law.justia.com/cases/ohio/supreme-court-of-ohio/2020/2018-1131.html
The deep corruption of so many state legislatures is appalling. People need to understand that complicit politicians should be shown the door. We need to create state “got to go” lists for politicians.
How many states have been taken over by the corrupt, autocratic Kleptoracy Party that still goes by the name Republican? I think Florida is gone, too, but there are probably others.
States that are controlled by the GOP’s Kleptocracy Party are using legislation to get rid of democratic institutions at the local level.
The Wisconsin court decision yesterday was appalling, ruling that the Governor can’t make emergency public health decrees. Too “dictatorial.” Scott Walker appointed a majority of the judges.
exposing the GOP game plan across the nation
Public school systems of black & brown communities are simply troubled assets, ripe for being bought up by hedge funders and banksters.
This will stop Eva, just like nothing stops Trumpty Dumpty and Betsy the Brutal, from doing what they want as they continue to trample and shred the U.S. Constitution.
All Eva will do is maybe pay a paltry fine every time she gets caught again and again and again. Her annual reward bonus will more than makeup for the fines.
Power breeds corrupted arrogance.
“This will not” stop Eva is what I wrote and the auto spell check thing deleted the “not”. I saw the not as I typed it but not the auto correction that got rid of it.
There is one important aspect of this violation of a student’s privacy that is very important that does not seem to be talked about.
Sometimes a school or a teacher inadvertently violates a student’s privacy for an innocuous or even a good reason.
But this violation of a student’s privacy committed by Success Academy was not an accidental violation made because someone wanted to help the student and wasn’t careful of the rules.
This violation was made entirely for the benefit of Eva Moskowitz for the sole purpose of publicly discrediting a young child who, along with his mother, spoke absolutely truthfully about something Eva Moskowitz thought made her look bad.
There is something truly off about the Chief Privacy Officer recommending “education” as if every single person who was involved in violating this child’s privacy just had no idea that publicizing exaggerated details to completely smear a young child for the sole purpose of discrediting the young child and his mother has anything to do with them not understanding what they did was a violation of the FERPA law.
But it does tell you a lot about Success Academy that their defense seems to be that no one at the network in any position of responsibility had any idea that publicly releasing exaggerated details to smear a six year old child so that reporters would believe that child was a violent monster might be wrong! Regardless if it was “legal”!
The Chief Privacy Officer demonstrates very questionable judgment to think that posting rules about privacy or attending a training session would be helpful for all the adult men and women at Success Academy who – the Success Academy attorney seems to be saying — had no idea that there was anything morally or ethically wrong with publicly destroying a 6 year old child when Eva Moskowitz ordered them to do so.
It’s one thing to accidentally break a privacy law. It is an entirely different thing to help Eva Moskowitz when she wants to punish a 6 year old child by giving the media exaggerated details that portray the child as a violent monster.
It should not matter whether this child’s privacy was legally violated or not. What matters is that not a single educator or administrator at Success Academy thought there was anything ethically or morally wrong with publicly destroying the reputation of a 6 year old child if Eva Moskowitz told them to do so. And they continue to believe there is nothing ethically and morally wrong with destroying a child’s reputation publicly if they are ordered to do so by Eva Moskowitz. But now they will be “trained” to avoid doing what Eva Moskowitz asks if it violates FERPA laws. If it just violates all sense of ethical and moral behavior, then apparently, the Success Academy employees should simply snap to it as they have always done.
We can all rest easy knowing that the Success Academy employees who previously had no ethical or moral qualms with publicly destroying a young child’s reputation if asked to do it will now be trained to know that if it is also not legal, then they shouldn’t do it.
If it is just morally and ethically reprehensible but doesn’t violate FERPA (or other) laws, those employees may continue to follow Eva Moskowitz orders without question.
The shocking thing is not that all of those Success Academy employees who helped Eva Moskowitz destroy that child didn’t realize that what they were doing was a FERPA violation.
The shocking thing is that all of those Success Academy employees who helped Eva Moskowitz publicly destroy that child’s reputation didn’t think it was wrong!!!
And no amount of training or posting of FERPA rules is going to change their ethical and moral cores.
The Success Academy employees who have moral and ethical cores walk away, like the assistant teacher who actually questioned a “model” teacher’s horrific behavior toward a struggling economically-disadvantaged child instead of doing what apparently every “good” Success Academy employee does and agree that if Eva Moskowitz says it’s fine, it must be fine.
No amount of posting what is “legal” can turn Success Academy employees who believed it was perfectly fine to destroy a young child’s reputation into moral and ethical people.
If those Success Academy employees were moral and ethical people to begin with, they would not need a FERPA law to know that it is MORALLY wrong to help Eva Moskowitz convince the public that a 6 year old child is a violent monster just because Eva Moskowitz wanted to discredit him and his mother for daring to criticize her charter.
I hope more of them walk away.
Reimagine there’s no Eva
It’s easy if you try
No plot to subdue us
No need to make kids cry
Reimagine all the pupils living for today
Ah
Reimagine there’s no charters
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to make mouth bubbles for
And no demerits too
Reimagine all the pupils living life in peace
You
You may say I’m just a teacher
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day Gates joins us
And the schools will be as one
Reimagine no test obsession
I wonder if you can
A need for rich school culture
No harmful scores or VAM
Reimagine all the pupils sharing public schools
You
You may say I’m just a teacher
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day Gates joins us
And the schools will be as one
Beautiful, LeftCoast!!!! Bravo!!!
This was a long time coming for this family and what this woman (Eva) has done is appalling. She appears to like so many with privilege: think she’s above the law. These are children with rights to privacy; she published this information as retaliation against Miss Geidi for giving a voice to her son who didn’t have one. How cruel and what about the child? Does race come into play at all?
Why hasn’t this section of the memoir been removed? She doesn’t need a mandate to remove it; perhaps this sheds light about the woman. The system is so broken especially for black and brown children! It will be interesting to see what happens moving forward.
Personally, she should file a lawsuit against Eva and Success Academy as this will follow her son who didn’t receive the proper education, support or care. He was innocent and his rights violated. I stand with you Miss Geidi – Justice for your son (J.G.)!
If Michael Petrilli is a “school leader,” then I am the Easter Bunny. That’s because, as Jon Awbry can explain to you, in traditional logic, ANY conclusion follows from a false premise (ex falso sequitur quodlibet). This is known as the principle of explosion.
A school leader is someone who leads a school. Petrilli leads the Fordham Institute for the Securing of Big Paychecks, from Deformy Oligarchs, for Officers of the Fordham Institute.
Mr. Petrilli’s bio on the Fordham website used to describe him as a “thought leader.” But when that bit of fashionable jargon went the way of “envisioneer,” when it became obvious to most that leading thoughts around was a silly (or positively frightening, as in propagandistic) notion, the epithet was changed to “award-winning writer.”
What do award-winning Deformer/Distrupter thought leaders have in common with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons? You know, don’t you?
All of which reminds me of Trump wanting to be awarded the “Noble Prize.” Btw, I am the winner of the Genius Award of the Flor-uh-duh Academy of Fine Arts, which I founded about half a second ago (another feather in my cap). That’s what Deformers do. They start organizations and give one another awards and titles and certificates. Oh, btw, I also have a Doctorate in School Leadership, summa cum laude, from Bob Shepherd’s Real Good Flor-uh-duh University, signed by Bob’s girlfriend, Doreen. If Trump and Broad can do it. . . .
I do wish that WordPress, like other social media sites, allowed one to revise to correct typos in comments. Alas.
Petrilli is clearly a bright (and humorous) fellow, but there is nothing bright or humorous about the causes he defends–VAM, school grading, standardized tests, charter schools, vouchers, depersonalized education software, Orwellian student databases–the whole Deformy/Disruptive package. Weirdly enough, Petrilli is a defender BOTH of Hirsch’s notion of the primacy of knowledge in education AND of the almost entirely content-free bullet list of vague, abstract, backward skills list known as the Common [sic] Core [sic]. So, he’s deeply confused. And he’s paid to be.
He’s the sort whom one hopes will have a Saul on the Road to Damascus, Come to Jesus moment and come over to the Resistance.
Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Petrilli is more than one person. Most of us are more than one person. Petrilli plays more than one role. What role, depends on his audience.
Whoever Shakespeare was, he/she knew.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
Petrilli – and many who make a very nice living in the ed reform industry – remind me of Sen. Susan Collins.
Maine voters are starting to realize that Susan Collins may profess not to support the most reprehensible actions of Trump that directly cause horrible harm to the public, but that talk is completely meaningless when every vote she takes is in service to empowering and enabling Trump to do whatever he wants to do.
I think Petrilli will “Come to Jesus” when Susan Collins votes against anything when Trump needs her vote to enable and empower him.
SNL did a spot on portrayal of Collins: “I’ll be the first to admit that some of the things that President Trump does cause me to shake my head vigorously and wag my finger once, or perhaps twice…”
“I’d have to write a strongly worded e-mail and send it straight to my draft folder…”
“I have been vocal champion of women’s rights for over 30 years, and that is the most outrageous and ridiculous thing that I’d definitely end up voting for.”
Is Susan Collins “deeply confused” or just unwilling to stand up for anything that the people whose largesse she depends on don’t want her to stand up for?
Bob, I suspect that if all the right wing billionaires funding the Thomas Fordham Institute suddenly decided that VAM, vouchers, charters, standardized testing, and Common Core was bad, that Petrilli would have his “Come to Jesus” moment. What are the chances that Petrilli’s belief in fighting for those things are so strong that if the entire billionaire establishment took funding away from any think tank that professed those views, an unemployed Petrilli whose writings every education reform newspaper ignored would sit at home and keep writing in his personal blog about how those ideas are still perfect?
“Michael J. Petrilli, President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (moderator)
Juan Cabrera, Superintendent, El Paso ISD, Texas
Eva Moskowitz, CEO, Success Academy Schools
Kathleen Porter-Magee, Superintendent, Partnership for Inner-City Education”
Three charter/voucher cheerleaders and an “agnostic” – see what’s missing? A public school advocate/supporter. All ed reform panels are composed the same way.
You have to be a believer to get invited.
It’s been consistent throughout the pandemic crisis, too. Public schools are approached solely as to their deficiencies and charter and private schools are approached and analyzed solely from successes and benefits.
I don’t even think they see the bias. There’s just a working assumption public schools and students don’t need and shouldn’t have actual advocates, although advocacy for charter schools and vouchers is not only the norm, it’s encouraged and most of the ed reform orgs exist to promote charters and vouchers.
This is the working assumption of every ed reform panel:
Public schools are the problem and charters and vouchers are the solution.
If you’re a public school parent or supporter you shouldn’t accept this assumption or hire people who hold it.
Moskowitz wouldn’t hire an administrator who was ideologically opposed to the existence of charter schools and public school supporters shouldn’t have to either.
You’re permitted to have actual advocates. People who are enthusiastic and committed to your public school. That’s allowed. Charters and vouchers do it, hence the 500 ed reform orgs that promote charters and vouchers.
This is what advocacy for the charter sector looks like:
“U.S. Department of Education
@usedgov
·May 12
It’s National #CharterSchoolsWeek! DYK? There are currently more than 7,400 public charter schools across the country. They serve more than 3 million students and their families!”
Public school parents and supporters are entitled to hire people who will do the same advocacy for public schools and public school students. You are permitted to support your schools, in the same ways and with the same passion ed reformers promote the schools they prefer- charters and private schools.
“We are facing a challenging and uncertain future,” said Chiefs for Change Board Chair and San Antonio Independent School District Superintendent Pedro Martinez. “The coronavirus has significantly impacted our students and staff, and we are planning for the possibility of rolling school closures and massive budget cuts. Ultimately, we as superintendents will need to work with our local communities to determine what is best for our schools. This report is a valuable resource that can help us develop strategies to protect students’ health, meet their wide-ranging academic and emotional needs, and emerge from this crisis stronger than before.”
Welp, ed reform has already given up on any advocacy on budget cuts. They’ve already thrown the towel in and are meekly accepting “massive budget cuts” because of course the first thing that should always be gutted in any emergency is funding for public schools.
Compare this passivity to their ferocious lobbying when they’re working for an increase in voucher funding for private schools.
Public schools are gonna get killed in these budget fights, just like they did in 2009-10, because “agnostics” make lousy advocates.