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A Roundup of Commentary on the Eva Video: It Has Gone Viral

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2016 //
34

The video taken in the classroom of Success Academy in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, has gone viral. There are more comments on the Internet than I can gather in one post.

Here is one from Senegal.

Here is a story in the Daily Mail, UK.

Here is a story from India.

Russ Walsh, literacy expert, saw the Eva video and reacted with indignation.

He was even more surprised to read comments by parents who defended the harsh actions and comments of the teacher, tearing up a child’s paper and sending her to the corner with a reprimand.

Walsh cites professional sources that refute fear as a motivational tool for learning.

He concludes:

I believe that it is safe to say that many of the children who attend Success Academy schools come from neighborhood environments where fear and chronic anxiety are the norm. The Success Academy school, rather than providing a safe haven for these fragile young learners, doubles down on fear and anxiety and introduces it into the learning environment as well.

There is no excuse for using fear to intimidate or motivate children. It is simply unacceptable and abusive and ultimately counterproductive to learning. Success Academy can boast of its high test scores, but any serious educator must ask the question, “At what price this very narrow success?”

I cannot help but notice in the video that this white teacher is belittling a young African American child. I am put in mind of the plantation of the Antebellum south, where instead of ripping up a child’s paper, the master meted out forty lashes with the whip.

In Slate, Michelle Goldberg says that these tactics are financed by wealthy elites, but not for their own children. It is what they think is needed for children of color. Goldberg lives in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, where the Success Academy charter in the video is located. She writes: The schools in my neighborhood teach some children to challenge authority, and others to submit to it.

Categories Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

Eva’s Video: It’s the Talk of the Nation

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2016 //
34

The Erik Wemple blog in the Washington Post wrote about the infamous Success Academy video, which has gone viral. Wemple interviewed the Metro Editor of the New York Times, Wendell Jamieson. Jamieson rejected Eva’s claims of media bias.

Wendell Jamieson, the New York Times’s Metro editor, isn’t in a ground-yielding mood. “I reject Eva Moskowitz’s criticism of our coverage,” he says in a chat with the Erik Wemple Blog. In October, Taylor stung Success with a story about a “Got to Go” list of students one of the schools. According to the story, “school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.”

Nor does the school’s talk of anomalies and bad days impress Jamieson. “It seems impossible to me that the one time she did it there was a video camera there,” he says. Speaking of the students assembled in the classroom, Jamieson continued, “You can see a sort of in their body language an accepting that this is the way they are treated.” Even if it is an exception: “These are first graders. You can’t have a bad day like that with a 1st grader — I don’t care,” says the Metro editor. As the father of an elementary school girl, the Erik Wemple Blog endorses the no-abusive-eruptions-ever school of pedagogy.

Wemple writes about the power of a 1:16 minute video:

Video rules accountability journalism in a way that all the interviews in the world with “current and former staffers” will never manage to. Success Academy defenders may take issue with the emphases of the New York Times story, its presentation, its thrust, its language, whatever — but they cannot refute that videotape. Nor did they try: Moskowitz made clear at the press conference that neither she nor Dial condoned the teacher’s classroom behavior. Though thus busted, she and other Success proponents found plenty of reasons to bash the outlet. Asked about the academy’s record of media refutation, Jamieson responds, “They make it a bigger story every time they do it.”

We read recently that Success Academy is represented by the super-duper PR firm, Mercury LLP. It is hard to believe that Mercury advised her to escalate her battle with the nation’s most powerful newspaper. As the old axiom goes, when you are in a hole, stop digging.

Categories Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, Media

Alan Singer: Close Down Success Academy, Now

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2016 //
55

Alan Singer, professor at Hofstra University in New York, wrote a column in the Huffington Post calling for the closure of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain.

 

 

He writes:

 

 

This is about a charter school network that systematically terrorizes young children to maintain total control over their behavior. This is about the Success Academy Charter School Network that should be investigated by state educational officials and the local district attorney’s office and probably shut down — permanently….

 

What stands out for me as I watched the video is the other children. It is a first-grade class. The children are probably six-years-old and all appear to be children of color, either African-American or Latino. During the math lesson while this little girl is being berated by the teacher, who is White, twelve children are seen sitting attentively, backs upright, hands folded in their laps, in a tight circle. Every child is in uniform. They do not smile or giggle. They are not allowed slouch. They are not allowed to squirm. They are not allowed to be children. They are terrorized into obedience fearful of being the next child targeted by a White authority figure.

The teacher, shown in the video, is what Success Academy considers a model teacher. Not only does she teach first-grade students, but she mentors other teachers in the Cobble Hill, Brooklyn school. After the incident surfaced, the teacher was suspended temporarily, but was returned to the classroom and her role as a mentor in less than two weeks. Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz dismissed the teacher’s behavior in the video as an “anomaly.”

Like many Success Academy personnel, this teacher has questionable teaching credentials. She is a 2009 graduate of Butler University in Indiana with a degree in sociology and political science, but without teacher certification. [CORRECTION: Reader David Kennedy says the teacher has a master’s degree in early childhood education, which means she should know that humiliating a child in front of her peers is inappropriate.] Online, including Success Academy webpages, I found no reference to how she was trained as a teacher.

 

Meanwhile, Chalkbeat NY reports that Eva Moskowitz convened a press conference, where she defended the teacher in the video and held a sign that says:

 

“New York Times:

#stopbashingteachers.”

 

“I’m tired of apologizing,” Moskowitz said at a press conference. Calling the video “an unfortunate moment,” she said, “Frustration is a human emotion. When you care about your students so much … and you want them to go to college and graduate, it can be frustrating.”

 

In the comments that followed the article, one commenter pointed out (like Singer) that the teacher who humiliated the first-grader was not certified. This, the writer said, was more evidence that charter schools are not public schools. Teachers in public schools must be certified.

 

I can’t help but wonder what the billionaires who fund Success Academy think of the bad press the charter chain has gotten recently. They created the group called “Families for Excellent Schools” to demand unlimited, free public space for charter schools, despite the overflowing coffers of Success Academy. They are now in Boston lobbying to lift the cap on charters in Massachusetts. What is it about the rigid discipline in SA charters that appeals to them. Is it the spirit of colonialism, masked as benevolence?

 

 

 

Categories Corporate Reform, Discipline, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy

Mercedes Schneider: Another Parent Sues Eva Moskowitz Success Academy for Denying Required Accommodations

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2016 //
10

Mercedes Schneider read here about Eva Moskowitz’s threat to sue the city of New York for threatening to withhold funding for her pre-k program, as a result of her refusal to sign a contract with the city. Why did she refuse? She wants the money from the city but she does not believe the city has any authority over her schools or operations. Mercedes began looking for a copy of the suit, but couldn’t find it. What she did find, however, was that another parent from the “got to go” list is suing Success Academy charter schools, and the details are astonishing.

The child in question (“I.L.”) needed special education services. He did not get them. He had difficulty adjusting to the strict behavioral demands of SA. His father began accompanying him to school to find out what was happening. After the father left, the child was again subject to SA’s rigid discipline.

This is an excerpt from the suit, which is quoted in the post:

In or about December 2014– after being repeatedly subjected to disciplinary consequences, including early dismissals, and only after the Lawtons expressed concern to Success Academy staff about the impact that the discipline was having on I.L.– Success Academy Fort Greene began to evaluate I.L. for an individualized education plan (“IEP”)…. Success Academy failed to notify the Lawtons of their rights, or I.L.’s rights, under IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Act].

In the course of the evaluation, I.L. was observed in the classroom, where it was noted that he had difficulty focusing when working independently. Teachers reported, among other things, that I.L. had difficulty responding to behavioral corrections, that he was hyperactive, anxious, and depressed. Staff reported that I.L. had difficulty focusing and with receiving corrections. The observation also noted that his attention could improve when he was allowed to play with something in his hands.

While this evaluation was underway, and just before school had closed for the December break, Defendant Candido Brown met with the Lawtons. Broen told the Lawtons that they should remove I.L. from Success Academy Fort Greene because I.L. was not a “good fit” for Success Academy.

At that same meeting, Brown said that Mr. Lawton would no longer be allowed in I.L.’s classroom. As Mr. Lawton’s presence in the classroom helped I.L. comply with the Code of Conduct and complete assignments, barring Mr. Lawton from the classroom had an immediate negative impact on I.L.’s ability to function at Success Academy Fort Greene. …

Brown prohibited Mr. Lawton from sitting in I.L.’s classroom only after learning that Mr. Lawton had met with Success Academy Fort Greene employees to voice his concerns about the toll that SA’s policies were taking on I.L.

It gets worse. Read the post.

This treatment of a child would never be permitted in a public school. It proves yet again that charter schools are not public schools. They are private schools that operate with public funding and are able to make their own rules, to admit whom they wish, to exclude whom they want, and to ignore legal mandates that are required of all public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Special Education

NY Times: 8 Experts Censure Moskowitz SA Methods

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2016 //
29

The New York Times asked eight education experts to review and evaluate the video of a teacher at Success Academy charter school humiliating/chastising a first-grade child. All of them agreed that the teacher’s actions were inappropriate. The child had not misbehaved. She gave a wrong answer. The teacher ripped her paper and sent her away to sit in a “calming” corner. The child was not agitated and in need of calming; the teacher was.

Categories Accountability, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

Former Teachers at Success Academy Complain of Child Abuse: Caught on Video

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2016 //
87

The New York Times reports today that a former Success Academy teacher videotaped another teacher demeaning and belittling a first-grade student who could not come up with the right response to her question. Other former SA teachers confirmed that children were subject to psychological abuse to force them to conform to the rigid disciplinary rules of the school.

In the video, a first-grade class sits cross-legged in a circle on a brightly colored rug. One of the girls has been asked to explain to the class how she solved a math problem, but she has gotten confused.

She begins to count: “One… two…” Then she pauses and looks at the teacher.

The teacher takes the girl’s paper and rips it in half. “Go to the calm-down chair and sit,” she orders the girl, her voice rising sharply.

“There’s nothing that infuriates me more than when you don’t do what’s on your paper,” she says, as the girl retreats.

The teacher in the video, Charlotte Dial, works at a Success Academy charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. She has been considered so effective that the network promoted her last year to being a model teacher, who helps train her colleagues.

A spokesperson for the charter chain insisted that this was contrary to its rules. The teacher was briefly suspended.

But interviews with 20 current and former Success teachers suggest that while Ms. Dial’s behavior might be extreme, much of it is not uncommon within the network.

Success is known for its students’ high achievement on state tests, and it emphasizes getting — and keeping — scores up. Jessica Reid Sliwerski, 34, worked at Success Academy Harlem 1 and Success Academy Harlem 2 from 2008 to 2011, first as a teacher and then as an assistant principal. She said that, starting in third grade, when children begin taking the state exams, embarrassing or belittling children for work seen as slipshod was a regular occurrence, and in some cases encouraged by network leaders.

“It’s this culture of, ‘If you’ve made them cry, you’ve succeeded in getting your point across,’” she said.

One day, she said, she found herself taking a toy away from a boy who was playing with it in class, and then smashing it underfoot. Shortly after, she resigned.

“I felt sick about the teacher I had become, and I no longer wanted to be part of an organization where adults could so easily demean children under the guise of ‘achievement,’” said Ms. Sliwerski, who subsequently worked as an instructional coach in Department of Education schools.

These complaints sound like they come from a school of the late 19th century. Not the way most parents want their children to be treated. Not the way to prepare for the 21st century, where creativity and independent thinking should be encouraged.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

EduShyster: UP Academy Wins Federal Grant to Replicate Regimentation of Students

By dianeravitch
February 11, 2016 //
19

EduShyster has a guest column by a teacher who recently finished teaching at UP Academy in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The UP network has five schools. They are not charter schools, though their authoritarian practices appear to be modeled on “no excuses” charter schools. They are zoned 6-8 public middle schools. The schools get high test scores, and the US Department of Education recently awarded them $4.3 million to replicate. Its disciplinary polices are harsh and unforgiving. While the schools get high test scores, shouldn’t we wait and see what other results follow from such schools before paying taxpayer dollars to get more of them? I would never let my children or grandchildren go to such a soulless school, but that’s just me. In the case of UP academies, parents don’t have a choice.

 

 

I was hired to teach at UP Academy in Lawrence, MA starting in August of 2014. Everyone on staff had a duty and mine was to stand in the girl’s bathroom and make sure that the students were leaving quickly and that they only used two pumps of soap and took two paper towels. If they used more I was supposed to give them a demerit. Everything is timed, and teachers walk around with timers. Kids are timed when they go to the bathroom and when they have their snack so that they aren’t wasting valuable learning time. At orientation, which lasted a month before the start of schools, we spent an entire day on how to pass papers and how to get the students to compete against each other as they did this.
When it comes to math and English, UP Academy is teaching a lot, but there’s no emphasis on anything else. Students get social studies and science for half a year; PE and art are considered *specials* and students only get them for an hour a week. The only time students leave their classrooms is when they’re going to PE, art or lunch. After sitting all day, they have to line up in single file in total silence, not making a single peep, hands behind their backs, everything tucked in—like perfect soldiers. I’d have to transport them to my classroom, giving them merits and demerits along the way.

 

There were fifteen minutes total for the the entire class to go to the bathroom. This was twice a day, in the morning and later in the afternoon. There was an average of 32 kids in the class and when we called their names, they would indicate whether they had to go to the bathroom or not by saying *yes, thank you* or *no, thank you.* You’d start from the top of the list in the morning and those people would go to the bathroom. In the afternoon, names would get called from the bottom up. If students didn’t get called, they couldn’t use the bathroom. Students have two emergency bathroom passes they can use during the semester. If they use them up they get a detention.

 

There is more to read. Frankly, I find this bordering on child abuse. This is the kind of school that superior people design for other people’s children, not their own.

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Education Reform, Massachusetts
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