April 28, 2021 - Democracy Prep Charter Founder Seth Andrew Stole YOUR money -

A former senior adviser in the Obama administration was arrested Tuesday on charges that he stole more than $200,000 from a network of charter schools that he founded and used the money to get a lower interest rate on a mortgage for a Manhattan apartment, federal prosecutors said. The founder, Seth Andrew, 42, is accused of taking money from bank accounts controlled by Democracy Prep Public Schools, which teaches mostly low-income students of color in New York and other states, and used it for the purchase of a $2 million apartment, prosecutors said. ..NYT, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/seth-andrew-fraud-money-laundering-charter-school.html

Today's NY Times has a piece about Seth Andrew using charter school money to buy an apartment in NYC. That money is public funds used to fund charters. The NY Times has its own funny way of framing things with this headline: Former White House Adviser Is Charged With Stealing From Charter School Network

Now I know about good old Seth since he started the Democracy Prep charter scam in 2005 when the public floodgates opened to charters. He even left some whiny comments on some of my blog posts over the years. And of course Obama, the ed deformer in chief, hired him to deform education around the nation. He spent a few hours teaching in Korea before becoming an ed expert in his early 20s.

Now while Democracy Prep claims they were the victims, it is actually the public that was the victim since the money Seth stole really came from public funds. And it further exposes the charter scam that it is about making money, not about the kids.

As always, Ed Notes was on his and Dem Prep's case> Here are a few articles I wrote about Seth Andrew, including a visit I made to a public school housing one of his schools.

2011: Stop Democracy Prep Charter Takeover of PS 197M in Harlem

Democracy Prep Streamrolls PS 197: Hats Off to Antoine Bogard for Leading the Resistance- Where was the UFT?

May 22, 2013

Democracy Prep at the Central Park Zoo to Honor Joel Klein: Why Should Charters Get One Dime of Public Money?

 

July 17, 2013

Edushyster Blows Up Democracy Prep 100% Grad Rate and New Yorker Shill Piece

 

August 12, 2013

Can We Close the Achievement Gap Between Success Academy and Democracy Prep, KIPP et al?

ED NOTES Aug. 27, 2014 :

Charter Angst: Democracy Prep Parent Ready to Pull Child After 5 Days

All I see every morning and evening is this tall man dressed in bright clothing yelling at the parents every single day since school started... parent at Democracy Prep

DP founder Seth Andrew - or Eva Moskowitz in drag

Oh the joy in this comment on another beloved crooked charter, especially with today's news (see Perdido) about Eva Moskowitz and her move to the financial district - call it "Wall St. Empire" - which might make a good HBO series to follow the gangster-ridden "Boardwalk Empire" - with Eva playing a gun moll who makes Steve Buscemi's character look like a nun.

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On September 2, 2013 I wrote:

On the Democracy Prep Plantation: When Zero Tolerance Becomes Psychological Warfare

UPDATED:

• all the teachers at this charter school are white and from out of state. The school's administrators did manage to get two coaches that are African-American from the New York City area. They are the two in charge of the detention room. Is there something wrong with that picture?.....
• his teachers were directed to video tape him in every classroom. One of the teachers according to him followed him with a camera into the lunch room when he went to pick up his lunch, followed him up the stairs into the hallway and continued videotaping him while he was eating lunch.....
• It's time to examine the police state structure of some of the charter schools model in the minority community in New York... Former Democracy Prep mother

Ahhh, that ole' plantation mentality at Democracy Prep. Message to Seth Andrew: Don't tick off a parent who is a professional journalist.

Gary Rubinstein pointed out just how bad the Democracy Prep (relative to public schools despite their significant advantages) test scores were in this post: Petrilli’s Desperate Attempt To Save Democracy Prep’s Reputation.  Now, as Gary says, I don't view school success and failure based on test scores. But if charters are going to make big claims based on the scores, then die by the sword. Especially when they set up a regressive "zero tolerance" situation (when there are so many progressive means of discipline, like restorative justice.

another parent who removed her child from Democracy Prep (from their point of view: mission accomplished).

Extracting high test scores at Success

 

And even with these policies they still had horrible test scores. Eva is smarter at extracting high scores I guess. Has anyone checked to see if kids at Success
Academy schools still have their fingernails?

 

 

 

 

Here is the article from the Times:

Former White House Adviser Is Charged With Stealing From Charter School Network

Seth Andrew, who served in the Obama administration, stole more than $200,000 to help him buy a $2 million Manhattan apartment, prosecutors said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/us/seth-andrew-fraud-money-laundering-charter-school.html

 

By Azi Paybarah

April 27, 2021

On the Democracy Prep Plantation: When Zero Tolerance Becomes Psychological Warfare

UPDATED:

• all the teachers at this charter school are white and from out of state. The school's administrators did manage to get two coaches that are African-American from the New York City area. They are the two in charge of the detention room. Is there something wrong with that picture?.....
• his teachers were directed to video tape him in every classroom. One of the teachers according to him followed him with a camera into the lunch room when he went to pick up his lunch, followed him up the stairs into the hallway and continued videotaping him while he was eating lunch.....
• It's time to examine the police state structure of some of the charter schools model in the minority community in New York... Former Democracy Prep mother

Ahhh, that ole' plantation mentality at Democracy Prep. Message to Seth Andrews: Don't tick off a parent who is a professional journalist.

Gary Rubinstein pointed out just how bad the Democracy Prep (relative to public schools despite their significant advantages) test scores were in this post: Petrilli’s Desperate Attempt To Save Democracy Prep’s Reputation.  Now, as Gary says, I don't view school success and failure based on test scores. But if charters are going to make big claims based on the scores, then die by the sword. Especially when they set up a regressive "zero tolerance" situation (when there are so many progressive means of discipline, like restorative justice.

[Our buddies at Teachers Unite have done an excellent film called "Growing Fairness" -- I attended the premiere the other night and will write a review soon. -- but see the trailer. ]

One of the most riveting parts of our film response to Waiting for Superman was the testimony of former charter school parents.

Here are the links -- make sure to have some tissues handy.

• https://vimeo.com/30227766
• https://vimeo.com/30238788
• https://vimeo.com/30266020
• https://vimeo.com/30357874

Here is another parent who removed her child from Democracy Prep (from their point of view: mission accomplished).

Extracting high test scores at Success

 

And even with these policies they still had horrible test scores. Eva is smarter at extracting high scores I guess. Has anyone checked to see if kids at Success
Academy schools still have their fingernails?



Posted at: http://www.blackstarnews.com/ny-watch/news/the-mis-education-of-my-son.html

When Zero Tolerance Becomes Psychological War Fare: Democracy Prep Charter Middle School

By Bukola Shonuga

Finally, in the last hour and all my tolerance threshold and mental power exhausted I had no choice but to remove my 12 year old son from Democracy Prep Charter Middle School in Harlem - two weeks before graduation from 6th grade. After months of mental torture of my son by overzealous teachers, endless meetings, tons of emails and paperwork that's turned me into a social worker/mom/psychologist, I realized that it has become unhealthy and unsafe to keep my son at Democracy Prep.

The latest episode of the daily psychological abuse of my son occurred on June 6, 2013 when I placed one of my routine calls to the school to check in on him. I was informed that he has been suspended and that his suspension papers were being processed when my call came in.

It's time to examine the police state structure of some of the charter schools model in the minority community in New York.

Another Blogger Slams Eva's Success Academy Charter Scam

Owen Davis at The Commonal follows up on Gary Rubinstein's analysis of the Eva Moskowitz charter scam which we reported on the other day: Rubinstein: Success Academy Scores Based on High Attrition Plus Other Factors.

Davis takes Gary's work a bit further:

It’s true that Success owes its success to more than just general student attrition. But Rubinstein only examined the overall numbers. When you look at specific student demographics, even more troubling patterns emerge. I’ve been dissecting the student data of prominent NYC charters since Democracy Prep and I sparred over its unmistakable pattern of steadily losing students with disabilities and students learning English. (They promised a “debunking” of my post. I’ll assume it’s still forthcoming.)
At Success, the pattern is similar, if not more stark. Not only do its classes contain disproportionately few students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs), but their numbers almost invariably decrease with each passing year. This should have no uncertain effect on test scores.

 I actually get hot thinking about a slam at the arrogant Democracy Prep crowd which for some reason annoy me even more than Eva's crew. (I admit to having had some great discussions with some Success parents and officials -- we have been sparring for so many years.) Democracy Prep recently pushed out a program for GED students.

But how much fun is it to see Eva jump so far ahead that there will be intense scrutiny? Even her usual trolls have toned it down.

Owen concludes with:

What’s sad about this is how unsurprising it’s become. High-achieving charters, with no exceptions that I’ve found, enroll fewer needy students, witness substantial attrition of these students, or both. These patterns could reflect some implicit policy, or they could result from the extraordinary behavioral demands charters impose on students. The proximate cause doesn’t matter so much when it comes to test scores, though. Scores resting on high-needs student attrition shouldn’t withstand even the mildest scrutiny, yet they garner unreserved praise from the likes of Mayor Bloomberg and the Post. 
It’s just an added irony that one of Moskowitz’s Success expansions literally pushed at-risk students out of an existing school.
I need not dwell on how disturbing all this is. Any notion of success should be predicated on serving the neediest students right alongside those who make “no excuses.” Anything less is reprehensible.

Read it all, with charts:
http://commonal.tumblr.com/post/58209601458/harlem-success-academy-charter-and-attrition

Can We Close the Achievement Gap Between Success Academy and Democracy Prep, KIPP et al?

Emergency crisis emerges as Eva's Success exposes massive achievement gap amongst charters.

Moskowitz proclaims: They would have done better if not for those bad teachers at the charter schools. Clearly there are not enough choices out there for parents to choose between good and bad charters. But since we are the only good charter, I am changing my position on choice. We should be the only choice.

{OK, above it satire alert, though would it surprise you of Eva actually said that?}

Gary Rubinstein did some great work on the charter scores (Driven by data … right off a cliff). Gary uses their own data to hammer the nail.

The most stunning example is the famed Harlem Village Academy which had 100% passing in 2012, but only 21% passing in 2013 for a 79% drop....Democracy Prep officials didn’t respond to a request for comment...KIPP also did not respond to a request for comment.
I actually got one of the third grade questions wrong....these new tests have the opposite problem:  Students can do very poorly on them even if they do understand math.  This is why I don’t like to base 20% of my teacher rating on a single test that I didn’t write.
.... Gary Rubinstein

Gee, Harlem Village Academy suffered a bigger drop in scores than Michelle Rhee gained in her 10 minutes of teaching. HVA's Ed deform media darling Deborah Kenny, who had that noted educator Cathie Black on her board, will escape scot-free on this. I call for a recall on all her appearences on NBC's education shmation. Do any of these "experts" ever ask the question as to how a school gets 100% rates when it has enormous teacher turnover. [Below, in Afterburn, are a batch of ed notes links to Kenny and the school, including  a link to the fawning Brian Williams interview with her.

Gary also points to the hit in the big chains, KIPP and Democracy Prep, with TFA miracle workers, took.

Anyone have an eraser?

While DP won't comment, former chief Seth Andrews, wearing his yellow baseball/thinking cap, is probably thinking: I only left 6 months ago and they already fucked up our scam. Leonie Patrick Sullivan points out on the NYCParents blog:

The Democracy Prep results shouldn't be surprising to those who recall the earlier audit of Democracy Prep where DOE reviewers found “few lessons required higher-order thinking skills or deep analysis of concepts.” 

KIPP is already making plans to expand S.L.A.N.T.S. so KIPP can close the achievement gap between then and Eva's Success Academy. Can't let the competition get too far ahead. KIPP Amp dropped from 79% in 2012 to just 9% in 2013.

And TEP run by Zeke Vanderhoek, profiled on 60 Minutes, the NY Times, and the film "American Teacher" dropped from 76% to 20% in one year. Rewrite. [Also see Afterburn for Ed Notes links to TEP stories]. Gary sums up:

To see if most charter schools were like KIPP Star and Democracy Prep, scoring well below the 22% city average, or if most were still doing relatively well, like the Success Academies, I made another scatter plot, but on this one I marked all the charter schools (or at least the ones that had the word ‘charter’ in them) with a red circle.... charters are, in general, the ‘outliers’ meaning the schools that had the biggest drops relative to other schools with similar 2012 scores.  In the Stephanie Simon report she mentions that KIPP Star and Democracy Prep hadn’t done so well with their proficiency rate, but she doesn’t mention how far they had dropped.  Out of over 500 schools, which includes about 35 charter schools, of the one hundred largest drops, 22 were charter schools.

The Bronx Charter School Of Excellence, which recently received money from a $4.5 million grant to help public schools emulate what they do, dropped from 96% in 2012 to 33% in 2013.  So these are the schools that are the red ‘outliers’ hovering near the bottom right of the scatter plot.  In general, the average charter school went down by 51 percentage points compared to 34 percentage points for the average public school.  The most plausible explanation for charters dropping so much more than public schools is that their test prep methods were not sufficient for the more difficult tests.  In other words “you’re busted.”

evidence that charters are certainly not working the miracles they claim is very clear from this data.... if the ‘reformers’ really value their ‘data’ so much, they should really think about how to interpret the charter grade crash.... this suggests that maybe the hundreds of millions of dollars given to charters, both from the government and from private benefactors could be spent elsewhere in education more effectively.

Afterburn

Ed Notes Online: Harlem Village Academy Retained Only 4 Full ...

Sep 19, 2010

This year Harlem Village Academy opened its doors with only 4 full time teachers returning, a turnover of more than 75%. There are office staff, department heads and and administrators that returned (some of them teach one ...

Cathie Black on Board of Harlem Village Academies, HVA Head ...

Nov 29, 2010

Cathie Black's placement on the board of Harlem Village Academy as a way to get her ed creds- despite the fact that she didn't attend any meetings, has focused attention on this scandalous school and its relation to the ...

  

Ed Notes Online: NBC Bias on Deborah Kenny HVA Charter Scam ...

Jun 12, 2012

Why would you believe anything reported on NBC? Even more outrageous was the puff piece NBC's Today show and Brian Williams did in an interview with Harlem Village Academy founder Deborah Kenny. Leonie has done ...

Ed Notes Online: Steve Koss: The Cathleen Black story just gets ...

Nov 11, 2010

Seems that her singular claim to education involvement was being on an advisory board of some sort for Harlem Village Academy. However, the Times is reporting that she not only just joined that group a few months ago and ...

 

Ed Notes Online: NBC Bias on Deborah Kenny HVA Charter Scam ...

Jun 12, 2012

I was researching Deborah Kenny to see what teaching experience she has and to learn more about her credentials (and salary) and you were the second piece to show up on a Google search. Great writing, Ed. I'm definitely ...

Ed Notes Online: Cathie Black on Board of Harlem Village ...

Nov 29, 2010

"[Deborah] Kenny, who oversees 450 students, is paid $442,000, including a $140,000 "bonus" and $27,780 in "other" expenses.....Bloomberg has called the school a national "poster child" for school reform. Conservative ...

Ed Notes Online: Videos: FairTest Honors Diane Ravitch with the ...

Jun 10, 2012

After all, being in the same space with Debbie Meier and Diane Ravitch is a very special occasion, especially as it was a fundraiser for a worthy organization. ..... NBC Bias on Deborah Kenny HVA Charter Scam and NY .

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Ed Notes Online: TEP: Hey, Buddy, Wanna Teach for 125 Grand ...

Oct 02, 2012

Remember a year ago at Education Nation at the premiere of American Teacher celebrated Zeke and TEP, which had lured a Harvard grad teacher away from Jersey who ended up being a low rated teacher based on flawed ...

Ed Notes Online: The Failures of Katie Couric as a Reporter: Biased ...

Mar 14, 2011

Couric did bring up the fact that TEP's scores were lower than the public schools in the area (only a 31% pass rate) but didn't drill too deep on that one. You know the line: it takes time to reverse the effects of those awful public ...

Ed Notes Online: UFT Leaders Show Disdain for Tweedies: We Don ...

Dec 17, 2012

This is for all non-TEP schools (TEP is Danielson Pilot schools). If your school is not in the pilot, please let me know if you have groups of people coming into your rooms to observe or to ask you for your lesson plans, etc.

Ed Notes Online: Reviewing "American Teacher": Ed Deform Wolf in ...

May 27, 2011

And presenting Zeke Vanderhoek as a hero (on the post-screening panel) who pays teachers at his TEP charter school $125 grand is enough to make you gag. Vanderhoek was featured on 60 Minutes (Ed Notes link) trashing ...

Edushyster Blows Up Democracy Prep 100% Grad Rate and New Yorker Shill Piece

I was going to do a piece on the New Yorker article on the publicity seeking Democracy Prep but was so spitting mad I couldn't think straight. To our rescue comes Edushyster. Did DP give UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a speaker's fee as part of the PR machine hype, which to charters like DP is their most important operations? Just askin'.

I was in a DP co-located school in Harlem a few years ago when the chapter leader invited me to address the staff during a union meeting. The staff was mostly black, Latino and older. A walk through the halls during passing showed the DP racist spin in action The blond pony tails of the young teachers were bobbing along. And the big signs on their doors with the names of their fancy colleges were prominent.

http://edushyster.com/?p=2907

Other People’s Children

Posted on July 11, 2013

Why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
 
 

Reader: more and more white people agree that strict, “no excuses” style charter schools provide an ideal learning environment for poor minority kids. As proof of this surging enthusiasm I give you exhibit A: a glowing report about Harlem’s Democracy Prep charter school featured in the current issue of the New Yorker, one of America’s whitest magazines. (Full disclosure: I am white and also a New Yorker subscriber). Which brings us to today’s fiercely urgent question: why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
 
Through the Gauntlet
The New Yorker piece, by writer Ian Frazier, is subtitled ‘Up Life’s Ladder’—but ’gauntlet’ might be a more accurate metaphor. Frazier is dazzled by the spectacle of the 44 members of Democracy Prep’s first graduating class, on stage at the Apollo Theater in their school-bus-yellow robes, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on hand to fete them. But more than three quarters of Democracy Prep’s students—23% each year—never made it onto the stage. If Frazier is aware of the school’s attrition rate, among the highest in New York City, he doesn’t mention it. Nor does Frazier have anything to say about the school’s strict “no excuses” disciplinary policy. Instead, he seems excited by the fact that students at the school are required to take Korean, the only foreign language offered. Best of all, Frazier likes the fact that 100% of the remaining graduates are headed to a four-year college.

Whatever it Takes
 

I’m guessing that it’s not the fault of the New Yorker’s legendarily “no excuses” fact-checking department that these less inspiring (not to mention less democratic) details about Democracy Prep didn’t make it into the magazine. Instead, the writer is merely reflecting a growing consensus among elites that a certain kind of schooling is necessary to propel poor minority students along the steep uphill climb to college. This formula for success, the “special sauce,” is long and hard and requires the sort of militaristic discipline that I doubt any writer for the New Yorker would tolerate for his or her children for a day, let alone the four years, eight years, even 12-year-long slog that is supposed to end in a mythical place called “college.”

• Doing time
  The school day at Democracy Prep starts at 7:45AM and lasts until 4:15PM, but students routinely stay until six for tutoring. A nine, ten or 11 hour school day would no doubt strike middle class parents as excessive (what about Skyler’s soccer practice, or Emma’s beekeeping camp?) but even within this endless school day there is no time to lose. Democracy Prep, like many urban “no excuses” schools, uses a countdown during transitions from one class or activity to the next so that students don’t waste a second of learning time.

• Living the DREAM
  Democracy Prep relies upon a monetary-based system of rewards that is common in the “no excuses” world. Students earn and lose DREAM Dollars (the acronym stands for the school’s values: Discipline, Respect, Enthusiasm, Accountability and Maturity) based on behavior and academic performance. In addition to providing an important regulator of behavior, the DREAM dollars also prep the students for their ultimate destination beyond even college: work.

• Broken windows
  A “no excuses” school embodies a philosophy that might best be understood as the educational equivalent of the broken windows theory. Small disruptions are seen as leading to the kind of unruliness and disorder that stands in between poor minority kids and college-bound success. Hence the straight, silent lines in which students transition from one class to another might be seen as leading straight to college.

• SLANT
  Suburban parents are likely unfamiliar with SLANT, the KIPP-informed mantra that shapes “no excuses” teaching. The behavior management technique instructs students to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the teacher. Younger students, who tend to be naturally disruptive, may also be instructed to fold their hands or “make a bubble,” pursing their lips and filling their cheeks with air so as to keep them from talking.

• Time and Punishment
  The elaborate architecture of rewards and punishments that undergird the “no excuses” approach must have consequences, of course. Suspensions at these schools tend to be extremely high, even though suspending students has long been linked to worsening academic outcomes and higher drop out rates. The recent revelations about the high number of kindergartners suspended by the charter school chain “Achievement First” in Connecticut may have caused some initial discomfort among suburban advocates of these schools (little Haley, suspended???). But amid the rising certitude that we must do “whatever it takes” to propel poor minority students to college, that discomfort was soon forgotten.

Send tips and comments to tips@edushyster.com.

Democracy Prep Streamrolls PS 197: Hats Off to Antoine Bogard for Leading the Resistance- Where was the UFT?

The more I think about the shameful performance of Leo Casey at the Left forum, defining public education in a way to include charter schools, the more it becomes clear what they are leaving school after school like PS 197 out there to hang on their own. Leo claims the union has a strategy. They must have studied the actions of France in WWII. 

Marjorie Stamberg reports:

A few of us went tonight to support Antoine Bogard, chapter leader at PS 197 in Harlem whose school has already been forced to co-locate with Democracy Prep, and now they want to grab even more space. The hearing was flooded with Democracy Prep people, all of whom were given yellow t-shirts, caps, pizza ordered in for them, their yuppie frat boy organizers handing out written scripts to the parents, lining up the students who have no idea how they are being used in the privatization wars!


Where were the UFT district and central office people tonight? They should have been out there to support PS 197 students and teachers.


Hats off to Antoine for standing up for public education in that environment! He made the powerful points as to the dramatic rise in class size from kindergarten on now that their school is being squeezed out by the charter.


--Marjorie

Previous Ed Notes reports on Democracy Prep and PS 197:
Stop Democracy Prep Charter Takeover of PS 197M ...
The Racial School Divide in Harlem: A Public Schoo...
Does internal union democracy help organizing ... 
What Ed Deformers Get Wrong About Going to College 
Treat Public Schools Like Ross Global Charter

Ross Launches Missile and Goes Ballistic

Jan 13, 2011

Wait till the Harlem charter schools not part of the favored Democracy Prep, Harlem Success or KIPP start to get squeezed out of the picture. We may have to push our new allies off the resistance boat with a stick.

 
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