Archives for category: Harlem Success Academy
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Paul Ryan Will Visit Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools Tomorrow

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2017 //
48

Eva Moskowitz has become a favorite of the Trump White House and the Republican Party.

Speaker Paul Ryan will visit her schools tomorrow.

“House Speaker Paul Ryan is planning to visit a Success Academy charter school in New York City on Tuesday, sources with knowledge of the visit told POLITICO New York.

Ryan’s visit will be the latest in a series of high-profile visits by Republicans to the city’s largest and most controversial charter network. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has visited Success Academy 1 in Harlem, and Ivanka Trump visited the same school shortly after the presidential election in November.

“Success CEO Eva Moskowitz was briefly on a short list to serve as education secretary under President Donald Trump, and Trump has praised the the city’s charters, likely referring to Success, since taking office. One of Success’ top donors, John Paulson, was an adviser to Trump during the campaign.

“The network’s boldface-named visitors and supporters also happen to be unpopular figures in deep blue New York City.

“Moskowitz has expressed interest in running for mayor for years, but her recent affiliation with the leaders of the national Republican party will likely complicate any future bid. She has been attacked by her longtime foes in the city’s teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, for her ties to the Trump administration. Moskowitz has also been criticized by her staff for not speaking out against Trump policies that are unpopular in her schools.

“Ryan is a longtime supporter of charter schools.

“Spokespeople for Success and Ryan did not respond to requests for comment.

“This story first appeared on POLITICO New York on May 8, 2017.”

To view online:
https://www.politicopro.com/education/whiteboard/2017/05/paul-ryan-to-visit-success-academy-school-in-harlem-087403

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization

Success Academy Suspends Boy for 45 Days

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2017 //
12

An unnamed child was suspended by Success Academy Charter School for 45 days after having been accused of physically assaulting his teacher.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/mom-success-academy-failed-son-45-day-suspension-article-1.3044976

“When a 55-pound first-grader tussled with Success Academy Prospect Heights’ assistant principal, the boy’s mom believes the fight was fixed.

“The 7-year-old, already battling a disability, was removed from class for a whopping 45 days after school officials said he hurled a stool at the woman and dragged her down a hallway by the hair.

“His mother and lawyer came out swinging against the accusations, claiming the staff unfairly targeted the boy. They say the student was suspended 10 times since the beginning of January.

“He’s just a child,” said the mom, who asked to remain anonymous because her son and a daughter are still enrolled at the school. “They’ve been trying to push him out of the school since day one.”

Success Academy is not very successful with children with disabilities. They are “not a good fit” for a high-performing charter school.

Categories Discipline and Suspensions, Failure, Harlem Success Academy

Norm Scott: The Battle to Save JHS 145 from Eva Tonight

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2017 //
8

Retired teacher Norm Scott writes:

While closing schools is not as widespread as it was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it is still occurring and it is very troubling. The Department of Education still fails to provide proper resources for schools and then calls them failures… James Eterno, ICE blog

I’m taking the subway up to Yankee Stadium tonight, not for a Yankee game, but to take the long walk from there to 1000 Teller Ave for the JHS 145 hearing. I never go to the Bronx, even for Yankee games, because it is as far away from where I live as possible and still be in NYC.

If Eva and her little band of slimeballs show up to tell us about their scholars I’m going to be retching, so I better not eat.

This is not about closing a struggling school but about yet another giveaway of a school building to Eva Moskowitz, who has enough money to rent Radio City Music Hall for a test-prep rally, but wants to toss poor kids into the street in another avaricious grab. And the DOE is closing the school – or trying to – because they fear the slings and arrows of the charter lobby publicity machine.

As for the UFT — they are supposedly doing things behind the scenes. Ho-hum –when what is needed is a strong public stand against the Farina/deB giveaway to Eva. DeB thinks if he pays off charters they will lay off him in the election. Good luck with that.

I reported on teacher Jim Donahue’s heroic efforts to help organize resistance — Closing JHS 145 So Eva/Success Academy Can Ge..

When Jim spoke at the UFT Ex Bd they acted dumb — it was Jim and MORE that asked for the item to be pulled from the March 22 PEP agenda which so far has not happened. March 22 may turn into a redux of Bloomberg era resistance.

James Eterno reported on tonight’s hearing at the ICE blog:

SCHOOL CLOSING BATTLE IN BRONX TONIGHT

The common perception from the UFT is that school closings are not a real problem under the current Mayor Bill de Blasio and his Chancellor Carmen Farina. While closing schools is not as widespread as it was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it is still occurring and it is very troubling. The Department of Education still fails to provide proper resources for schools and then calls them failures.

Tonight there will be a Joint Public Hearing to save Junior High School 145 in the Bronx. JHS 145 is slated for closure. Eva Moskowitz has already claimed the building for one of her Success Academy charter schools.

The only trouble with this arrangement is the school community at 145 is waging a valiant fight to save their school. Tonight is their Joint Public Hearing, a public meeting required before a school can be closed. If you can make it to the Bronx this evening, I suggest that you attend the hearing to show your support for 145. Get there before 6:00 p.m. to sign up to speak. Schools targeted for closure need the public to be behind them to have any chance of surviving.

I certainly know how the JHS 145 people feel as Jamaica High School, where I taught for 28 years, was phased out and then closed in 2014.

Here is an email from MORE leader Jia Lee on tonight’s JHS 145 hearing.

Colleagues,

An injury to one is an injury to all. Success Academy is slated to take over the building where JHS 145 has been for generations. Incredibly, SA has advertised for their new middle school even before the vote has taken place at the March 22 PEP.

The staff and families of JHS 145 are fighting to keep their school open. They serve students who have been mislabled based on faulty test score metrics. A large showing of support for the school and resistance against charterization will send a message to the DOE that we will not stand by while they destroy public schools.

Please join me at this joint hearing with JHS 145 and Success Academy

JHS 145
1000 Teller Ave. Bronx NY
Take any train to Yankee Stadium or
take the A or 1 train to 181 Street in Washington Heights, then take the Bx35 bus toward the BX.

Categories Charter Schools, Harlem Success Academy, New York City

Most Expensive Test Prep Rally in History?

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2017 //
35

Eva Moskowitz has rented the Rockefeller Center Radio City Music Hall for her charter chain’s annual test-prep rally.

The charter network’s dance team will perform, school officials will present awards to students for academic excellence and Moskowitz will deliver a keynote speech.

Eva Moskowitz photo angers protesters outside her home
Moskowitz and Success Academy grabbed headlines in 2016 when the network purchased ground-floor classroom space in a luxury Midtown tower for nearly $68 million.

Success Academy reported $49 million in net assets in 2014 and received at least $35 million from hedge fund billionaires in 2016.

The privately run, publicly funded charter network operates 41 city schools with three more set to open this year.

Two years ago, the Success Academy charter chain spent $734,000 on a pep rally in Albany to seek more public funding for their well-funded schools.

At that time, Politico reported:

Success and Families for Excellent Schools, the pro-charter group that officially organized the rallies, have denied requests to disclose its spending on the events, but financial documents obtained by POLITICO New York indicate the network spent at least $734,000 on the 2015 rally.

The spending included $71,900 for the beanies and $62,795 for the T-shirts, according to receipts submitted to Success’s board of directors.

“T-shirts are a critical part of large-scale events,” said one receipt. “They help get the event’s message across, demonstrate mass participation, and provide the primary visual that captures the public’s attention.”

The network also spent $539,923 on busing and $59,375 on lunches for the rally.

The Albany rally represented just a small fraction of Success’s total spending on political advocacy and its public image, according to several internal financial documents.

Success Academy is such a financial powerhouse that one has to wonder why it is funded with public money when it can blow away millions of fabulous rentals and T-shirts and beanies. Real public schools need money for basics. They can’t afford to rent Radio City Music Hall or spend $71,900 on beanies.

Categories Funding, Harlem Success Academy

Ads for Scammed Academy Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2017 //
12

A former teacher at Success Academy charter schools–let’s call her Jane Doe–decided to use her talents as a graphic designer to create advertisements for the school where she had worked. For some reason, there are ads on billboards, in buses, and on subway trains urging students to apply to Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools. This is odd because we have been told that there are long waiting lists. The waiting lists are so long that there must be a lottery. If there are long waiting lists, why are there ads to recruit students to apply? Maybe the purpose of the ads is to create a demand to exceed the supply? A marketing tool?

Jane Doe attached this comment:

I chose to respond to advertisements for Success Academy Charter Schools because every time I see those ads on websites or in subway stations, I wish they told more of the story. It’s not that the ads are based on lies; it’s true that “scholars” at Success in every grade have science class every day, it’s true that Success puts a lot of emphasis on parent/family engagement, and it’s true that the average kid at Success does much better on standardized tests than the average kid in a (non-selective) NYC public school. All of those things make it more likely for those kids to “succeed,” especially if your idea of success includes admission into a liberal arts college.

It’s also true that Success is funded in part by private donors like the Koch brothers and the family that owns Wal-Mart, because conservatives and big corporations have a vested interest in chipping away at public education. The high test scores are real, and they matter, but are they worth the pressure Success puts on its employees and its students? During testing season, the Success Network ships each school extra pairs of pants to keep on hand, because inevitably several third graders will be so scared to sacrifice test time for a bathroom trip, they’ll have an accident. There are countless tiny examples that illustrate this extreme environment, a few of which I chose for this assignment.

Families don’t pay for a Success Academy education. When I use the word scammed, I am not just talking about money, and I am not just talking about those who send their kids to Success. I’m talking about the whole country, because all of us are being scammed by Charter advocates like Betsy DeVos and Success CEO Eva Moskowitz. Neither Moskowitz nor DeVos has any actual experience in education, yet they’ve each made a wealthy career for themselves out of advocating for so-called school choice reform. The changes they seek put public schools at a disadvantage, as they are forced to fight with charters for space, funding, and high-engagement/high-resource families. Meanwhile, not all charters perform like Success. Some are much better, with more emphasis on social-emotional learning and less emphasis on strict behavioral expectations. Others, like those DeVos lobbied for in Detroit, have test scores similar to or worse than nearby public schools, with the same downsides of Success – no unions, poor treatment of special education students, and high suspension rates, to name a few.

Ultimately, my goal is for people to see a more complex picture of Success Academy. Education reform is a complex issue, especially when a person has their own kids in mind. But we need to talk about charters for what they are: a scheme to gradually privatize education to further benefit the ruling class. I hope that if and when a person sees my “ads” in conjunction with the original Success ads, it will give them a better picture of the motivations, complications, and realities of Success Academy schools.

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Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization, Testing

Staff at Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Question Her Support for DeVos and Trump

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2017 //
10

Politico wrote about a letter that the staff at Success Academy charter schools wrote to their peerless leader Eva Moskowitz, complaining about her open support for Trump and DeVos, although she publicly claimed to have voted for Clinton.

Unfortunately the article does not contain a link to the letter. If you have a copy, send it to me by email or post it here.

Moskowitz says she can’t speak out on political issues, such as the roundup of undocumented persons (which might include some of her students and their parents), but as the article points out, Moskowitz is never shy to speak out on political issues that involve self-aggrandizement.

A group of Success faculty members recently wrote Moskowitz a letter outlining their concerns about her ties to DeVos and Trump, and her silence on Trump policies that impact Success students, particularly the executive order on immigration and new deportation guidelines.

Moskowitz responded in a lengthy letter this week, writing, “I … need to consider whether it is appropriate for me to use my position as the leader of a collection of public schools paid for with government funds to advocate politically.”

A copy of the letter was obtained by POLITICO New York.

It’s an entirely new argument from Moskowitz, who has emerged as one of the most politically potent forces in national education reform over the last several years.

At home, she has been one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s most vociferous critics, and has convened dozens of rallies and press conferences over the past three years to attack his stance on charters. Moskowitz has shut dozens of her schools for the rallies, busing thousands of children to Albany to rally for charter causes, and has asked parents to take the day off from work to attend the events. One rally, in March 2014, cost the network at least $734,000, according to a POLITICO New York analysis. She has deep ties to local lawmakers and helped influence the passage of a sweeping pro-charter bill through the New York State Legislature in 2013.

Moskowitz has testified in favor of charter schools during congressional hearings and is a regular attendee at Sun Valley, an annual private conference of the world’s top CEOs and financiers. A former city councilwoman, she has long considered running for mayor.

As the article points out, Moskowitz has been a vocal defender of DeVos and criticized those who challenged her qualifications. These were political statements.

Apparently, defending her students against Trump’s executive orders is too “political” for Moskowitz, but defending Trump and DeVos plans to hand out more money for charters is not political.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Harlem Success Academy

A Note Written by a Teacher at Success Academy Who Quit

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2017 //
27

This note was posted earlier today, in response to an earlier post about child abuse at Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy:

 

I also was a teacher with Success Academy and decided to end my employment with them in the first year of my contract. I witnessed, every single day, countless instances just like these. Although there was no ripping of papers I did see teachers grabbing students by the scruff of their necks, ordering children (as young as kindergarten ) around as if they were animals, and the insane programming they put these kids through. They don’t teach or nurture bright minds, they belittle and scold students for being kids. They aren’t allowed to move, they aren’t allowed to speak for almost the full 8 hours they are there.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

A Photograph and Story about Charter School Mouth Bubbles

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2016 //
46

An earlier post today was about the “charter school bubble,” but the link didn’t work. That happens sometimes with links.

 

Fortunately, reader Jack Covey supplied a story that appeared in the Village Voice that contains a picture of students making mouth bubbles and details about the charter school that teaches proper mouth bubble action. When a STUDENTS makes a mouth bubble, he or she can’t talk. That’s the point. Silence.

 

Open the the link and you will never again wonder what a charter school mouth bubble is.

Categories Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy

NYC: Comptroller Audits Eva, Chastises Success Academy for Poor Financial Controls

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2016 //
35

New York City’s Comptroller Scott Stringer released his long-awaited audit of one of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter schools, Harlem Success Academy 3. Moskowitz fought the audit, even going to court to prevent it.

 

The story is reported in the New York Daily News.

 

“Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter network engaged in a variety of sloppy financial practices and should reimburse the city for a $50,000 in public money it has received, Controller Scott Stringer charged in an audit released Monday.

 

“Stringer’s long-awaited financial probe of the city’s largest charter school network shows the network billed the city for special education services it can’t prove it provided at Harlem Success 3, the school that is the focus of the audit.

 

“We found irregularities in this audit of Success Academy that raise serious concerns,” Stringer said. “Billing the DOE for special education services without records to verify that they were provided, financial reports that made administrative costs seem lower than they actually were, ineffective fiscal controls over credit card and other spending, missing loan agreements for millions of dollars — all were findings uncovered by this audit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy

Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy Buys Condo for $67.7 Million

By dianeravitch
December 15, 2016 //
45

Latest real estate news in Manhattan:

 

Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain bought a condo on the far west side of Manhattan for $67.7 million.

 

A few years back, Eva’s billionaire allies successfully lobbied the legislature to secure free rent for her schools and free rein to expand, pushing out other kids and programs, even those serving the severely disabled.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Funding, Harlem Success Academy, Privatization
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