Archives for category: Discipline and Suspensions
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Gary Rubinstein on Eva’s “Got to Go” School

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2015 //
12

Gary Rubinstein took a close look at the Success Academy charter school that kept a list of “scholars” who had to go, get pushed out because they were not the “right fit.” What kind of troublemakers were these children? Babies, actually.

The following appeared in the New York Times:

“Ms. Moskowitz said the school, which then went through second grade, had severe disciplinary problems. Mr. Brown [the principal] previously said in an email that he believed he could not turn the school around if the 16 students remained.”

Gary writes:

“When I think of a school in need of ‘turnaround therapy,’ I picture a school of veteran unionized teachers that has supposedly been ‘failing’ for decades. This school was in its second year when it was in need of being turned around. And the total number of students in the school was about 200, with about 70 kindergarteners, 80 first graders, and 50 second graders. All of these students have been at the school for their entire schooling and all had Success Academy teachers. I have trouble believing that this school needed a radical turnaround plan and if it really did, what does that say about the reform mantra that ‘great teachers’ overcome all if the great teachers at Success Academy were not able to maintain control of 200 5, 6, and 7 year olds?”

To get the real inside scoop, read the reviews of this school by parents, quoted by Gary on this post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Harlem Success Academy

Study: Why Do Charter Teachers Burn Out So Quickly?

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2015 //
43

Alfred Chris Torres of Montclair State University has analyzed a common phenomenon: the high rates of teacher turnover in charter schools.

He says that “no-excuses” charter schools are both popular and polarizing because of their longer school days and school years, their strict discipline, their focus on college-prep, and their data-driven instruction. Yet they have high teacher-turnover, in some cases, one of every three or four teachers leaves every year.

He writes:


Why do so many teachers move on? Common explanations point to the intense workload, which can be as high as 60 to 80 hours per week. Others suggest that these school models often rely on Teach for America teachers who are likely to remain only for a short time. Such factors are important, but overlook more specific working conditions or school practices that influence teacher retention and commitment. To pinpoint such nuanced influences on career choices, my exploratory research uses data from in-depth interviews and survey responses from teachers working in a large charter management organization.

A general theme from my research is the importance of the disciplinary climate in “no-excuses” charter organizations. This climate affects teacher autonomy and, if the climate is dysfunctional, can further burnout in ways that prompt teachers to leave.

Especially in no-excuses charters, strict behavioral expectations mandate how students dress, enter a classroom, walk in the hall, or sit in class, and teachers are expected to enforce these expectations using explicit rewards and punishments, such as merits/demerits or adjustments in “paychecks” that allow students to purchase items from a school store. Supporters consider such close and intense monitoring of student behavior as helpful, while detractors believe that such strict expectations can be demeaning, and counterproductive to students’ overall development, no matter how much academic growth occurs.

As the debate rages, however, little attention has been paid to the impact of disciplinary practices on teachers and their career decisions. My research probes those effects, and my survey analysis reveals that overall teacher perceptions of the effectiveness of student disciplinary systems is an important predictor of rates of voluntary turnover. This is true even after other important factors are taken into account, such as teacher experience, workloads, and teachers’ perception of support from principals. Overall, I discovered that teacher perceptions of school disciplinary environments can affect their career choices in two important ways:

School-wide behavioral rules are considered critical to “no-excuses” schools, and teachers in some of these institutions have little input into the creation or adaptation of strict behavioral expectations, and enjoy little discretion to influence exactly how rules are applied. Experienced teachers, especially, can find such strict sets of rules frustrating because they undermine their professional autonomy. Or teachers may end up in conflict with school leaders on issues of how best to discipline or shape the behavioral socialization of students. When teachers feel such frustrations, as many explained in interviews, they may choose to leave.
Teacher burnout in “no-excuses” charters is often attributed to exhaustion from long working hours, but as psychologists understand, feelings of inefficacy can also lead to burnout. Some teachers I interviewed said they found it difficult to enforce detailed behavioral expectations throughout the day, leaving them feeling not very successful. For others, difficulties in enforcing school-wide rules and punishments led to increased student resistance and undermined student-teacher relationships. Since teachers value positive relationships with students, they may choose to leave if they feel good ties are undermined.

– See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/society/education/teacher-turnover-burnout-charter-schools#sthash.LnAdkaxE.dpuf

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Teachers

Tennessee: When Does Stagnation Look Like Success?

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2015 //
1

Reader J.C. Grim forwarded this commentary from Tennessee’s SCORE (State Collaborative on Reforming Education).

It is very important for SCORE to claim that great progress is being made. At the 2013 release of NAEP scores, Secretary Duncan saluted Tennessee for its gains and held the state up as proof that the Race to the Top was working.

In 2015, however, Tennessee’s scores in math and reading were flat, for both fourth and eighth grade students.

The statement actually mis-states where Tennessee ranks among the states. For example, it says that Tennessee went from  being 41st in the nation in 8th grade reading to 30th, but the report says it is 36th in the nation. If you count the Department of Defense schools, then Tennessee is number 37. If we all aspire to be at the national average, we should follow Tennessee’s lead.

So, the response from reformers is to claim success because the gains from 2013 didn’t disappear. Not a word about flat scores; not a word about no gains.

Well, that’s one way to make progress. I guess the claim is, at least we stood still and didn’t go backwards.

Kentucky, which has no charter schools (unlike Tennessee), placed #9 in the nation. What can Tennessee learn from Kentucky?

Categories Discipline and Suspensions, Tennessee

Jersey Jazzman: Eva Risks Her Brand

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2015 //
18

John Merrow’s PBS segment about suspensions of 5- and 6-year old children at Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy created quite a stir.

Eva was outraged by Merrow’s interview, even though he said some very positive things about her schools, pointing to very high test scores, parent satisfaction, and the arts.

What outraged her was Merrow’s focus on suspensions, especially his on-camera interview of a child who had left Success Academy after multiple suspensions, as well as his mother.

Eva responded with a long angry letter, revealing in full detail the disciplinary record of the boy and demanding an apology to her from PBS and Merrow. She called boy “John Doe” but his name and face were on PBS.

Jersey Jazzman was shocked that Eva had released the boy’s confidential records. Doing so without the written permission of his parent violates the federal student privacy law called FERPA.

He writes:

“I’m not a lawyer so I can’t offer an opinion as to whether FERPA was violated here. But even if it was, there’s probably not any recourse for the parent under federal law: the worst that could happen is that SA could be denied federal funds.

“Something tells me that a school that can raise over $9 million in one night isn’t going to worry too much about that…

“But whether the law was broken isn’t even the most important issue here. What Moskowitz did was an inexcusable lapse of judgment. Eva Moskowitz has put her need to protect her brand over the privacy of a child who, by her own account, has challenges in a school setting.

“This is yet another problem with the “market reform” theory of education. How much money does any corporation spend to maintain its public image? How hard will they fight if they perceive that image is being threatened? How little reluctance do they show to go after a critic of their company or their products?

“Schools, however, are not corporations (at least, not yet). Parent complaints are not threats to a brand; they are advocacy for a child. I’m not at all suggesting that school leaders don’t have the right to defend themselves, either in court or in public. But it would have been more than enough for Moskowitz to say: “We dispute these allegations; however, we will not discuss any individual case publicly, as all parents and children have a right to privacy in school.”

“Not only would this have been less questionable legally and ethically: I’d wager it would have been better for Moskowitz in the eyes of the public. Her attacks on this boy — and that’s exactly what they are — come off to me as petty, unthinking, and, worst of all, cold. And I can’t believe I’m the only one who feels this way.

“It’s very strange that a woman who has worked so hard to cultivate her public image is willing to risk having it trashed just so she can win a PR fight with a 10-year-old boy. She must think the stakes are very high.

“And that’s the problem.”

Categories Charter Schools, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Discipline and Suspensions

Shanker Institute: Race, Discipline, and Eva Moskowitz’s Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2015 //
22

Leo Casey, executive director of the Albert Shanker Institute, notes that numerous authorities warn about the adverse effects of suspending students from school. He notes that Eva Moskowitz, by contrast, believes that suspending students teaches them important lessons and makes it less likely that they will need to be suspended in the future. She belittles the New York City public schools for reducing suspensions.

Casey compares the suspensions that Success Academy charter schools reported to the U.S. Department of Education to the suspensions that SA reported to the New York State Department of Education and finds that the reported rates are different.

Here is the executive summary of the Shanker Institute report:

Success Academy Charter School CEO Eva Moskowitz has taken up the issue of school discipline recently, defending the practices in her own schools and criticizing the efforts to reform student discipline in the New York City public schools. A close inspection of available data shows that: first, Success Academy has misrepresented its suspensions to the U.S. Education Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, reporting only two suspensions while reporting hundreds of suspensions to the New York State Education Department; second, that when students of the same age groups are compared, Success Academy charter schools suspend their students at roughly seven times the rate of New York City public schools; and third, that the suspended students are overwhelmingly African American and Latino. Moskowitz’s attacks on New York City public schools reform efforts is designed as a shot across the bow of the U.S. Education Department and U.S. Justice Department, which has advised that excessive suspensions of students of color is a violation of U.S. civil rights law.

Moskowitz defends suspensions as a valid disciplinary tool and mocks the public schools for minimizing suspensions:

The New York City public school policies that Moskowitz derides are part of a national reform effort, inspired by a body of research showing that overly punitive disciplinary policies are ineffective and discriminatory. Based on this research evidence, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and School Discipline Consensus Project of the Council of State Governments have all gone on record on the harmful effects of employing such policies. The U.S. Education Department, the U.S. Justice Department, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, consortia of researchers, national foundations, and the Dignity in Schools advocacy coalition have all examined the state of student discipline in America’s schools in light of this research.1

Their findings? Suspensions and expulsions, the most severe forms of school discipline, are being used excessively in American schools, often for such minor infractions such as “talking back” or being out of uniform. Further, these severe punishments are being applied disproportionality to students of color, especially African-American and Latino boys, students with disabilities and LGBT youth.

As a result of these data, the U.S. Education Department and U.S. Justice Department issued guidance to schools, based on their finding that discriminatory uses of suspensions and expulsions were in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since this guidance came from the federal agencies that are charged with the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, it added the force of the law to the powerful moral arguments for addressing the problem of discriminatory discipline. School districts and schools, public and charter, took notice. The more progressive minded, such as the new de Blasio administration of the New York City Department of Education, began to reform their disciplinary practices in accord with these regulations. As a consequence, the suspensions and expulsions from New York City’s public schools have been dramatically reduced.

It will be interesting to see if the new Secretary of Education John King, himself a leader in the “no-excuses” charter movement, will require Success Academy charters to abide by Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Harlem Success Academy

John Merrow Tangles with Eva Moskowitz over Suspending Kindergartners!

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2015 //
86

John Merrow, who reports on education for PBS, did a segment on suspensions for children in kindergarten. He focused on the Success Academy charter schools and compared it to a public school in Brooklyn.

The segment begins with the U.S. Deepartment of Education’s view that out-of-school suspensions are very bad policy that discourage and stigmatize children.

The public school had no suspensions for little children. Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools believe in suspensions as good discipline.

In his interview with Eva, Merrow repeatedly challenged her claims. She told him that anecdotes are not data, then offered an anecdote. He showed data that her suspension rate was double that of KIPP.

Eva’s trump card? Spectacular test scores. Does she push out low-scoring kids? The same little children were repeatedly suspended until they withdrew and went to public school.

Reach your own judgment.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Media

My Thanks to Raj for His Comments on the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”

By dianeravitch
October 11, 2015 //
12

In response to the post about the “school-to-prison-pipeline, a frequent commenter who signs as Raj, submitted the following comment. It begins like this, you can read the full comment after the original post:

Raj wrote:

This is what ACLU says:

“WHAT IS THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE?

The “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the policies and practices that push our nation’s schoolchildren, especially our most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. For a growing number of students, the path to incarceration includes the “stops” below.

Failing Public Schools

For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools. Overcrowded classrooms, a lack of quali­fied teachers, and insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special edu­cation services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational envi­ronments. This failure to meet educational needs increases disengagement and dropouts, increasing the risk of later court­involvement. (1) Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores. (2)

Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances. Under these policies, students have beenexpelled for bringing nail clippers or scissors to school. Rates of suspensionhave increased dramatically in recent years—from 1.7 million in 1974 to 3.1 million in 2000 (3) — and have been most dramatic for children of color.

Overly harsh disciplinary policies push students down the pipeline and into the juvenile justice system. Suspended and expelled children are often left unsupervised and without constructive activities; they also can easily fall behind in their coursework, leading to a greater likelihood of disengagement and drop-outs. All of these factors increase the likelihood of court involvement. (4)

As harsh penalties for minor misbehavior become more pervasive, schools increasingly ignore or bypass due process protections for suspensions and expulsions. The lack of due process is particularly acute for students with special needs, who are disproportionately represented in the pipeline despite the heightened protections afforded to them under law.

Raj,

This is an excellent contribution to understanding the “school-to-prison-pipeline.” Thank you.

For most students, the pipeline begins with inadequate resources in public schools.

Overcrowded classrooms. Bill Gates and Arne Duncan have both said that class size doesn’t matter, and that great teachers can teach larger classes than they have now. Mayor Bloomberg even suggested that a “great” teacher could teach double the number currently assigned, which would mean a class size of 50-70 students. Surveys repeatedly show that both parents and teachers want small classes, and research shows that the greatest benefit of small classes goes to the neediest students, who need extra attention with the teacher.

A lack of qualified teachers. State after state has been staffing the neediest schools with inexperienced, unqualified teachers from Teach for America. There would be more qualified teachers if state legislatures raised teacher pay, stopped cutting pay raises for experience and additional relevant degrees, and stopped fighting due process for teachers. Such actions literally drive teachers out of their chosen profession.

Insufficient funding for “extras” such as counselors, special edu­cation services, and even textbooks, lock students into second-rate educational envi­ronments: The ACLU hits the nail on the head. So much money is diverted to testing and test prep and consultants, and not enough is appropriated for the services and personnel that meet the real needs of students. You understand that underfunded schools do not choose to be underfunded. Decisions about funding are made by the Congress, the state legislatures and governors, and district leadership. The blame for the shortage of these resources in the schools that enroll the most vulnerable students must be placed squarely on federal, state, and local leadership.

Even worse, schools may actually encourage dropouts in response to pressures from test-based accountability regimes such as the No Child Left Behind Act, which create incentives to push out low-performing students to boost overall test scores. Test-based accountability, including NCLB and the Race to the Top, increase the numbers of students who fall into the STPP. The emphasis on testing and the consequences for failing to teach a bar set too high discourage the students in the bottom half of the bell curve (all standardized tests are normed on a bell curve). The Common Core tests have shifted the norm so that 65-70% of students “fail.” If students fail and fail and fail, they give up. What shall we do for them?

The next section of the ACLU statement aptly describes “no-excuses” charter schools:

Zero-Tolerance and Other School Discipline

Lacking resources, facing incentives to push out low-performing students, and responding to a handful of highly-publicized school shootings, schools have embraced zero-tolerance policies that automatically impose severe punishment regardless of circumstances.

Charter schools, especially of the no-excuses variety, have higher suspension rates than public schools. They engage in harsh disciplinary policies that are not allowed in public schools. They can push out students for minor offenses.

Raj, thank you for this useful description of the “school-to-prison pipeline” by the ACLU.

We should all take heed.

Arne Duncan, who is talking about the STPP today at 4 pm EST on Sirius “Urban View” could reduce the pipeline by abandoning high-stakes testing and cutting off federal funding for “no-excuses” charter schools.

Each and every child should be able to enroll in a school with a humane and caring environment.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline and Suspensions, Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Standardized Testing
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