Published in The Wave, Friday, March 21, 2014
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The Truth About Eva Moskowitz Charters: More Destructive
Than Global Warming
By Norm Scott
I went to a funeral
out on Long Island last week and two people asked me why Mayor de Blasio is so
against charters, especially Success Academy run by Eva Moskowitz who makes
half a million dollars to run 22 schools. De Blasio allowed her to get almost
everything she was handed by Bloomberg except for 3 spots – 2 high schools
where to accommodate Eva there would have to be millions of dollars in
renovations to keep the young children apart from the high school kids – and an
expansion in a Harlem school that would toss out autistic kids. But why should
we worry about autistic kids getting screwed? They won’t score as high as Eva’s
so-called “scholars”?
You would have
thought pro-charter Joe Lhota had won the election instead of losing by an
enormous margin. How inept was de Blasio that he took such a public relations
beating because he couldn’t effectively defend the autistic kids against the
onslaught of TV commercials about the “poor” 194 Success “scholars” who were
shoving special ed kids into the street? Chancellor Carmen Farina caved and
said she would work to find the 194 Success kids seats. Eva doesn’t want seats
in another building, she wants the building. This is about real estate, not
education. Imagine if those millions spent on the ad blitz actually went to
buying a building.
We hear the lies
about all those high achieving children being tossed. Remember that 2 out of
the 3 schools de Blasio denied don’t even exist yet. But they would have been
part of the Moskowitz political plan to set up outposts in certain
neighborhoods in large high school buildings that over the years she will take
more and more space and ultimately toss out the public schools. De Blasio
actually did give her all the other schools she wanted. (People at one of them,
Seth Low in Bensonhurst, are outraged.) Don’t be surprised to see her run
against the mayor in the next election.
Then she got away
with closing all her schools and bussing all the kids, teachers and parents to
Albany for a phony rally. How much outrage would there be if the Mayor closed
all the schools to hold a rally to defend his decisions?
And oh those supposed
high scores. Experienced teachers know this game very well. Push out the
potential low scorers as early as possible and leave a big bunch back early on
so they will be a year older for each testing grade.
One DOE insider
reported on Success tactics as reported on the Diane Ravitch blog:
“Not only do classes
contain disproportionately few students with disabilities and English language
learners (ELLs), but their numbers almost invariably decrease with each passing
year. The ranks of students with disabilities consistently dwindle. In the
first two years of available data, there were hardly any ELLs. In 2010 Success
suddenly came up with a nearly representative portion of these students, but
their numbers more than halved by the next year. 83 students entered kindergarten in 2006-07,
the school’s first year of operation. When that class reached 4th grade in
2010-11, it had only 53 students — a drop of 36 percent. Harlem Success also
took in a 1st grade class with 73 students in 2006. When that group reached 5th
grade, it too had shrunk appreciably — by 36 percent. The attrition accelerated
as the classes advanced. The 2006-07 1st grade class, for example, did not
shrink at all as it entered 2nd grade, but saw one sharp falloff between 2nd
and 3rd and another between 4th and 5th.” If they ‘lost’ many students, these
scores are tainted. Only one Success school has been around since 2007. That
school started with 83 kindergarteners and 73 first graders. Those cohorts just
tested in 6th and 7th grade, respectively. The school has ‘lost’ a big chunk
of those original 156 kids. Of those 73 first graders in 2007, only 35 took the
seventh grade test. Of the 83 kindergarteners, only 47 took the sixth grade
test last spring. Overall, they have ‘lost’ 47% of the original two cohorts. If
this is one of the costs of having such high test scores, I’m not sure if it is
worth it. The bulk of the attrition at Harlem Success Academy 1 seems to have
come in the tested grades. Success Academy’s approach of holding many students
back a grade level which creates a 3rd grade bulge as those students don’t move
on to 4th grade. Attrition rates approach or exceed 50% by the end of middle
school.”
Follow the Evil Eva
story on Norm’s blog: ednotesonline.org
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