Gary Rubinstein, a math teacher at Stuyvesant High School, has no patience for overblown claims. For a few years, he maintained a website devoted to debunking the spurious claims of “miracle schools,” such as those that claimed 100% graduation rates of their seniors but neglected to admit the high attrition that occurred before senior year.
He inevitably had to review the chain called Eagle Academy, which was founded by David Banks, who is Mayor-elect Eric Adams’ choice to be Chancellor of the New York City public schools. The Eagle Academy has six schools, one in each of the city’s five boroughs, and one in Newark.
Gary reviewed public records for the data, and he wondered why none of the city’s media had done what he did.
He writes:
Before Eric Adams was the next mayor of New York City, he was the borough president of Brooklyn. In that capacity, he worked with David Banks to create ‘The Brooklyn Nine’ where Banks would share some of the best practices from Eagle Academy to improve nine schools in Brooklyn. There is a short documentary about Eagle Academy on HBO currently called ‘The Infamous Future’ , similar to Waiting For Superman, made a few years ago in which Eric Adams says that the practices of Eagle Academy should be used in more schools so that they become ‘The Brooklyn 90’ and then ‘The Brooklyn 900′ and eventually the entire school system can replicate the success of Banks’ Eagle Academies. So this gives us some idea of what to expect in the next 4 or 8 years with Adams as Mayor and Banks as Chancellor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Isn’t this one big huge conflict of interest? David Banks is the proprietor of a private school chain and obviously seems to have a bias against the actual real public schools. Are the teachers at the Eagle Academy schools unionized? How nice, call your schools academies, bad-a-bing, presto-change-o, sounds so much classier. It’s Mike Bloomberg redux and maybe worse, time will tell.
and Bloomberg himself still out there offering up big “philanthropic” money to keep the charter game in play
Let’s be fair, the Eagle Academies are unionized public schools, grades 6–12, and yes the grades 6-8 kids struggle, the school are on “the list,” the entering classes are far below grade level, the kids do improve and the high school graduation rates exceed neighboring schools, no miracles, the schools work closely with a not-for/profit enabling the schools track students and personalize instruction. Banks has always had a good relationship with the teacher union, his Deputy Chancellor has no education experience, ran a (de) former think tank, The New Teacher Project (TNTP),
I wish the new chancellor well, a monumental task, NYC has a very progressive City Council as well as State representatives, the number of charter schools are capped by law,
If he is successful maybe he can be our envoy to the Palestinian/Israel dispute
Thank you for the additional information.
Eagle Academies is evidence that it is possible to have public school “choice” without charters. There are other schools – like the Brooklyn New School, the Children’s School, Central Park East – which have traditionally offered a “choice” other than the neighborhood school. But they differed from charters in that they were part of the system, and were not there to “compete” and undermine the system.
Before Mayor Bloomberg put out the welcome mat for privatized charters like Success Academy, these public choice schools were not held out by the NYT and other media as some model for reforming public education. It was understood that the public schools had obligations to a population of students that included the most severely at-risk, as well as students with severe disabilities. It was understood that the public schools had obligation to students whose parents didn’t see that they completed their homework each night or came to school on time, every day, having had a decent night sleep and enough to eat and the eye glasses and dental work and doctor’s appointments that meant their education wasn’t hampered by tooth aches or stomach aches or inability to easily see the materials in the classroom or properly hear the teacher.
I believe that Eagle Academy – if it is part of the DOE – has oversight by the DOE and not the “See no evil done by charters that rich billionaires support” SUNY Charter Institute which seems to cares nothing about what happens to any student who doesn’t make the charter look good.
Speaking of the Middle East, I saw a documentary on public TV last night about the warm relations between Jews and the government of Dubai. The government has built an Abrahamic Center where there will be three houses of worship: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish. The Dubai Jewish community commissioned a handmade Torah to give to the head of state, who graciously accepted it in a public ceremony. The government includes a Minister of Tolerance, a very beautiful Muslim woman. Dubai should be a model for the region.
I disagree. We’ve been over this before. Eagle Academies were hyped by Clinton during the 2016 Democratic National Convention. It’s a gender and somewhat racial segregationist school system. The Black boys are taught military style discipline. No excuses. Public schools are for all students, not targeted groups. Period.
And if Banks is involved in the present instead of the past tense, conflict of interest is an issue that must be addressed. Eagle Academies stinks. Banks smells foul.
Damn it, there is no such thing as good segregation.
To be fair to reporters, most reporters do not get to cover what they want to, they are told what to write and to a tight deadline that doesn’t leave a lot of room for fact-checking.
And, most editors have to do what their boss, the CEO at the top, tells them to do or they could end up jobless.
Who owns and controls most of the media in the U.S. — mostly conservative billionaires.
These are all male schools, you have to apply for admittance and take an entry test, at least that is what I read at the Newark school.
From the Eagle Academy For Young Men of Harlem web site: The Eagle Academy for Young Men is a NYC Department of Education school, and not a charter. As such, applications for 6th grade seats are done through the guidance counselors at your son’s current 5th grade school. Eagle can not admit students on its own and must follow NYCDOE admissions protocol.
Priority
Priority for admissions is given to Manhattan residents, and only those that attend an information session, open house, or other information session.
Grade 6 Admissions
Students and families of current 5th graders interested in applying for a 6th grade seat should do the following:
Speak to your son’s current 5th grade guidance counselor to notify them of intent to apply to Eagle.
Attend an open house information session in the late fall/early winter. These dates will be posted on the school website in the fall.
Submit a formal application through your son’s 5th grade guidance counselor.
Students currently in grade 5 in charter, parochial, or private school within NYC follow the same process as above. These schools have access to the NYCDOE admissions systems. [snip]
Grade 9 Admissions
Admission into our 9th grade is limited, and occurs through the same process as other high school applications. In order to be considered for our academy, a family must:
Attend an open house & information session in the late fall/early winter. Dates are posted on our main page.
Include Eagle Harlem on the high school application as a top choice and submit it to your son’s guidance counselor (HIGH SCHOOL CODE: Y41A) end quote
Thank you.
I can’t speak for New Jersey, but for NYC, this application process is exactly what proves that Eagle Academy is not a charter school, it is a choice school.
In NYC, middle schools HAVE to rank their choices for public high schools. This paragraph says that Eagle Academy is part of the public high school admissions process.
Applying to a charter school is totally different. In other words, students will get a single public high school match — like Eagle Academy — and if they apply to a charter school lottery, they might also be chosen or on a charter school wait list.
Two separate processes. Whether you like the idea of Eagle Academy, this is what real public schools look like. Eagle Academy can’t simply counsel out a kid to attend some fallback public high school that has to take them immediately. If an applicant applies to Eagle Academy and is accepted, that is their only option (unless a charter school takes them).
If an applicant applies to a charter school and is accepted, they don’t have to attend because they are guaranteed a seat in a public school. If their public school match is Eagle Academy, their only option is Eagle Academy unless they happen to have also applied separately to a charter and won the lottery for a seat.
This probably sounds complicated, but the short version is that the paragraph above is how NYC students apply to PUBLIC high schools, not charter high schools. And if Eagle Academy gets students from the PUBLIC high school process, it is not a charter.
[…] he is formally in his position Banks is being panned, the low performance of some of his schools, his lack of experience and his selection of a […]