Archives for category: Harlem Success Academy
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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

Peter Greene on Eva’s Demand for an Apology

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2015 //
30

I get the impression, reading Peter Greene’s latest post, that he doesn’t think Eva Moskowitz deserves an apology from John Merrow or PBS.

He says she has created an empire of her own, and she can’t brook any criticism.

Success Academy works for some kids, but not for all kids. That is, if you think that the ultimate measure of a school is test scores, she has them. Public schools are supposed to work for all kids. Granted, there are magnet schools and special schools, but there are supposed to be public schools where no one is turned away, no one is counseled out.

Eva says that the little boy–age 5 or 6–was a very bad behavior problem. Peter–and many readers of this blog–think that he couldn’t handle the pressure.

Peter finds documentation for everything John Merrow said about attrition rates.

Moskowitz also demands a retraction for the reporting of a high attrition rate, claiming, “Our attrition rate is actually lower than the average for either district or charter schools.” This is an exceptionally ballsy claim. You can look at these charts from Democracy Builders, a pro-charter group in NYC, showing that for eighty-eight students starting in third grade, Success ends up with thirty-one in eighth grade. In 2014, the Daily News reported that the first graduating class at Harlem Success was just thirty-two of the original seventy-three– and despite their awesome test scores, none of them qualified on the entrance exam for the top high schools in the city.

Maybe those kids were just a bad fit for Eva’s academy.

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

Charter Teacher: Is Eva Fighting Against Inequality?

By dianeravitch
October 18, 2015 //
5

A teacher in a New York City charter school sent me this article.

He said he was fed up with the claim by charter boosters that they are trying to end inequality. Actually, the opposite is true. He also wanted teachers to know about the website where his article appeared: school building.org, because it is written and edited by teachers.

Here is an excerpt from his post:

“According to the New York City Charter School Center, charters serve less than 9% of the 1.1 million children in the New York City school system. Although FES claims that school funding does not affect a school’s efficacy, it seems obvious that Success owes its achievements in part to its incredible wealth. These two organizations command an overwhelming amount of political attention and financial support, all to benefit a very small percentage of the city. Allowing more charters to open may or may not be a good thing, but it’s clear that it will not significantly impact the inequality of New York City schools.

“Now this may all be old news to people who pay attention to this sort of thing. But the first thing that bothers me about this rally is that Success and FES must be well aware that their work will not significantly affect these “two school systems” that they so resoundingly condemn. Even if we let alone the fact that FES has drawn this division in the public schools for a rhetorical purpose and accept their definition of the problem, it’s obvious that charters like Success only introduce a new form of inequality into the system. That the benefactors of this new network are mostly low-income students doesn’t take away from the fact that the organization functions as a separate entity with better access to philanthropy and political protection than the “tunnel to failure” schools. In this sense, charters are actually the cause of a separate and unequal system; the kind of system that this rally is pretending to fight.

“And yet, Success and FES have mobilized teachers and families with false information and an incomplete portrayal of their role in our unequal society. This leaves me with a few questions. What does it mean for a privileged school to use the voices and bodies of their families to push an agenda that contradicts the message that these families have been told they are supporting? What does it mean for a charter school to use disadvantaged families to further expand their privileges? What does it mean for a school to pretend to support equality while it pushes an agenda that only benefits the few?

“(And of course I’m leaving aside a number of very important concerns. The verdict is still out on whether or not the public should support policies to expand charter schools. It’s also not clear that this particular school, Success Academy, really does have great schools by anyone’s standards other than their own. A lot has been written about the school, and the most reliable report from Kate Taylor portrays what many would feel is not a school they would call great. I’m also ignoring the fact that charter schools, whose selection process affects their population, should not be lazily compared with public schools who have no selection process. Or whether it is ethical for a school that receives public funds to close for the day and pay to bus it’s teachers and students to a political rally. These concerns are worthy of deeper investigation, but that must be for another post.)”

Categories Charter Schools, Equity, Harlem Success Academy

Eva’s Charters Refuse to Sign Pre-K Contracts: Public Money with No Public Oversight?

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2015 //
27

Some charter operators claim they are public schools, but refuse to be audited or subject to any public accountability for the public funds they receive. As you might expect, Eva Moskowitz is leading the battle to prevent public oversight as she earlier led the charter battle to prevent public audits.  The legislature passed legislation allowing New York City’s Comptroller to audit NYC charters, and the State Comptroller to audit charters outside of New York City. The legislation blocked State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli from auditing Success Academy, as he had intended. The City Comptroller is now conducting an audit that includes Success Academy charters.

But now Eva is fighting oversight of publicly sponsored pre-K in her charters.

New York City Mayor de Blasio made universal pre-K a major goal of his administration. The city set up nearly 300 new pre-K sites. All but one signed a contract with the city. Guess who that one is.
Eliza Shapiro reports at Politico New York:
“The Success Academy charter school network has refused to sign mandatory contracts granting the city Department of Education oversight over its pre-kindergarten program, deputy mayor Richard Buery said Thursday, signaling the latest showdown between the charter network and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration….

“If Success does not sign the contracts, the city will withhold payment. Success will technically be able to provide its own pre-K programs — just without city funds.

“The charter network, New York City’s largest and most controversial, was approved to offer five pre-K classes in three locations under de Blasio’s universal pre-K program earlier this year. But Success’ legal team has told the city they will not sign the contract, according to city officials, because it would authorize DOE oversight over the privately operated network.

“All the other 277 pre-K providers that have been sent contracts have signed them, according to the administration, including nine charter schools. …The DOE first sent Success its contracts on August 4, according to the letter, and followed up with the network’s legal team on August 27.

“The letter says that the city would be in violation of its city-mandated contracting rules if it did not provide a signed contract for Success, and would violate its state pre-K grant by not inspecting pre-K programs. ”

Oversight, transparency, and accountability are for “the little people,” as billionaire Leina Helmsley once memorably said about paying taxes.

One can’t help but wonder whether the four-year-olds will be suspended as often as the five-year-olds. According to Eva’s philosophy, the sooner litte kids are suspended, the less likely they are to require suspension later. Of course, if they are suspended frequently, they won’t be around later. They will be back in public school. You know, those places that accept all children and that get inspected and audited.

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

Daniel Katz: Eva Moskowitz Is Out of Control

By dianeravitch
October 16, 2015 //
41

Daniel Katz, professor at Seton Hall University and extraordinary blogger, writes here about the charter lobbyists’ unethical use of students, parents, and teachers to advance its political agenda of more funding for privately managed charters. No charter operator in the nation has been more audacious in deploying this tactic than Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy.

On the heels of her big political rally last week, Eva now plans to close all her schools for half a day for yet another one.

Katz believes this is an outrage, and I agree. The rally, like the millions of dollars spent on TV commercials in support of more funding for privatization, is supported by “Families” for Excellent Schools, a front group for hedge fund managers and other billionaires for privatization.

Katz rightly asks, what would happen if Chancellor Farina were to close the public schools for half a day so that one million children and hundreds of thousands–or millions of parents and teachers–could rally to demand that the state fully fund the public schools. One benchmark would be the billions owed to the city schools by the state, in accordance with a court victory (never complied with) called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. A different benchmark would be a demand to have facilities and resources equal to those in Eva’s schools.

Something other than money is at issue. The question is the legality and ethics of using children and teachers as foot-soldiers in Eva’s political campaign for more money, more schools, more power. When is enough enough?

Katz writes:

Fresh off their rally with charter school parents and students on October 7th, “Families” For Excellent Schools has announced that they will hold another rally on Wednesday the 21st of October. This rally, which will be held in Manhattan’s Foley Square, will reportedly feature nearly 1,000 charter school teachers predominantly from Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network. While some teachers from Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and KIPP are expected to be present, Ms. Moskowitz’s workforce will be the primary participants, and the network just so happens to have a scheduled half school day so that teachers can show up to the rally for the purpose of pressuring law makers into allowing more charter schools in the city. Chew on that for a moment: a scheduled half day of school. A political rally. The teachers in attendance.

I don’t know about you, but when my children’s unionized public school teachers take a half day, it is because they are in professional development workshops and related activities. They certainly are not being taken from their schools to a rally organized by a lobbying group funded specifically to increase their influence with lawmakers in City Hall and in Albany….

It would be one thing for “Families” For Excellent Schools to organize political rallies for parents and supporters of charter schools to attend and to use that platform to advocate for more such schools. That is indisputably their right. It becomes much more questionable when those rallies are organized in such a way that Eva Moskowitz closes her schools during multiple rallies, leaving parents with no place to send their children and essentially forcing them to take a day from work to attend so that they and their children add to event’s optics. That is within their rights, but frankly, it is cheap and coercive….

And it is monstrously unethical: our fully public schools would spark legitimate outrage if they organized a school day around sending their employees to a political rally organized by a lobbyist organization. How can it be tolerable for Eva Moskowitz to use her employees, and students, and parents as window dressing for campaigns to funnel more and more public school funding and public school facilities into her organization that she has repeatedly refused to allow “outsiders” to hold her accountable? What Superintendent of schools has such authority?….

Is Eva Moskowitz running a chain of schools or is she running the lobbying arm for her billionaire backers who see the expansion of the charter school sector as a means for profit and as a means to break public sector unions? Public school advocates certainly hold rallies to support public education, but we have to do so on weekends and after school hours for reasons that should similarly prohibit Success Academy and other charter schools from providing school hour props for “Families” For Excellent Schools. Our appallingly lax rules for tax exempt organizations may allow for this, but there is no reason why our charter school authorizing bodies and the legislators who write school law should tolerate this. We need our representatives in Albany to change charter school rules so that orchestrating the participation of students and teachers in obviously political events during what should be school hours is expressly prohibited.

Categories Charter Schools, Funding, Harlem Success Academy, Politics

Charter Magnate Eva Moskowitz Will Not Run for Mayor

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2015 //
66

Eva Moskowitz announced she will not challenge Bill de Blasio in 2017.

Her work in education reform, she says, is too important.

She said humbly,

“I’m doing for education, frankly, what Apple did with computing for the iPhone; what Google is doing with driverless cars,” Moskowitz said.

Categories Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Politics

Stories from Success Academy

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2015 //
27

Over the past several years, I have been contacted several times by current and former Success Academy teachers. I met with each of them. They wanted to tell me what really goes on, and their stories sounded alike. They say the atmosphere for teachers is terrible. Teacher turnover is high. They say the children are subjected to pressures that make some of them crack. They say that children pee in their pants while prepping for the tests and taking the tests. They say the schools keep a supply of clean clothes for these incidents. They say that test prep starts in November and doesn’t let up until the tests are ended. They say that students who can’t keep up are subtly pushed out, for example, calling in their parent day after day until the parent gives up and withdraws the student and returns him/her to public school. Each of them has examples of what most would consider child abuse, all in the name of higher test scores.

Recently I heard something new. I was contacted by someone who works in the Success Academy central office. I won’t give any details, because I agreed to protect his/her identity. I will call this person Ariel, a non-gendered name. Ariel says that teachers cheat. Ariel says that each school has a list of teachers, ranked by their students’ test scores, which is extremely demoralizing. Ariel says the central office is chaotic. No one knows who is responsible for what. Ariel can’t imagine how the chain can expand, as it plans to, because it is not really competent to run the schools it has. Ariel says as the teachers do, that kids who have low scores are quietly pushed out.

Recently, a reader named Benton added to the stock of anecdotes:

Here is a story I have always thought of posting here, but I was too embarrassed. As a former teacher at the DOE, I applied for, and got, a position at the infamous Harlem Success Academy, in the the summer of 2008. I had to start immediately, in August, and three weeks of incoherent PD followed, consisting of 11 hour days. There were a lot of speeches about Eva and her disappointment in the “unattractive photos” of her by critics, “Eva doesn’t believe in unions,” and other Eva-centric PD sessions. The days were so long, it felt like they were using cult-indoctrination tactics. My union-activist father would cringe if he saw me in such a position. One day, Jennie Sedlis was talking about how important the upcoming Presidential election would be for charters. I asked what would happen if Barack Obama were nominated. Jennie drew a big smile and said that in the coming week, Eva and a group were going to Chicago to meet with him. I quit soon after, before school started. I monitored the election carefully, and told several people I couldn’t vote for Obama. (I had been a Hillary supporter, and at that point, she said she was going to dismantle NCLB.) With a heavy heart, I finally did the deed, only because of Sarah Palin. This, from a life-long Democrat. I knew that Obama, like Cuomo and others to follow, had been bought, lock, stock and barrel. At this point, I don’t know if Hillary can get out of it, and I don’t believe Bernie is up to speed on the situation. It’s up to this blog and a turn in the tide.

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

Andrea Gabor: It is Worse than Even Gary Rubinstein Thinks

By dianeravitch
October 8, 2015 //
7

Andrea Gabor, the Michael R. Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College, read Gary Rubinstein’s analysis of the so-so performance of charter schools in New York City and wrote this post about it.

About that stellar performance turned in by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charters, Gabor pointed out that Eva’s schools are known for cherry picking their students:

In this post, I showed how Success Academy schools cherry picks students who are less needy economically and have far fewer special needs students and English Language Learners than nearby public schools.

And she noticed something else: there are public schools that outperform the Success Academy schools, with the same demographics.

But, I also noticed that in Rubinstein’s graph, at least five public schools with comparable economic-need statistics performed as well, if not better, than the Success Academy schools. Several more performed nearly as well, with much higher levels of economic need.

A recent post by charter advocate Richard Whitmire is stunningly in sync with Rubinstein’s analysis. Whitmire concedes that of 6,440 charter schools, only 1,200 hundred are living up to their promise of outperforming public schools–i.e. less than 20 percent. Whitmire’s suggestion is to close 1,000 charter schools immediately. I guess its easy to experiment with other people’s children…

Given the decidedly unmiraculous performance of charter schools overall, and the high performance of many outlier public schools, wouldn’t it be more prudent to focus on learning from the outliers–both publics and a small number of experimental charters–how to improve public schools, rather than jettisoning the public system for a decidedly iffy alternative?

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

Jamaal Bowman: A Better Choice Than “No Excuses”

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2015 //
27

Jamaal Bowman is principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx, a borough of Néw York City. Knowing that Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy was planning a mass rally today, he wrote an article saying that schools need to focus on the whole child not just test scores.

Bowman describes the harsh disciplinary policies at Success Academy schools to the supportive environment at his school. Unlike SA schools, school has very little teacher turnover, very minor student attrition, and low suspension rates.

He writes:

“During a recent conversation with a sixth grader who attends a Success Academy charter school, she referred to her learning environment as “torturous.” “They don’t let us be kids,” she told me, “and they monitor every breath we take.”

Although praised by many for its test scores, the draconian policies at Success are well documented. Students must walk silently in synchronized lines.

In classrooms, boys and girls must sit with their hands folded and feet firmly on the ground, and must raise their hands in a specific way to request a bathroom break.

DE BLASIO SEEKS 80% GRADUATION IN 10-YEAR EDUCATION PLAN

Most disturbingly, during test prep sessions, it has been reported that students have wet their pants because of the high levels of stress, and because, simulating actual test-taking, they’re not permitted to use the restroom except during breaks.

Regarding the praise for Success Academy’s test results, we must be mindful of overstating the quality of an education based on test score evidence alone….

“As reported by Juan Gonzalez in the Daily News, the first Success Academy opened in 2006 with 73 first graders. By 2014, only 32 of the 73 had graduated from the school.

“What happened to most of that student cohort? Did they leave willingly just because their families were moving? Did they leave for other schools because Success Academy wasn’t right for them? Were they pushed out?

“Further, school suspensions and teacher turnover at Success are disproportionately higher than district schools. Said one teacher in a recent New York Times article, “I dreaded going into work.” Another teacher, when requesting to leave work at 4:55 p.m. to tend to her sick and vomiting child, was told, “it’s not 5 o’clock yet.”

At Bowman’s school, 99% of the students are black or Hispanic.

He writes:

“Although 90% of our students enter sixth grade below grade level, we’ve had success on the state standardized tests, ranking number one in New York City in combined math and English Language Arts test growth score average in 2015.

“But testing is not how we measure success.

“Our mission is to create a learning environment anchored in multiple intelligences. Student voice and passion are embedded into the curriculum. In addition to traditional courses like mathematics and humanities, S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art of Architecture, Mathematics), computer science, the arts, leadership and physical education provide a rich and robust learning environment.

“A favorite course of both the staff and students of C.A.S.A. is “Genius Hour.” Borrowing from the 20% time concept of Google, Apple and Facebook, we give students two 60-minute blocks per week to work on “passion projects.” Using design thinking, students explore issues within their community that frustrate them and conduct research into how to create solutions to identified problems.

“Finally, at C.A.S.A., during the 2014-15 school year, only 2.3% of our students received a suspension. Our teacher turnover rate is 1.5% annually. We also have an average of less than a 1% student attrition rate annually over a six-year period.

“Parents and students of Success Academy schools will rally Wednesday against Mayor de Blasio’s agenda of investing in public schools to turn them into community schools and otherwise improve their learning environments. Their goal instead is presumably to turn ever more schools into privately run charter schools — though it’s unlikely Moskowitz would agree to take over any struggling schools if she had to keep the student body intact.

“Our city needs more public schools that serve the whole child without an obsessive focus on tests. Only then will our children truly feel at home. This is a cause worth rallying for.”

Categories Charter Schools, Harlem Success Academy, Joy, New York City, Privatization, Real Education, Supporting public schools

Eva Rallies in My Backyard

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2015 //
56

It is a school day in Néw York City. Across the city, over one million children are in class.

But not the children of Eva’s Success Academies! They (and possibly some allied charters) are holding a mass rally at Cadman Plaza Park in Brooklyn. The park is lined with rented buses. As the children and their parents step off the buses, an adult hands them a hand-lettered sign to carry, demanding more support for charter schools.

There are multiple buses for the recording and video services. This is a well-funded, professionally orchestrated demonstration of support for privatization. If public schools closed for a political rally, their principals would be fired.

The children and parents are all wearing identical red tee-shirts, with the slogan “Dont Steal Possible.” This slogan works nicely in suggesting that someone is trying to close down charter schools, and this imminent threat to their survival must be stopped.

In fact, as is typical with reformer slogans, the opposite is true. Eva and her billionaire hedge fund backers get whatever they want from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature. And they aim to “steal” space and resources from the beleaguered public schools. They merrily “steal possible” from children with disabilities, children who are English language learners, and children who are homeless, none of whom are wanted by Eva’s Success Academies because they might not get high scores.

The theme of the day is “equality for all children.” A large banner across the top of the speakers’ podium says. “We Fight for Equality.” This is ironic since the typical complaint about charter co-locations is that the charters have more resources, the charters get whatever they want, the charters create “separate but equal” schools within the same building.

It is also ironic that children and parents are rallying for “more charters,” because they are already enrolled in a charter. The children can attend only one charter, right? The beneficiaries of the rally are not the children but charter founders. The more charters they open, the more funding they receive.

It is true that Eva’s schools get very high test scores, much higher than other charter schools. If she has the secret sauce of success, why not include all children, not just the chosen ones? Maybe she should take charge of all the city’s 1.1 million students and show what she can do.

If she truly wants “equality for all,” let her bring the hedge fund billionaires and her secret sauce to save all the children. No cherry picking. No skimming. No exclusion of children who have cognitive or emotional disabilities. All means all. Why not find out if she means what she says?

Categories Charter Schools, Harlem Success Academy
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