Archives for category: Harlem Success Academy
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Jersey Jazzman to NY Taxpayers: Thank You!

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
24

Jersey Jazzman wrote to thank the taxpayers of New York, whose dollars subsidize his blog via advertising by Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy network (formerly known as Harlem Success Academy).

JJ notes that this charter chain spends millions of dollars each year on recruitment, advertising, public relations, and marketing. This is a necessary business expense to drum up thousands of applications for a small number of seats. The lottery–and the drummed up demand–makes a case that more charters are needed. That seems to be the business plan.

The lottery is a clever marketing tool. It occurs to me that it’s the same marketing approach used by Teach for America. The more applicants they have, the more they can turn down, and the better the brand looks. There is a certain snob appeal to having a few winners and a lot of losers.

Not like those public schools that take any student who walks in off the street.

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

Charters Open Their Own Ed Schools

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2012 //
7

It seems that charter school teachers need a special sort of post-graduate degree. The charters respect the credential enough to want their teachers to have one, but they “can’t wait” for the time it takes to get one from a traditional school of education. Besides, the traditional programs waste time on stuff like sociology and cognitive development, and don’t give enough time to teaching test prep.

In New York City alone, there are now two programs to churn out masters’ degrees for charter teachers. One, called Relay, started at Hunter College when David Steiner was dean (Steiner briefly served as state commissioner of education after starting the program at Hunter for KIPP and other charters). The other is a collaboration between Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies (formerly known as Harlem Success Academies) and Touro College in Manhattan. Both were created specifically for charter teachers and focus more on classroom technique than on theory, history, the foundations of education, cognitive psychology, research, etc. that are typically part of a masters or doctorate in education.

Touro College, Moskowitz’s partner,  has a checkered history. Recently the college was criticized for paying its president nearly $5 million a year, more than the presidents of Harvard or Columbia. Five years ago, the college was accused of selling diplomas, taking money to change grades, and being a diploma mill; some admissions officials were indicted. One college official went to jail for accepting bribes.

Whatever. As online programs proliferate, as authorities allow almost anyone with a shingle to manufacture degrees, we may reasonably expect two results: Diplomas will com to mean nothing at all, since they are so easily obtained from ersatz entities; or discerning employers and institutions will recognize that some diplomas mean nothing at all.

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

How Charters Compete

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2012 //
19

A while back, I read a story in the New York Times that really bothered me.

It explained that neighborhood public schools are now compelled to “market” themselves because of competition with charters. In Harlem, charters are omnipresent, and the city administration has closed many public schools to make way for charters. New York City Department of Education officials make clear their preference for charters, leaving no one to fight for or defend the public schools against their competitors. If charters want public school space, they get it, usually over the opposition of the parents and community.

But what was so striking about the story–and you have to read to the end to find this–was the contrast between the resources of the public school and the invading charter. The public school had $500 or less to market itself, with flyers, brochures, volunteers. The charter–in this case, Harlem Success Academy–spent $325,000.

Wow. How can a public school compete when the charter can expend $325,000 to persuade people to participate in the lottery?

This story made me realize that the lottery isn’t really about admission to the school. The lottery is a marketing device. By whipping up interest, curiosity, and enthusiasm, all that money produces large numbers of applicants for the lottery. The lottery is an extravaganza with balloons, the turning of the wheel, the announcement of the winners, the disappointment of the losers. The daughter of a hedge fund manager in Connecticut, who is deeply involved in the charter school “movement,” produced a documentary called “The Lottery,” to promote charters.

Marketing is part of the business plan. Public relations is part of the business plan. Promoting the idea that charters are a cure for the ills of poverty is part of the business plan. Presenting charters as “the civil right idea” of our time is part of the business plan (a cry echoed by both Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney).

In some cities, the business plan is to replace public education altogether with corporate sponsors.

It’s sad that public schools must waste money and time marketing themselves. They should be devoting themselves completely to their mission, not to competing with the charters.

It’s also sad that the corporate and philanthropic interests that push charters so insistently don’t give a thought to the damage they do to an essential democratic institution.

Diane

Categories Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, Harlem Success Academy, Romney, Mitt
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