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.
Archives for category: Harlem Success Academy
Eva Moskowitz reacted angrily to the unflattering story in the New York Times about a teacher berating a first-grader. She sent a note to her staff accusing the Néw York Times of having a vendetta against her.
Her email said:
“We must not allow the haters to bully us or stop us from re-imagining public education,” Moskowitz writes.”
She added that if a similar video came from a public school, the Times would have ignored it.
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.
Fatima Geidi is the parent of the boy who was featured on John Merrow’s PBS broadcast about the harsh discipline policies at Success Academy charter schools. She writes here that parents should stop being afraid of Eva Moskowitz, the founder and boss of Success Academies, a charter chain of 34 schools.
I have been contacted on several occasions by current or former teachers at SA charters, and they always ask me to keep their names a secret. Even those who have left are afraid. Curious.
After Fatima’s son appeared on television, SA posted his disciplinary record online. The mother said this act violated her son’s privacy rights, as guaranteed by a federal law called FERPA ( Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). She complained to the US ED. After a lengthy delay, SA finally removed the boy’s confidential information from its website.
When Eva appeared at a law school forum, Fatima was one of several former SA parents who questioned and challenged her.
Fatima writes:
“I had a chance to question Moskowitz at the law school event. I told her she abused children’s rights and gas-lighted the network’s parents. Moskowitz said she thought her schools “have a really high level of customer service.”
“Although my exchange with Moskowitz was less than satisfying, I showed my son the video of the speech and my questions. He thanked me for fighting for him and other children, adding “I want to be like you when I grow up.”
“That was reward enough for me.”
Eva Moskowitz is a very powerful woman. She has 11,000 students in her 34 Success Academy charter schools, which get extraordinarily high test scores. She might be universally admired but she picks fights. She usually wins, because she is tougher than anyone else, and she has the backing of the moguls on Wall Street whose financial help Governor Cuomo enjoys.
But now she has picked a fight that is almost incomprehensible. Mayor Bill de Blasio wanted “universal pre-k,” and he invited charter schools to offer pre-K classes. Every school, public or charter, that agreed to provide pre-K signed a contract with the city. But not Eva. She said it was illegal for the city to demand that she sign a contract. She expects to be paid $720,000 by the city without signing the contract that all public schools and other charters have signed. She threatened to cancel her pre-K programs unless she is paid without signing the city contract.
Why? Because no one can tell her what to do. Certainly not the city.
Now Eva has appealed to state officials to force the city to back off and pay her, so she can run the pre-K program without signing a contract like other schools.
A Success Academy spokesman said the network has received applications from 1,800 families for 126 pre-K seats for 2016-17.
Success Academy operates 34 charter schools that enroll roughly 11,000 kids in total. The schools outperform traditional public schools on state exams.
Despite the reportedly high level of demand for Success Academy pre-K seats, city Education Department spokeswoman Devora Kaye said Moskowitz must sign on the dotted line to get paid.
“There is simply no basis to conclude that requiring Success to comply with these requirements of program quality would somehow result in Success’ inability to operate its pre-K programs,” Kaye said.
Each of the other 277 pre-K providers — including nine other charter school operators — have already signed the contracts, Kaye said.
City Controller Scott Stringer has also urged Moskowitz to sign the contract, saying in October that “there is no conceivable reason for one charter school to be held to a different standard than every other charter school.”
Eva is counting on the state to defend her right not to sign.
Meanwhile I received a copy of this letter from a teacher at Success Academy, which includes the letter that Eva sent to the teaching staff, urging them to support her defiant stand:
Dear Dr. Ravitch,
The staff of Success Academy received an email from our fearless CEO that I thought might interest you. She addresses the current conflict with the de Blasio administration over pre-k funding, and urges her staff to complain to the mayor and our local officials. It’s still incredible to me how she believes that she can use her staff as political capital without presenting a complete picture of an issue. I haven’t read the contract that she refuses to sign, but by all reports it seems benevolent enough. The funding comes from taxpayer money after all, so it seems fair that the city would oversee the programs it supports. And yet, from her email, Eva would like us to believe that this is nothing more than an attack on her schools. She is obviously using this as way to stoke fear that there is a “larger war on Success Academy and charter schools.” It’s simply ironic to me that someone who is running a school system, where we are supposed to value critical thinking, would present such a one-sided and manipulative take of this conflict.
I’ve copied the text of the email below. I also have screenshots of the email if you’d like further verification.
Best,
XXXX
This is the letter that Eva sent to members of the staff of her charters:
Team Success:
I am writing to update you about Success Academy pre-k for next year. This first year has been one of tremendous growth for our youngest scholars — and for Success as well, as we challenged ourselves to develop a magical curriculum that engaged and delighted 4-year-olds. The response from families has been so positive that we made plans to expand our pre-k to our Union Square and Bensonhurst schools.
Unfortunately, in the case of Success Academy, Mayor de Blasio does not truly support pre-k for all. The mayor and the Department of Education have again thrown up a roadblock. He has refused to pay us the pre-k funding to which we are entitled under the law unless we allow him to dictate how we run our pre-k program. A critical aspect of charter schools is that we are not subject to the control of the city government. That is what enables a high-quality program.
Success Academy and 24 parents of students in our pre-k program have brought a legal action against the city but it is unclear how long it will take to get a decision. Unfortunately, unless we get a result or persuade Mayor de Blasio to do the right thing within the next two weeks, we will be forced to cancel our pre-k program for the coming year!
Please feel free to express your concern to the mayor directly and to you local elected officials. This would be a terrible shame for families and for staff who have worked so hard to create a truly amazing pre-k experience. This is just part of a larger war on Success Academy and charter schools. On a daily basis, we are forced to fight for kids’ rights to a world-class, free education.
Thank you for all you do for children.
Warmly,
Eva Moskowitz
John Merrow officially retired from his long and distinguished career in journalism, but he is not inactive. For one thing, he has printed up some bumper stickers in appreciation of teachers (the other 1%) and is selling them at cost.
And on his blog, he has imagined Eva’s testimony when she goes to court to defend herself against parents of students entitled to special education services and New York City’s Public Advocate Letitia James. Of course, she doesn’t back down an inch and says that her charter schools treat all “scholars” exactly the same.
Here is a small part of her “testimony”:
“I certainly do not apologize for using out of school suspensions more than any other schools, whether charter or traditional public. They are an important tool in the Success Academy toolbox, as I have written about in the Wall Street Journal. I know that other schools treat behavior issues at the school, but we think sending the child home sends a message to him or her and to the parents.
“A child who cannot keep his eyes on the teacher at all times doesn’t belong at Success Academy. A child who continues to call out the answer to questions, even if she’s right, clearly isn’t Success Academy material. A kindergartener who gets curious about the pictures on the bulletin board and leaves his seat to take a close look, that’s behavior we have to stamp out. Obedience trumps curiosity every time, because if we allowed children to follow their desires, curiosity and passions, chaos would ensue.
“Yes, it’s true that the parents of children we suspend multiple times often decide to withdraw their children from our schools, but that’s their choice.
A lot of kids leave Success Academy, to be replaced by children on our long waiting list. But, your honor, those kids who disappear from our rolls are PITA kids, not special needs.”
Read on to find out what PITA kids are.
It appeared to be a routine event where Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy charter schools, could give her pitch for the fantastic test scores of her schools. But in the audience were some disgruntled parents who asked tough questions. Eva defended her policies–which she called “no nonsense nurturing–such as suspending very young children who can be surprisingly violent.
“The charter school chain Ms. Moskowitz runs—which receives city tax dollars and often shares space with district public schools but is privately managed and does not employ unionized teachers—greatly outpaces regular district schools in terms of standardized tests. But it has also been the subject of scrutiny from those corners Ms. Moskowitz listed, with critics saying that the success is due to the schools not educating the most difficult students, weeding out struggling children, and using harsh discipline including frequent suspensions.
“It seems to have endless fascination with the media,” Ms. Moskowitz said of her school’s success. “There’s sort of a relentless gotcha effort: where’s the catch?”
“Of course, Ms. Moskowitz said there really wasn’t one. The chain’s high performance is due to engaged teachers who make children “fall in love with school,” holding adults accountable for the performance of children; rigorous academic standards—and letting students fail sometimes; and innovation.”
I received an email from a teacher who resigned her job at Success Academy. She was very unhappy. She wanted to explain why she couldn’t stay. Like everyone who leaves Success Academy, she requested anonymity. I get these emails from time to time. Occasionally, I meet with the unhappy young people (both women and men). They sound like people leaving a cult. Even after they have left, they still refer to five-year-old children as “scholars.” When they start calling them children, I will know that they are completely de-programmed.
This young woman writes:
I left my job at Success Academy because I couldn’t, in good conscience, be the teacher they wanted me to be. I have a lot of trouble writing and talking about my experience with Success because it truly makes me ill. Thinking about the way teachers spoke to children, with such disgust in their voices, makes my stomach churn. Thinking about the way my leaders spoke to me, with that same disgust, leaves me feeling just as sick.
I was immediately targeted by the leaders at my school for being too soft. I didn’t deliver consequences enough, and I didn’t hold high enough expectations of my four and five-year-olds. I couldn’t get them to walk in two silent, straight, militaristic lines with bubbles in their mouths and their hands glued to their sides. I wasn’t “aggressively scanning” for “defiant” children on the carpet—that is, children not sitting on their bottoms with their backs tall and their hands locked in their laps. I owned up to all of this with my leaders. I admitted to them that I have a hard time with holding such young children to such high expectations. And to build off of that, I found it simply wrong to hold every single scholar to the exact same expectations. You can’t give a fish and a bird the same task and expect the same results.
But that’s precisely what Success does. They don’t care what the circumstances are: you will stand like a soldier, you will sit with a bubble in your mouth and your hands locked, you will do all of your work neatly and silently, you will “silent laugh” and “silent cheer” when you find things funny or exciting, you will transition from your seats to the carpet “swiftly, safely, and silently,” and if you don’t, you’ll do it again until it’s perfect, even if that means missing recess or blocks time. My biggest mistake was admitting to my leaders that I found this system to be too harsh. The moment you speak out at Success, they come after you. They call it a “mindset” issue. They threatened to put me on a performance plan without giving me any examples of what I was doing wrong, instead simply berating me for these same issues week after week until I would slowly break and obey them. I worked tirelessly to please my leaders. I had never quit a job before, and am an incredibly hard worker, so I was determined to make this work. I wrote long reflections on my days and reached out to veteran teachers for help. I was quickly reprimanded for this as well, though, being told that if I needed help, I should just go to leadership—that I should never make my struggle apparent, or talk about it with anyone at school. This is all part of keeping up the facade of Success. The bright classrooms, the stunning bulletin boards, the perfect posture — everything must look perfect. It all boils down to the same principle: these people care about the wrong things. They feel the constant need to prove themselves through their appearance and their high scores, and in turn they don’t allow for any of the genuine elements of childhood and education to take place in their buildings.
I spent much of my time at school crying in the bathroom and the stairwell. I cried from the emotional harassment I faced from my leaders, I cried from simply watching my scholars go through such grueling days and intense ridicule, and I cried because I was exhausted, stressed, and anxious, constantly feeling like I wasn’t enough and that I couldn’t be enough. When I helped my own scholars work through their tears, I would often ask them what they were feeling, and they would say “scared.” They told me they were scared to come to school. I was, too. We all entered that building each morning in fear. This all being said, scholars at my school smiled. There are happy children at Success. When they do well academically, or when they get a prize or a “time-in” for their success, they smile. When they do have recess, they laugh audibly and smile. But the fear, anger, and sadness deeply overshadows these small instances of joy. You can’t structure joy. But leave it to SA to try.
Mercedes Schneider dug into the records of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy in Fort Greene (Brooklyn). This is the school where the principal prepared a “Got to Go” list of the students that would be pushed out one way or another.
The school was opened in 2013. Its first principal, Kate Cunningham, had a Teach for America background. She had earned her “master’s degree” at the fake Relay “graduate school of education,” where charter teachers teach other charter teachers and give each other degrees without any reference to scholarship. She ran Success Academy’s special education program, although her resume doesn’t mention any credentials for doing so.
She didn’t last long–not even a year.
She was succeeded by Candido Brown, who had been with SA since 2009. It was Brown who compiled the “Got to Go” list. As Schneider points out, SA in FG needed to be “turned around” less than two years after it opened. Brown has recently taken a leave of absence.
Her post includes the details of a lawsuit filed by parents of some of the children who were pushed out. Their complaint goes into detail about the strict disciplinary policies at Success Academy schools. They are suing the principal, Success Academy Charter Schools, the city Department of Education, and the New York State Education Department.
This should be interesting.
The New York Times reports today that the charter school principal in New York City who created a list of students who had to be removed from the school (the “got to go” list) has taken a leave of absence.
The school is part of the high-performing Success Academy charter chain, which has often been accused of excluding or removing students who might get low test scores.
The acting principal will be the school’s fourth principal since it opened in 2013.
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