Ed Notes Extended

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

PBS Stands By Merrow Report on Eva Moskowitz Tactics to Drive Unwanted Kids Out of Her Schools

I think Merrow did not go nearly far enough. Forget attrition rates. Just count how many kids start kindergarten and last until the testing grades. And as Leonie has pointed out (Leo Challenges Eva at AFT/Shanker Institute), the UFT/AFT calls for them to backfill negates the question of where the backfill will come from.

Sure public schools have attrition rates due to kids moving etc - not easy to push kids out of public schools because parents have someplace higher to go. Success parents have nowhere to go.

And with another closing of Success Schools for a bogus teacher rally today, there should be some more exposure of these characters. Will the press take a quiet poll of these teachers and ask them if they would like to be in a union?

PBS issued a "clarification."

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/pressrelease/pbs-newshour-clarification/

PBS NewsHour Clarification

October 20, 2015 at 5:56 PM EDT
On October 12, 2015, the PBS NewsHour aired a report from veteran education reporter John Merrow, based on nearly a year of reporting, about suspension policies of young children and one successful charter school network in New York City. The NewsHour stands by the report. However, the CEO of Success Academy, Eva Moskowitz, has since raised objections to two specific issues in Mr. Merrow’s report. She protests that she was not given the opportunity to respond to one family’s comments in the story and she asserts that Mr. Merrow’s reporting about attrition rates is incorrect.
Mr. Merrow’s report was not about any particular child but about suspension policy. The reporting included conversations with nearly a dozen families about their young children’s suspensions from Success Academy, as well as other sources, including one within Success Academy. Most of these sources were unwilling to go on camera. In their interview Mr. Merrow asked Ms. Moskowitz for her response to the information he had gathered from these sources, and she was given ample time to respond.
Only one family was willing to talk on camera, but the mother was not willing to allow Success Academy to release her son’s school records. Ms. Moskowitz should have been given a chance to respond to this family’s comments. The NewsHour regrets that decision.
Ms. Moskowitz also disputes Mr. Merrow’s reporting on Success Academy’s attrition rate. This is a complicated area because charter schools, including Success Academy Charter Schools, calculate attrition differently. Mr. Merrow addressed these disparities by comparing similar time frames and methods for calculating attrition. He used both public numbers and internal documents to calculate a comparison of attrition rates. One of the charter schools in the report calculates attrition by the names of individual children over a 365-day calendar year, from the beginning of one school year to the beginning of the next school year. Success Academy’s data is based on the number of children over the school year, not the calendar year. Mr. Merrow reconciled those numbers fairly and thoroughly.
The fundamental point of Mr. Merrow’s report is about the policy of suspensions of young children. It accurately documents that Success Academy suspends students as young as five- and six-year olds at a greater rate than many other schools, which Ms. Moskowitz does not dispute. Mr. Merrow’s report also explains that Success Academy Charter Schools are achieving superior academic results and are popular among New York area families. While the NewsHour regrets the decision to include that particular mother and child without providing Ms. Moskowitz with an opportunity to respond, the NewsHour stands by the report.

1 comment:

  1. The educational establishment and their friends will do anything to deflect attention from their own decades of abject failure in low income,minority neighborhoods. Eva's schools, while not perfect, work very well for a surprising number of children in these grossly under served communities, and this very success draws the ire of those adults whose bad performance it underscores. Try cleaning up your own house.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome. Irrelevant and abusive comments will be deleted, as will all commercial links. Comment moderation is on, so if your comment does not appear it is because I have not been at my computer (I do not do cell phone moderating). Or because your comment is irrelevant or idiotic.