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New York State: Success Academy Charters and NYC Department of Ed. Violate Civil Rights of Kids with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2019 //
10

An investigation by the New York State Education Department faulted Success Academy Charter Chain and the New York City Department of Education for violating the civil rights of students with disabilities. 

Success Academy charter schools and the New York City education department have violated the civil rights of students with special needs, an investigation by state officials found.

The charter network failed to provide required services to students, changed the special education placement of children without giving parents the opportunity for input, and refused to follow orders issued at special education administrative hearings, according to the state.

Investigators also fault the city education department for failing to provide parents with legally required notices regarding changes to their child’s Special Education Program, or IEP, and for not ensuring that the charter network complied with hearing orders.

Both the city and Success Academy will be required to implement a list of reforms that will be monitored by the state, according to a decision reached earlier this month by New York’s Office of Special Education.

Success Academy spokeswoman Ann Powell pushed back against the report, saying the network doesn’t agree with all the conclusions and has been in “active discussions” with state leaders about their concerns. Powell attributed most of the findings to a need for better documentation, “not about any failure in providing services to children.”

The state investigation was prompted by a complaint filed in November by the advocacy group Advocates for Children and a private law firm.

“This decision makes clear that students do not give up their civil rights when they enter a charter school, and parents do not give up their voice in their children’s education,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, said in an emailed statement.

The findings heap fresh scrutiny on the city’s largest charter network, which has previously been accused of denying services to students with disabilities — and on the city education department, which came under fire this week for shortcomings in how children with special needs are supported.

At the four schools covered in the investigation, the state’s Office of Special Education found that Success Academy did not provide required special education classes, small group instruction, or testing accommodations. The network also failed to follow the proper procedure for changing the services provided to children with disabilities by not holding required meetings with families, among other issues, and did not follow “pendency orders,” which require schools to maintain accommodations in cases where parents have appealed changes to their children’s education plans.

Categories Civil Rights, Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Special Education

New York City: Why the Renewal Schools Program Failed

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2019 //
6

Leonie Haimson explains in this testimony why NYC’s Renewal Schools Program failed, after spending nearly $800 million. The one Reform it refused to make in the city’s lowest performing schools was to reduce class size. And that, she believes, was a fatal flaw.

 

This testimony was made almost a year ago.

 

in case the formatting doesn’t make sense, here is the link:

Testimony on the DOE’s failure to reduce class size at Renewal schools as promised

 

Testimony of Leonie Haimson before the NYC Council Education Committee on the Renewal School Program
February 27, 2018

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Leonie Haimson, and I’m the Executive Director of Class Size Matters, a citywide advocacy group devoted to providing information on the benefits of small class size to parents in New York City and across the country.

The Department of Education refers to the Renewal Program as a “call to action.”

Action is indeed desperately needed to improve New York City’s struggling schools, but the Renewal Program by and large has been a disappointment. An analysis by Aaron Pallas of Columbia University shows that Renewal Schools have not performed better than comparable non-Renewal Schools.

Why is the Renewal program not living up to expectations? Why are many of these schools not exhibiting the improvements we need?

Reducing class size is the education intervention most strongly supported by rigorous evidence and has been shown to be particularly effective for students with disadvantaged backgrounds.3 Since 2007, DOE has made special promises to the state to reduce class size in its lowest-performing schools, as part of its Contract for Excellence obligations. For the first seven years or so, this involved a list of 75 low- performing schools with especially large class sizes. Yet many of these schools never lowered class size to acceptable levels, and many are now closed.

Others have continued to struggle. Promises have been repeatedly made to these children, to parents, and to the state that were repeatedly broken. Starting in 2014, DOE has promised to focus its class size reduction efforts more specifically at the Renewal schools.

1 Quoted from http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/RenewalSchools/default

2 Pallas’ research is discussed here: https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/09/18/in-year-three-of-new-york-citys-
massive-school-turnaround-program-the-big-question-is-whats-next/

3 Institute of Education Science, Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence: A User Friendly Guide, 2003.

See also research studies at https://www.classsizematters.org/research-and- links/ and fact sheets at https://www.classsizematters.org/fact-sheets-on-the-benefits-of-class-size/

1

“To better align with the Chancellor’s priorities, C4E’s class size reduction plan will now focus on the 94 schools in the School Renewal Program.”4

This hasn’t happened either.

According to our analysis, in nearly half (or 42 percent) of Renewal Schools, there was no reduction in average class size from November 2014 to November 2017.5 Of the schools that did not reduce class size, the average increase in class size was more than two students per class, with some schools increasing class sizes by significantly more than that.6

Even among those schools which did lower class sizes, 18 percent did so by less than one student per class on average. Not one of the Renewal schools this fall capped class size at the levels in the city’s original C4E plan, that is, 20 students per class in grades K-3, 23 students in 4th-8th grades and 25 students per class in high school. Worse yet, in 73 percent of the Renewal schools, there were maximum class sizes of 30 or more.

The turnover in teaching staff has not helped either. In October of 2017, the DOE announced that at two of the Renewal Schools, Flushing High School and DeWitt Clinton High School, all teachers would have to reapply for their jobs.

That both schools are still struggling is not surprising, given that the previous year, these schools had the highest and third highest class sizes of any in the Renewal program, with classes as large as 43 students per class in science, and 39 in English respectively, according to DOE data.

Hiring inexperienced teachers and large classes are a surefire way to undermine a school’s progress and this policy reveals a profound lack of vision on behalf of this administration.

DOE had promised the state since at least 2013 to reduce class size in at least one of the Renewal schools currently planned for closure, PS 50 Vito Marcantonio in District 4, according to the city’s
4NYC DOE Assessment 2014-2015 Contracts for Excellence Public Comment, December 30, 2014, p. 4
at: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/AF304521-9C1E-4EA6-B694-5F9CC80487E9/175614/C4EP ublicCommentAssessment20142015FINAL.pdf

This statement is repeated in every DOE proposed C4E plan since then, as posted and archived here: http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/funding/c4e/default.htm

The November 2014 and November 2017 Preliminary Class Size Reports are used for the data discussed in this testimony, reflecting class sizes as of Oct. 31 of each year. We do not use the Feb. reports, reflecting class sizes as of Jan. 31, since many students have been discharged or dropped out of school by that date, especially in high school. The Nov. 2014 report is posted here:

http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/classsize/classsize_2014_11_14.htm We archived the Nov. 2017 class size data, reflecting class sizes as of Oct. 31, 201 though the DOE has now deleted that data from its website and improperly substituted Feb. 2018 data.

For example, at the Leaders of Tomorrow, a Bronx middle school in District 11, which resulted from a merger of two struggling schools in Sept. 2016, the average class size increased from 21.1 in that year to 27.9 this fall.
The November 2016 Preliminary Class Size Report is archived at
http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/classsize/classsize_2016_11_15.htm

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/10/19/the-entire-staffs-at-two-troubled-new-york-city-high-schools- must-reapply-for-their-jobs/

These data from the November 2016 Preliminary Class Size Report.

Contract for Excellence plan.

Yet the DOE never followed through. Instead, this fall, class sizes at PS 50 are 28 in 1st grade and 30 in 2nd grade, which are far too large, especially for a struggling school that has 32 percent of its students with disabilities, and an 89 percent economic need index.

In contrast, another Renewal school, PS 15 Roberto Clemente in District 1, has seen great strides and has moved off the Renewal list. This school, which the New York Times called the Renewal program’s “best performer,” reduced class sizes from an average of 18.3 students per class in November 2014 to 15.7 in November 2017, with most classes far below 20 students this fall.11 According to the DOE’s performance dashboard, PS 15 also demonstrated the second highest positive impact of any public elementary school in New York City in terms of achievement, when adjusted for the need level of its students.

Our analysis of Renewal school data reveals a significant correlation between each school’s positive impact as measured by the DOE’s Performance Dashboard and its average class size, at -.33, meaning the smaller the class size, the larger the school’s positive effect on achievement, adjusted for the need level of its student body.

The Renewal Program has come at substantial cost. In 2016-2017, per-student expenditures at these schools were twice that of New York City’s most elite public schools, such as Brooklyn Tech and Stuvesant.14 Yet much of the money spent on the program has been wasted. According to an investigation by the New York Post, millions have been spent on “instructional coaches” and “leadership coaches” making up to $1400 dollars a day.15 Many of these consultants already earn hefty six-figure pensions, and some of them, including former principals, have a history of scandal or poor performance.

The New York Times estimates that the four-year cost of the program at the end of this academic year will be $582 million.17 Yet for the same amount, or $144 million dollars a year, the city could have hired roughly 1,450 teachers (at $100,000 dollars each), an average of more than 15 additional teachers per school to reduce class size. Simply hiring more teachers would have provided students at these schools a
9 http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/funding/c4e/ClassSizeReduction2013-14 10 This data from the DOE’s performance dashboard for PS 50 here:

https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/#dbn=04M050&report_type=EMS&view=City

See https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/nyregion/new-york-city-schools-test-scores.html

https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/#dbn=01M015&report_type=EMS&view=City

See appendix for details. The average class size in November 2016 of schools leaving the Renewal Program to become Rise Schools was 21.5, compared to 22.8 for Renewal Schools that will remain in the program, close, or be consolidated.

https://nypost.com/2017/03/05/citys-renewal-program-costs-big-bucks-but-shows-few-results/
https://nypost.com/2017/03/05/citys-renewal-program-costs-big-bucks-but-shows-few-results/
https://nypost.com/2017/03/07/de-blasios-questionable-school-consultants-cost-taxpayers-millions/ 17 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/nyregion/renewal-schools-program-progress.html

a far better chance to succeed. Instead, by closing these schools, many capable teachers will be put on the Absent Teacher Reserve, used as substitutes or roving teachers, and never assigned to a permanent class and thus available to reduce class size.

One more point: among the schools that the DOE has now proposed closing is one that is not on the Renewal list: PS 25 Eubie Blake in Brooklyn. According to the DOE’s own analysis on its School Performance Dashboard, PS 25 is the second best elementary school in Brooklyn and the fourth best public elementary school in the entire city, when the need level of its students is taken into account.

The school recently was named a Reward School by the state.19 PS 25 also outperforms every charter school in terms of its positive impact on learning — except for Success Academy Bronx 2. If it closes, the entire building will be left to Success Bed Stuy 3, which is now co-located with PS 25.

Last year, PS 25 enrolled a large percentage (31 percent) of students w/ IEPs, 10 percent with serious disabilities in self-contained classes, and its students had a high economic need index (85 percent). And yet this school has improved sharply on the state exams in recent years — to levels substantially above the city average.

Last year, the school outperformed other elementary schools with similar populations in their proficiency on the state exams by an astonishing 21 percent in ELA and Math. Its students with IEPs in inclusion or general ed classes outperformed similar students by 47 percent in ELA and 20 percent in math. PS 25 students in self-contained classes outperformed similar students by an astonishing 53 percent and 51 percent respectively.

So why does the Chancellor want to close PS 25, given this stellar record of achievement? The DOE’s Educational Impact Statement says the school is being closed “based on low enrollment and lack of demand from students and family.”20 According to the EIS, PS 125 is serving only 94 students this year.

Yet many of the public schools in District 16 have lost enrollment, in part because of the super- saturation of charter schools in the district. Moreover, families in these neighborhoods are unaware that according to the DOE’s analysis, the school is the second best in Brooklyn in terms of its positive impact on student achievement, and the fourth best in the entire city; if they knew this, they would likely flock to enroll their children in the school. The Chancellor could also put another preK in the school or place a 3K in the building if she wanted its enrollment to grow.

https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/#dbn=16K025&report_type=EMS&view=City The only three public elementary schools which have a greater positive impact on student achievement, out of 661 elementary schools citywide, according to the DOE, are the Walton Ave. school in the Bronx, PS 15 in Manhattan and PS 172 in District 15. One can see the impacts of all NYC schools on this spreadsheet:

https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/data/dashboard/impact_performance.xlsx

http://www.nysed.gov/news/2018/commissioner-identifies-155-high-achieving-and-high-progress-schools- reward-schools

20 http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/AE8473F1-3A8B-4C65-9F8F- 3C63C9DA32C9/220056/EISPS25closure_vFinal.pdf

The fact that the school is under-enrolled is also likely one of the reasons it has succeeded so brilliantly, with exceptionally small class sizes that range from 10 to 18 students per class — the sort of class sizes and close instructional support that all high-need kids in poverty should receive. Yet the DOE has repeatedly refused to align its school capacity formula with smaller classes, despite the strong recommendations of the Blue Book Working Group, composed of teachers, DOE officials and parent leaders.

Closing a public school which has provided its students with such a rare opportunity to succeed would be a travesty in my view. The DOE should be celebrating, emulating and expanding this school rather than closing it. Closing any of the Renewal schools without first giving them a real chance to succeed by reducing their class sizes is also unfair and fundamentally destructive, to both its students and teachers. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Appendix
Table 1- Correlation Between Renewal Schools’ Average Class Sizes and School Impact
** Correlation is Significant at the .01 Level (1-tailed)
Data Sources:
November 2016 Class Size Data http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/classsize/classsize_2016_11_15.htm February 2016 Class Size Data http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/schools/data/classsize/classsize_2017_2_15.htm DOE Dashboard with School Impact Data https://tools.nycenet.edu/dashboard/
2016-2017 Renewal Schools http://teachnyc.net/assets/RenewalDirectory201617.pdf
21 See articles in Chalkbeat: https://ny.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/07/28/city-to-tweak-how-it-calculates-school- space-needs/#.VbjIDIH3arU ; WNYC/Schoolbook: https://www.wnyc.org/story/city-make-changes-how-it- accounts-space-schools/ ; and DNAinfo: https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150729/sunset-park/de-blasio-not- doing-enough-fix-school-overcrowding-critics-say
Class Size Data N
Pearson Correlation (R
Value) P Value
November 2016 Class
Size 85
-0.326** 0.002
February 2017 Class Size 85 -0.314** 0.003

Categories Class size, New York City

How Did a High School in NYC Fall from “Outstanding” to “Failing” In 12 Years?

By dianeravitch
February 8, 2019 //
19

 

 

Andrea Dupre taught at Murray Bergtraum High School in Manhattan. It was one of the best high schools in the nation in 1999. By 2011, it was a “failing” school.

She explains here what happened.

Another version:

https://outline.com/sY3mnH

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Education Reform, New York City

Advice to the New York State Legislature About Mayoral Control of the City’s Schools

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2019 //
11

The Legislature is preparing to renew and extend mayoral control of the New York City public schools. Before it does so, it should consider some important and necessary changes.

I have studied the governance of the New York City Public Schools for many years. My first book, published in 1974, was a history of the city’s schools. (The Great School Wars.)

I support mayoral appointment of board members with checks and balances. At present, there are no checks or balances, and no meaningful role whatever for parents and communities.

For most of the 20th century, the mayor appointed the board members. The board selected the Superintendent of Schools, who reported to the board. To prevent the Mayor from filling the board with cronies, the candidates for the central board were vetted by a screening committee comprised of leaders from recognized civic groups. The Mayor made sure to have a balance of appointees from different boroughs who reflected the people of the city.

Every district had a functioning local board to respond to parent concerns. The local boards were representative of their districts and were usually appointed by the Central Board after consultation with local leaders.

Today, the New York City Board of Education lacks any checks or balances. It has been reduced to a city agency, completely subservient to the will of the Mayor. The Mayor, not the central board, selects the “chancellor.” The chancellor serves at the pleasure of the Mayor, not the central board. The central board does whatever the Mayor tells them to do. He can fire them if they don’t follow his orders. Local school councils are powerless and ignored.

As the Legislature reviews the renewal of mayoral control, I hope it will restore checks and balances.

The so-called “panel on educational policy,” which doesn’t even exist as such in the law, should be restored as the Board of Education of the City of New York. Its members should be selected by the Mayor from a list of people reviewed by an independent panel of civic leaders.

The Board, not the Mayor, should appoint the Superintendent of Schools, who should be an educator, not a business person. The Superintendent should serve at the pleasure of the Board, not the Mayor.

Public policy over the schools should be reviewed and vetted in public, not behind closed doors in City Hall.

The Mayor should retain his control of the overall budget, which is vast power, but the details should be left to the Board and the Superintendent.

Local boards in every district should be appointed by local leaders, with the approval of the Central Board. Elections of local boards have been tried but failed to garner a decent turnout and are easily captured by politicians and special interests

There is no perfect way to organize a system that enrolls over one million children. Every organization has faults. But the least perfect way is to turn the school system over to the Mayor, with zero checks or balances, and no input whatever from parents or communities. The Mayor should not be a dictator of education policy, free to do whatever pleases him.

Autocracy is wrong. The Mayor is not an educational expert. It is his or her responsibility to make sure that the members of the board are people of great integrity and that the budget is adequate to the needs of the children.

But the Board should not be his solely owned property, to do with as he wishes. The Board should choose its executive and that executive should answer to the Board, not the Mayor.

Yes, renew Mayoral Control, but renew Democracy too.

Diane Ravitch

Categories Democracy, New York City

New York City: School Committee Asks for Charter Moratorium

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2019 //
11

This letter was sent by the secretary and chair of the charter committee of the Community Education Council of District 15 in Brooklyn.


Dear Community Leaders,

My name is Antonia Ferraro. I am the Secretary and Charter Committee Chair for CEC15 in Brooklyn. I am writing to share some news with you. Community Education Council District 15 in Brooklyn (CEC15) has written a draft of a resolution: Resolution to Oppose an Increase in the State Charter School Cap and City Charter School Subcap. The draft is attached below. CEC15 will have its final public vote on Jan. 29, 2019 at 6:30 pm at PS 131, located at 4305 Fort Hamilton Parkway in Brooklyn. The resolution has been released for a period of public comment.

We hope that you will share this draft with your community and consider writing in support of our resolution.

Attached also is a hearing notice for Success Academy. They are not asking for space at this time, rather the authorization to serve more students. The hearing is this Wednesday, January 16, 2019, at 5:30 pm. Consider voicing your opposition by attending the hearing or writing to the address listed in the hearing notice.

Charter expansion is why our resolution is so crucial. New York City has 39% of the state’s students and houses 71% of the state’s Charter schools. Given this imbalance, the prospect of a Charter School Subcap increase, requires us to ask—What is the vision for New York City public schools? Any amendment to the law that enables further Charter growth without an evaluation of impact, is an unmistakable signal that Charter schools are not merely a vehicle for educational alternatives and threaten to put New York City public schools out of business. Therefore, we ask Albany to impose a Five-Year New York City Charter Moratorium and perform an evaluation of our existing dual education system because education policy should create systems that work together to make progress for all New York children—not systems designed wherein one undermines the other.

I want to emphasize that this is not an anti-Charter school resolution. We realize there are different opinions on the Charter school issue across the 5 boroughs. However, given the numbers, a Charter Cap and/or Subcap increase should be something our city’s parents and educators oppose with a unified voice. The legislative session is upon us and parent leaders can’t miss this opportunity to press pause on Charter expansion at the source—Albany.

Thank you and don’t hesitate to reach to me with questions. Also, please consider supporting CEC15 by attending our Jan. 29th meeting.

Sincerely,

Antonia Ferraro
CEC15 Secretary and Charter Committee Chair
antoniacec15@gmail.com

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, New York City, Privatization

Leonie Haimson: Warning! The New York City Department of Education Is Infested with Broadies, TFA!

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2019 //
15

After hearing from a parent in Brooklyn that decisions at the New York City Department of Education were being made by Broadies and TFA, Leonie Haimson did some digging. The parent was right. The same people appointed by Joel Klein more than a decade ago are still closing schools, imposing the portfolio model, and opening charters. De Blasio appointed Carmen Farina to run the DOE. Farina was Deputy Chancellor to Klein and left in a a dispute. But apparently she saw no reason to clean house.

Leonie shows that it is not only Broadies and TFA, but the nefarious Education Pioneers, another billionaire-funded outfit the is running the show in New York City.

Wake up, Bill de Blasio! You inherited the status quo! When if ever will you clean house?

Categories Accountability, Bill de Blasio, Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New York City, Portfolio District, Privatization, Walton Foundation

New York City Gives Consulting Contract to Ousted Boston Superintendent Tommy Chang

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
15

Tommy Chang was a top assistant to John Deasy in Los Angeles. After Deasy was pushed out in Los Angeles following a billion-dollar iPad bungle, Chang landed a job as superintendent of schools in Boston.

Things did not go well there, and Chang was abruptly pushed out by Mayor Walsh with two years left on his contract.

Now Chang has a job consulting for the New York City Department of Education, where he will be paid $10,000 “to produce a report on the ongoing reorganization of instructional divisions in the agency.”

Apparently there is no one in the vast New York City Department of Education who knows how to organize the instructional divisions.

Being a Broadie means having lifetime protection. When this gig runs out, Eli will find something else for him, maybe another district in need of transformation and closing the gap.

Categories Accountability, Boston, Broad Foundation, Los Angeles, New York City

Leonie Haimson: The Expansion of Pre-K in New York City Has Worsened Overcrowding, with No Relief in Sight

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
19

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters has released a report on the unintended consequences of Mayor De Blasio’s rapid expansion of Pre-K, his proudest achievement in education. The plan was rushed ahead with little forethought.

Her report begins:

School overcrowding in NYC has been worsened by the expansion of pre-K and 3-K classes, as detailed in a new report, “The Impact of PreK on School Overcrowding: Lack of Planning, Lack of Space.”

About 575,000 students, more than half of all students, attended schools that were at or above 100 percent capacity in 2016-2017, according to data from the NYC Department of Education. In recent years, overcrowding has worsened significantly, especially at the elementary school level. Nearly 60 percent of elementary schools are at 100 percent or more and 67 percent of elementary grade students attend these schools. This is due in part to the fact that enrollment in these grades has increased faster than new school construction.

The report’s analysis finds that 14,220, or more than half of the pre-K students enrolled in public elementary schools in 2016-2017, were placed in 352 schools that were at 100% utilization or more, thus contributing to worse overcrowding at these schools for about 236,000 students.

In about one quarter (22 percent) of these schools, the expansion of pre-K actually pushed the school to 100 percent or more. As of 2016-2017, 76 elementary schools, with a total of 45,124 students, became overutilized, according to the DOE’s data, because of the additional number of pre-K students at their schools.

In addition, thirty schools with pre-K classes had waitlists for Kindergarten, necessitating that these children to be sent to schools outside their zone and sometimes far from home.

District 20 in southwestern Brooklyn is the most overcrowded district in New York City with a critical shortage of elementary school seats.

The average utilization of elementary schools is 130 percent. Yet the DOE continued to place pre-K classes in already overcrowded District 20 schools, despite the presence of an under-enrolled pre-K center nearby.

Laurie Windsor, the former President of the Community Education Council in District 20 said: “It is appalling how the DOE insists on keeping pre-K classes in elementary schools when there is such severe overcrowding and families are forced to travel for Kindergarten, sometimes quite far away, without available public transportation. Especially egregious is that there are pre-K centers nearby which could absorb these classes easily. This practice has put unnecessary hardships on families and is insensitive to the needs of the community.”

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Class size, New York City

New York: State Will Investigate Whether Yeshivas Provide an Adequate Secular Education

By dianeravitch
December 7, 2018 //
48

Despite opposition from the politically powerful bloc of Orthodox Jews in New York state, the state and the city of New York will begin investigations of yeshivas. Graduates of the yeshivas have complained that they did not get an education that prepared them to live in the modern world. Defenders of the yeshivas claim that these investigations violate the separation of church and state. It is an interesting paradox, because the same schools would be delighted to get tax credits for tuition, and Governor Cuomo has tried in the past to court their votes by offering tax credits. Until the last election, one representative of the Orthodox Jewish community held the decisive vote in the State Senate, blocking all efforts to monitor the quality of education offered there. It is likely that states with vouchers and voucher-like programs will face the same scrutiny if their critics ever regain political office.

In parts of New York City, there are students who can barely read and write in English and have not been taught that dinosaurs once roamed Earth or that the Civil War occurred.

Some of them are in their last year of high school.

That is the claim made by a group of graduates from ultra-Orthodox Jewish private schools called yeshivas, and they say that startling situation has been commonplace for decades.

Over three years ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration opened an investigation into a lack of secular education at yeshivas that serve about 57,000 students in the city, but the probe essentially stalled almost as soon as it began. The reason, advocates say, is the city’s politicians, including the mayor, are fearful of angering the Orthodox Jewish community that represents a crucial voting bloc in major elections.

Then the state stepped in with the most significant action yet in the probe. MaryEllen Elia, the state education commissioner, released updated rules on Nov. 20 dictating how nonpublic schools like yeshivas are regulated and what students in those schools should learn, with consequences for schools that do not comply.

The guidance could force yeshivas to change how they operate and what they teach. It will also hold Mr. de Blasio’s feet to the fire, as his administration is forced to ramp up its investigation into the schools.

“There’s no time to waste,” said Naftuli Moster, the founder of Young Advocates for Fair Education, which pushes for more secular instruction in yeshivas. “New York City has already been dragging its feet for three years.”

The city’s yeshiva probe began in 2015, after Mr. Moster’s group filed a complaint claiming that scores of students — boys, in particular — graduate from ultra-Orthodox yeshivas unprepared for work or higher education, with little exposure to nonreligious classes like science and history. Instead, some yeshiva graduates say, students spend most school days studying Jewish texts. Younger boys sometimes attend about 90 minutes of nonreligious classes at the end of the day, a city report found.

A coalition of prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis and community members have accused critics of yeshivas of attacking religious freedoms.

“This is a smear campaign against our community and what it stands for,” said David Niederman, a rabbi and the president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg. “If some people are not happy with what they are taught, it is up to them to take action.”

Avi Schick, a lawyer for Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools, a group formed after the 2015 investigation was opened, said, “The intrusive set of requirements imposed by the state demolishes the wall between church and state that politicians have hid behind for decades.”

This past summer, the organization, known as Pearls, handed out 10,000 posters and bumper stickers emblazoned with the hashtag #ProtectYeshivas to parents of children in Orthodox Jewish schools.
The state’s guidance places the burden of investigating the schools on Mr. de Blasio’s administration.

City officials are now required to visit all nonpublic schools by the end of 2021 — which will coincide with the end of Mr. de Blasio’s second term — and visit each school every five years after that. If officials find that the schools are not providing an education that is “substantially equivalent” to what public schools offer, the city can give schools more time and resources to add secular teaching. If that does not work, the city can withhold some funding it provides private schools…

Still, enormous obstacles remain for those who want the city to shine a spotlight on yeshivas.

Few if any politicians in Albany or downstate are willing to anger the Orthodox political establishment. Urgent problems in the city’s 1,800 public schools — including ballooning student homelessness and entrenched racial segregation — will take precedence over issues in religious schools that the city does not run.

Addendum: Yeshivas receive extensive public funding from the state and federal governments.

This from Leonie Haimson:

“These schools receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding, through federal programs like Title I and Head Start and state programs like Academic Intervention Services and universal pre-K. For New York City’s yeshivas, $120 million comes from the state-funded, city-run Child Care and Development Block Grant subsidy program: nearly a quarter of the allocation to the entire city.”

Categories New York, New York City, Religion, Separation of church and state

New York City: Advocates for Children Lodges Complaint Against Success Academy for Treatment of Students with Disabilities

By dianeravitch
December 3, 2018 //
17

Success Academy is under fire again for its treatment of students with disabilities. Of course, Success Academy denies the charges.

This is what Chalkbeat reports:

Success Academy officials violated civil rights laws when changing students’ special education services according to a complaint filed Thursday, resulting in some students suddenly changing classrooms and losing months of required instruction.

The complaint, filed with the state’s education department, alleges a pattern of school officials unilaterally changing special education placements without holding meetings with parents, moving students to lower grade levels, and even ignoring hearing officers’ rulings. In some cases, students were removed from classrooms that integrate special and general education students and sent to classrooms that only serve students with disabilities.

Filed by the advocacy group Advocates for Children and a private law firm, the complaint says that Success Academy officials often force parents to fight the charter network in federal court to maintain the services that are listed on a student’s individual learning plan, also known as an IEP.

“Students with disabilities do not give up their civil rights when they enter a charter school,” Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, wrote in a statement.

The city’s education department, also named in the complaint, is responsible for making sure students in charter schools receive the services laid out on their learning plans, and setting up meetings with parents to discuss any changes. But, according to the complaint, the education department “has no system to ensure that these schools comply” with those rules.

With 17,000 students, Success Academy is New York City’s largest charter operator and has previously been accused of denying services to students with disabilities, and even pushing them out of their schools. In 2015, at least one school was found to have a “got to go” list of students that school leaders wanted to see leave. More recently, the network filed a lawsuit claiming the opposite is true: Success officials said they often fight for services for students with disabilities, only for the requests to be denied or delayed by the city.

This is Leonie Haimson’s report on the same charges. You will want to open her comment to see the picture of Eva Moskowitz and her family making fun of their critics, holding a banner that says “Success Academy Threatened to Call 911 on 1st Graders”

Categories Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Special Education
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