Archives for category: Harlem Success Academy
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Mercedes Schneider: A Parent at Success Academy Tells All

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2020 //
13

A parent of two children at the Success Academy charter chain in New York City reaches out to Mercedes Schneider in Louisiana to spill the beans about the chain’s efforts to kick her children out.

The teachers and administrators made it clear that her children should find another school, but she stubbornly hung on. They weren’t problem children, but the older child was “average,” and the younger one needed extra attention.

That was enough to cause the chain to try to shed them, but their mother ignored all the efforts to push them out.

When the pandemic struck and school went virtual, SA was no more nimble than the public schools. The mother realized that SA is all about grading students, not teaching them.

Categories Accountability, Harlem Success Academy, Special Education, Testing

Success Academy Spokesperson Resigns to Protest “Racist and Abusive” Practices

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2020 //
29

Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat wrote today that a spokesperson for Success Academy, New Tork City’s largest charter chain, resigned to protest “abusive” practices at the schools.

A spokesperson for New York City’s largest charter network resigned in protest, stating she can no longer defend Success Academy’s “racist and abusive practices” that are “detrimental to the emotional well being” of its students.

“I am resigning because I can no longer continue working for an organization that allows and rewards the systemic abuse of students, parents, and employees,” wrote Liz Baker, a Success spokesperson, in a resignation letter Tuesday.

“As the organization’s press associate, I no longer wish to defend Success Academy in response to any media inquiries,” she continued in the letter, which was obtained by Chalkbeat. “I do not believe that Success Academy has scholars’ best interests at heart, and I strongly believe that attending any Success Academy school is detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children.”

The stunning resignation letter comes as the network has been besieged by complaints from employees, parents, and students about a culture that some argue is racist. Baker, who has worked at Success for about a year and four months, is one of the network’s most visible employees and was responsible for responding to reporters’ questions about the network.

Categories Accountability, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Racism

Gary Rubinstein on Citizen Stewart and Eva Moskowitz

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2020 //
14

Gary Rubinstein writes here about podcasts in which Chris Stewart of Education Post interviews Robert Pondiscio and Eva Moskowitz.

Gary has made a practice of scrutinizing the data that is available from the Success Academy charter chain, noting the high attrition rate from those who enter in the early grades to those who remain to graduate high school. There is attrition even in the final year of high school, which is somewhat surprising. Perhaps even more surprising is the imbalance among the graduates based on gender: there are far more females than males. What happened to the boys?

Categories Data, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Harlem Success Academy

A Response to Diana Senechal Regarding Robert Pondiscio

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2020 //
33

Alex Zimmerman wrote an article about Black teachers at Success Academy charter schools questioning what some regarded as racist treatment of children and parents at the charters. After reviewing their complaints, Zimmerman asked Robert Pondiscio his view of the controversy. Pondiscio wrote a book about the chain after spending a year observing it.You can read the article here. I summarized the article here.

Robert Pondiscio took to Twitter to denounce me as “shameful” for not making clear that he found the practices described in the article to be “repellent.” But he didn’t say that to Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat. I responded on Twitter, inviting Robert to write a post on my blog. He did not answer.

I heard today from Diana Senechal, who brilliantly edited my book “The Death and Life of the Great American School system: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” Robert Pondiscio was an early reader of the book, and I think I introduced them. She wrote a comment today that defended Robert at length.

It was nice to hear from Diana, but still no word from Robert himself.

You can find Diana’s long commentary in the responses to the article.

I wonder why Robert doesn’t write me directly, offline or offline. If I got anything wrong, I would quickly correct it. I once again extend an invitation to Robert Pondiscio to write a post here about the disciplinary policies at Success Academy charter schools and the reactions to them by Black teachers. Are they “repellent” or are they a necessary element in producing high test scores? Or neither?

Here is my response to Diana Senechal.

Diana,

I was not writing a review of Robert Pondiscio’s book. I was writing about an article in Chalkbeat whose main point was that Black teachers and other staff were complaining about racism at Success Academy charters. Their complaints began because Eva Moskowitz was silent for four days after the murder of George Floyd. Her prolonged silence prompted them to complain about other practices at Success Academy that they consider racist, such as calling 911 when children behave badly or monitoring black hair styles or suspending disproportionate numbers of black boys or young white teachers hectoring Black parents.

Chalkbeat contacted Pondiscio to ask him about the complaints of racism. His response was:

“There is no doubt in my mind that there is a significant appetite among low-income parents for exactly the flavor of education that Eva Moskowitz offers,” said Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the conservative-learning Fordham Institute who spent a year observing a Success elementary school in the South Bronx and wrote a book about it. “It just does violence to reality to pretend that this is some kind of pedagogy that’s being imposed on families of color.”

“At the same time, he isn’t surprised that some employees may be increasingly uncomfortable with the responsibility of enforcing strict behavior expectations on students of color, even if they are designed to foster student achievement.

“A lot of those techniques — rightly or wrongly — may feel oppressive to a new generation of young people, and I think that’s a vulnerability for high-performing charter schools,” Pondiscio said.”

I wish he had said that it is wrong to call 911 (the cops) when a child acts out. I wish he had said that it is wrong to punish children for their hair style. I wish he had said it is wrong to suspend disproportionate numbers of Black boys as a disciplinary tool. But he didn’t. His response was an “eye of the beholder” defense of these racist tactics.

Furthermore, instead of writing to me directly—he has my personal email, as do you—he went to Twitter to denounce me as shameful. I twice invited him on Twitter to write for this blog to clarify any misunderstanding, and he did not answer or accept my invitation.

Did he ask you to defend him?

Why doesn’t he come out himself and say he deplores the disparate and harsh treatment of Black boys in Eva Moskowitz’s charter schools? If it’s repellent to him, as he claimed on Twitter, why doesn’t he say so to Chalkbeat or here?

The Black teachers at the SA chain risked their jobs by speaking out against racist treatment of Black children and their parents. Why doesn’t he speak out too? He has nothing to lose.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Harlem Success Academy, Racism

Staff at Success Academy Complain about Eva Moskowitz’s Insensitivity to Racism

By dianeravitch
June 18, 2020 //
76

A teacher at the acclaimed Success Academy charter chain in New York City publicly complained about Eva Moskowitz’s silence after the murder of George Floyd.

Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat reported:

Four days after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, a Brooklyn Success Academy teacher emailed her network’s CEO, one of the nation’s most prominent charter school leaders, asking why she hadn’t said anything publicly.

“I am deeply hurt and shocked by your lack of words on the topic that affects so many of your employees, children and families in communities that you serve,” first-year Success Academy Flatbush teacher Fabiola St Hilaire wrote to Eva Moskowitz. “All of your black employees are paying attention to your silence.”

Moskowitz responded about an hour later, thanking St Hilaire for reaching out but also brushing her aside. “I actually opined on this subject early this am. Please take a look,” Moskowitz wrote, referring to a tweet sent the same morning. “I hope you can understand that running remote learning in the middle of a world economic shutdown has kept me focused on [Success Academy’s] immediate needs.”

Upset by the response, St Hilaire posted the email exchange on social media, thrusting New York City’s largest charter network into a wider debate about institutional racism. Some current and former employees were angry that Moskowitz seemed to dismiss the concerns of an educator of color as well as the broader movement to reckon with structural racism in the aftermath of Floyd’s killing.

Eva Moskowitz quickly backtracked when she saw the reaction among her staff to her silence and her brusque dismissal of St Hilaire’s criticism. Moskowitz was interviewed by Donald Trump as a contender for his Secretary of Education. She supported his selection of Betsy DeVos.

The exchange between Moskowitz and a first-year teacher set off a debate about institutional racism in Success Academy and its harsh no-excuses methods. Those draconian disciplinary methods were defended by Robert Pondiscio of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, who is white, and by Moskowitz, who is also white. Black children need harsh discipline, they argued.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Discipline, Harlem Success Academy, Racism

Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy Guilty of Violating State Student Privacy Law

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2020 //
30

Here is a surprising combination. State officials today announced that Eva Moskowitz and her charter chain were guilty of violating the state privacy law regarding a student with special needs.

Tomorrow, Eva will participate in a panel about meeting the social and emotional needs of students.

Today:

On Thu, May 14, 2020, 10:41 AM Leonie Haimson wrote:
For immediate release: May 14, 2020
More information: Fatima Geidi, fatimageidi@gmail.com (646) 281-0449
Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329

Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy found guilty of violating NY State student privacy Law

The Chief Privacy Officer of the NY State Education Department issued a ruling on Tuesday May 12 that Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy had violated Education Law 2d, the state student privacy law, that prohibits the disclosure of personal student information without parental consent except under specific conditions required to provide a student’s education.

In 2015 and thereafter, Success Academy officials published exaggerated details from the education records of Fatima Geidi’s son when he was attending Upper West Success Academy, and shared them with reporters nationwide. They did this under Eva Moskowitz’ direction to retaliate against Ms. Geidi and her son, when they were interviewed on the PBS News Hour in 2015, about his repeated suspensions and the abusive treatment he suffered at the hands of school staff from first through third grade.

Ms. Geidi filed a student privacy complaint to the State Education Department in June of last year. In response to her complaint, Success Academy attorneys made a number of claims, including that the statute of limitations had lapsed, that charter schools were not subject to Education Law 2D, and that school officials have a First Amendment right to speak out about her child’s behavior. All those claims were dismissed in the decision released yesterday by the NYSED Chief Privacy Officer, Temitope Akinyemi.

The State Education Department has now ordered Success Academy to take a number of affirmative steps, including that administrators, staff and teachers must receive annual training in data privacy, security and the federal and state laws on student privacy, that they must develop a data privacy and security policy to be submitted to the State Education Department no later than July 1, 2020, and that after that policy is approved, it must be posted on the charter school’s website and notice be provided to all officers and employees.

As Fatima Geidi said, “I am happy that my son’s rights to privacy and hopefully all students at Success Academy from now on will be protected, and that Eva Moskowitz will be forced to stop using threats of disclosure as a weapon against any parent who dares speak out about the ways in which their children have been abused by her schools. However, I am disappointed that the Chief Privacy Officer did not order Ms. Moskowitz to take out the section of her memoirs, The Education of Eva Moskowitz, that allegedly describes the behavior of my son. I plan to ask my attorney to send a letter to Harper Collins, the book’s publishers, demanding that they delete that section of the book both because it contains lies and has now been found to violate both state and federal privacy law. If they refuse, we will then go to the Attorney General’s office for relief.”

Last year, the US Department of Education also found Ms. Moskowitz and Success Academy guilty of violating FERPA, the federal student privacy law. The official FERPA findings letter to Ms. Moskowitz is here. Yet Ms. Moskowitz launched an appeal of that ruling on similar First Amendment grounds, with the help of Jay Lefkowitz of Kirkland and Ellis to represent her in the appeal. Lefkowitz is the same attorney who negotiated a reduced sentence for Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious child sex abuser, in a controversial plea deal in Palm Beach County in 2007. Though Ms. Geidi has repeatedly asked the U.S. Department of Education about the outcome of this appeal, she has heard nothing in response.

As Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, pointed out: “Fatima’s son is not the only child whose privacy has been violated by Success Academy. Last year, Success shared details from the private education files of Lisa Vasquez’ daughter with reporters from Chalkbeat without her consent, after Ms. Vasquez spoke about how her daughter had been unfairly treated at Success Academy Prospect Heights. The SUNY Charter Institute also noted unspecified violations of FERPA by SAC Cobble Hill, SAC Crown Heights, SAC Fort Greene, SAC Harlem 2, and SAC Harlem 5 during site visits, noted in their Renewal reports. The time for Eva Moskowitz to comply with the law and stop violating the privacy of innocent children whose parents dare to reveal her schools’ cruel policies has long passed.”

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As for tomorrow’s panel, here it is:

WEBINAR Tomorrow! Social & emotional supports for students during Covid19

REGISTER https://mailchi.mp/fordhaminstitute.org/webinar-may-15th-social-emotional-supports-for-students-during-covid-381810?e=87fac149e2

With the coronavirus outbreak disrupting nearly every aspect of our work and learning, educators nationwide have been scrambling to provide remote instruction to their students. But what are they and their schools doing to provide children with social and emotional supports during this tough time? And how do their strategies compare across the private, charter, and traditional public school sectors?

In partnership with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), we will hold a moderated conversation with three outstanding school leaders, all of whom are working hard to attend to their pupils’ (and staff’s) social and emotional needs, while keeping academics moving forward.

Featured Speakers

Michael J. Petrilli, President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute (moderator)

Juan Cabrera, Superintendent, El Paso ISD, Texas

Eva Moskowitz, CEO, Success Academy Schools

Kathleen Porter-Magee, Superintendent, Partnership for Inner-City Education

Schedule

1:00 p.m.: Introduction to CASEL CARES

1:05 p.m.: Introductory remarks by Michael Petrilli

1:10 p.m.: Moderator Q & A (45 minutes)*

1:55 p.m.: Closing remarks Michael Petrilli and sign off by CASEL

Categories Harlem Success Academy, Privacy, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Special Education

Mercedes Schneider: Success Academy Is Hiring! But Don’t Bother Unpacking.

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2020 //
9

Only days ago, Mercedes Schneider wrote about major layoffs at Success Academy, which seemed to be belt-tightening.

But the belt will not actually be tightened because Success Academy is now hiring 1,000 new staff.

What’s the story with the revolving door?

Schneider looks at Glassdoor reviews, where employees write anonymously about their workplace.

SA burns through employees at a rapid clip. Turnover is high. The demands are so intense on students and staff that the staff churns and lagging students leave.

Schneider concludes that if you are one of the new hires, keep your bags packed.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, Teachers

John Ewing: We Should Listen to the Real Education Experts: Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2020 //
34

John Ewing, a mathematician and president of Math for America, wrote in Forbes about a conference he recently attended about education. He noticed that none of the experts at the conference were teachers. When he asked the conference leader, his question was dismissed.

He remembered that Mike Rose had done a check of articles in the “New Yorker.” Most of the articles about medicine were written by doctors. None of the articles about education were.

Ewing maintains that teachers should make major policy decisions, not politicians. I say, “Hurray for John Ewing!” (By the way, he wrote one of the best takedown of value-added assessment of teachers published anywhere, in 2011, called “Mathematical Intimidation: Driven by the Data.”)

Ewing writes:

Teachers are the ones who drive reform forward, not policy makers. Should teachers weigh in on issues that affect their students? It seems absurd to even ask such a question. Good teachers know their students best. When we ignore this, we make colossal mistakes, like creating bizarre testing regimes or proposing misaligned curricula.

Education suffers when we don’t value teacher expertise, but the worst consequence is something more lasting: The teaching profession becomes less attractive. The best eventually leave, fewer of the best enter, and over time teacher expertise declines, creating a downward spiral.

Yes, I know, not every teacher is an accomplished expert, just as not every doctor is. But many are, and they are the ones we need most. Instead, they leave. Worse, they tell brilliant young people who think about teaching as a career: “You can do better.” A 2019 PDK survey asked teachers whether they would advise their own children to follow in their footsteps; less than half (45 percent) said they would.

The week of May 4 is Teacher Appreciation Week in the United States. This year, instead of giving teachers a plant or a letter or a video (all suggestions from the internet), why not give them something they can use? Give them respect—the kind that recognizes their expertise. Otherwise, we might all soon be asking … “Where are the teachers?”

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Harlem Success Academy

Gary Rubinstein: What Percent of Success Academy’s Students Graduated?

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2020 //
3

Gary Rubinstein saw an article in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post claiming that 100% of the 98 students in the graduating class of Success Academy’s high school had been accepted into college.

Based on Success Academy’s long history of high attrition, he knew this claim was likely false.

So he checked and his hunch was right.

He asked:

Is 98 really all the students in the class of 2020?

The answer, of course is, ‘no.’ What the actual number is depends on how you define the class of 2020.

If you go back to a New York Post editorial from just six months ago, it begins with the sentence “Seniors at the Success Academy HS of the Liberal Arts just got their SAT scores — and all 114 did great, with an average score of 1268, 200 points above the national average.” So six months ago there were 114 seniors, which is 16 more than the 98 that are now called the ‘entire’ senior class. For Success Academy to lose roughly one-seventh of the students who were in the senior class just six months ago is stunning. These 16 students had been at the school since at least 3rd grade. Where did those 16 students go?

But if you look further back to the state data, you will find that the class of 2020 had 146 eleventh graders for the 2018-2019 school year. This means that they lost about 1/3 of the class of 2020 between then and now….

If you go back two more years to see where the class of 2020 was when they were in 9th grade you find that there were 191 students in the cohort back then. Also notice that when they were in 9th grade the boy/girl split of the 191 was about 50%/50% while when they were in 11th grade the boy/girl split of the 146 was 44%/56% in favor of the girls. We will have to wait until the official data comes out next year to see what the split was for the ‘entire’ 98 who graduated.

Rubinstein looks at the numbers all the way back to kindergarten and finds that only 28% of those who started Eva Moskowitz’s celebrated Success Academy made it to high school graduation. Way different than 100%.

Another great “success” for skimming, exclusion, and attrition.

Another landmark in the history of charter hype.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, Harlem Success Academy, High School Graduation, Privatization

NYC: Success Academy Lays Off Employees, Fires Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2020 //
28

Alex Zimmerman of Chalkbeat reports that Success Academy is laying off employees and firing teachers. The layoffs, about 4% of “non-core” employees, were laid because of the financial crunch caused by the pandemic. The teachers were fired, the chain said, because of their performance.

SA has a board of billionaires and millionaires and is known for its lavish spending on test prep rallies (“Slam the Exam”) in expensive facilities like the Barkley Center in Brooklyn and its graduation ceremony at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It regularly holds plush dinners where hedge fund managers and other moguls announce multimillion-dollar gifts.

One network employee who was laid off and spoke on condition of anonymity said employees were not offered severance, though healthcare benefits would extend into the summer.

“Success Academy is an incredibly well-resourced organization,” the staffer said. “For them to offer no financial assistance for laid off employees in these economic conditions speaks to what the executive office values, which is certainly not its employees.”

Success officials did not immediately respond to a question about severance packages.

One former Success official said the staff cuts could foreshadow staffing shifts in the rest of the city’s charter school landscape.

“I think Success does do a really good job of seeing around the corner,” said the official who still works in the charter sector and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Are they reading the moment a little bit more in advance and some of the difficulties that are coming down the line for the whole sector?”

Success, for instance, was the city’s first big charter network to announce its move to remote learning, making the call two days before the de Blasio administration closed the city’s district schools. The organization has also launched a more regimented approach to remote learning, with caregivers asked to help monitor hours of daily instruction even among the network’s youngest students.

The move to reduce staff is likely to raise eyebrows, as the network has a reputation for spending lavishly on everything from advertising and rallies to executive compensation. Moskowitz earns roughly $890,000 a year, according to the organization’s most recent tax filing.

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Harlem Success Academy
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