GEM/MORE Members Fought Eva Invasion of Cobble Hill School: Where was the UFT?

MORE/GEM stood up to Eva when she invaded the school where that child abuse video from the NY Times was shot. Where was the UFT?

MORE's Brian Jones at Success hearing

Sean Ahern was a teacher in the building where the video was shot. See my post yesterday:

Video: Child Abuse on Eva's Plantation

Another Eva invasion. A teacher in the building has been chronicling the impact of the invasion on a blog:

Inside Colocation

MORE members from their previous groups ICE, TJC and GEM, stood up to Eva when the UFT was running scared.

Darren made a video at the Cobble Hill Success Academy Colocation Hearing:

https://youtu.be/F_Xeelvfbm0




Sean comments:

From the photo I believe the Eva Plantation cited in this NYT article was pushed into The School of International Studies on Baltic Street in 2012 over the vociferous objections of staff and parent leaders who filled school auditoriums to protest what they rightly predicted would be the undermining of their school community.

MORE leaders, Julie Cavanagh and Bryan Jones helped to mobilize support in the District to oppose this push-in. International Studies lost the first floor except for the state of the art Culinary room which I was assured would not be touched (students in the program competed that year in the city wide C-CAP competition winning over $65,000 in scholarships to post secondary culinary schools), but the computer lab and numerous other rooms were lost, crowding students and teachers and undermining a safe and fairly well run school serving a predominantly Title I student body but one that was fairly diverse by NYC standards. What was a real "success" story, The School of International Studies, was undone by the Eva Plantation and her sycophants at DOE and NYSED. Another culinary team has not competed since.

Many teachers, myself included, left the school after their mass protests were ignored by the DOE, NYSED and NYT. The Principal who had founded the school remained silent throughout the protests and was subsequently promoted the following September to Tweed to train principals.

Peace,
Sean Ahern

Success Academy Teacher Quits: Evil Eva Should Be Investigated for Child Abuse and Teacher Bullying

I spent much of my time at school crying in the bathroom and the stairwell. I cried from the emotional harassment I faced from my leaders, I cried from simply watching my scholars go through such grueling days and intense ridicule, and I cried because I was exhausted, stressed, and anxious, constantly feeling like I wasn’t enough and that I couldn’t be enough. When I helped my own scholars work through their tears, I would often ask them what they were feeling, and they would say “scared.”... Former Success Academy Teacher

When they start calling them children, I will know that they are completely de-programmed.... Diane Ravitch

Is it time to call 911 on Evil Eva's operation?

Diane Ravitch posted a letter from a teacher who has resigned.

http://dianeravitch.net/2016/01/19/a-success-academy-teacher-quits-and-explains-why/

It is worth reprinting the entire letter here to see just how evil Eva is.

Diane writes:

I received an email from a teacher who resigned her job at Success Academy. She was very unhappy. She wanted to explain why she couldn’t stay. Like everyone who leaves Success Academy, she requested anonymity. I get these emails from time to time. Occasionally, I meet with the unhappy young people (both women and men). They sound like people leaving a cult. Even after they have left, they still refer to five-year-old children as “scholars.” When they start calling them children, I will know that they are completely de-programmed.

This young woman writes:

I left my job at Success Academy because I couldn’t, in good conscience, be the teacher they wanted me to be. I have a lot of trouble writing and talking about my experience with Success because it truly makes me ill. Thinking about the way teachers spoke to children, with such disgust in their voices, makes my stomach churn. Thinking about the way my leaders spoke to me, with that same disgust, leaves me feeling just as sick.

I was immediately targeted by the leaders at my school for being too soft. I didn’t deliver consequences enough, and I didn’t hold high enough expectations of my four and five-year-olds. I couldn’t get them to walk in two silent, straight, militaristic lines with bubbles in their mouths and their hands glued to their sides. I wasn’t “aggressively scanning” for “defiant” children on the carpet—that is, children not sitting on their bottoms with their backs tall and their hands locked in their laps. I owned up to all of this with my leaders. I admitted to them that I have a hard time with holding such young children to such high expectations. And to build off of that, I found it simply wrong to hold every single scholar to the exact same expectations. You can’t give a fish and a bird the same task and expect the same results.

But that’s precisely what Success does. They don’t care what the circumstances are: you will stand like a soldier, you will sit with a bubble in your mouth and your hands locked, you will do all of your work neatly and silently, you will “silent laugh” and “silent cheer” when you find things funny or exciting, you will transition from your seats to the carpet “swiftly, safely, and silently,” and if you don’t, you’ll do it again until it’s perfect, even if that means missing recess or blocks time. My biggest mistake was admitting to my leaders that I found this system to be too harsh. The moment you speak out at Success, they come after you. They call it a “mindset” issue. They threatened to put me on a performance plan without giving me any examples of what I was doing wrong, instead simply berating me for these same issues week after week until I would slowly break and obey them. I worked tirelessly to please my leaders. I had never quit a job before, and am an incredibly hard worker, so I was determined to make this work. I wrote long reflections on my days and reached out to veteran teachers for help. I was quickly reprimanded for this as well, though, being told that if I needed help, I should just go to leadership—that I should never make my struggle apparent, or talk about it with anyone at school. This is all part of keeping up the facade of Success. The bright classrooms, the stunning bulletin boards, the perfect posture — everything must look perfect. It all boils down to the same principle: these people care about the wrong things. They feel the constant need to prove themselves through their appearance and their high scores, and in turn they don’t allow for any of the genuine elements of childhood and education to take place in their buildings.

I spent much of my time at school crying in the bathroom and the stairwell. I cried from the emotional harassment I faced from my leaders, I cried from simply watching my scholars go through such grueling days and intense ridicule, and I cried because I was exhausted, stressed, and anxious, constantly feeling like I wasn’t enough and that I couldn’t be enough. When I helped my own scholars work through their tears, I would often ask them what they were feeling, and they would say “scared.” They told me they were scared to come to school. I was, too. We all entered that building each morning in fear. This all being said, scholars at my school smiled. There are happy children at Success. When they do well academically, or when they get a prize or a “time-in” for their success, they smile. When they do have recess, they laugh audibly and smile. But the fear, anger, and sadness deeply overshadows these small instances of joy. You can’t structure joy. But leave it to SA to try.

Eva is trying to build a little empire in this corner of District 14 - There are two other Success Academy schools within a three block radius of each other

No way can this school be claiming 1400 applications... Pat Dobosz

We know how Success and other charter inflate demand while seats at their schools remain empty. Call for the 1400 names to be made public - a good project for an ed reporter - foil them - and break the phony charter demand bubble. This area of south Williamsburg/North Bed-Stuy was always a rough area of District 14. In my final year I was sent to the IS 33 building to pick up a computer and we heard gunshots outside. This was around noon. Since then there gentrification bubble has moved in - Eva picks her spots.

Here is more from Pat:

Bust Success Charter Phony Demand Bubble

PS 297 is located in D14. There are two other SA schools, one at the old IS 33 building and one in PS 59 all within a three block radius of each other. No way can this school be claiming 1400 applications. The other schools from what I see in the morning are not having their doors broken down. Their numbers do not look excessively high as the children enter the buildings. Often parents apply unwittingly to SA as they do to other area schools out of the Pre-K or K programs, but have no intentions of attending
or are steered away by teachers, friends and family. Myself and a colleague have discouraged many parents from going to SA.

Eva is trying to build a little empire in this corner of D14. She is trying to slide into this school quietly and without fanfare, thinking this is a neighborhood that is asleep. She also has a SA at the other end of the district in MS 50 and her husband has Citizens of the World in the middle of the district. All in prime real estate. It's not about the children. It's about Eva
expanding her empire. please drop a note to: D14Proposals@schools.nyc.gov

Education

Success Academy Would Limit Special Needs at Bed-Stuy School, Critics Say

By Camille Bautista | December 4, 2015 4:31pm | Updated on December 7, 2015 8:56am

@CamBautista

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — Plans to move a Success Academy charter school into Bed-Stuy would rob an existing elementary school of space used by special needs students, opponents said.

Parents and educators at P.S. 297 met to discuss the proposal Thursday, with many vowing to fight it.

Dozens of students, parents and teachers attended, with many holding handmade posters that read “Save Our School.”

Dozens of students, parents and teachers attended, with many holding handmade posters that read “Save Our School.”

Success Academy, founded by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz, is looking to open a new location that would be shared with P.S. 297’s Park Avenue building at the start of the 2016 school year.

But some educators fear the proposed co-location would take over much needed space that the elementary school currently uses for its special needs students. And they said another Success Academy would not benefit the community.

Camille Bautista · DNAinfo Reporter

Does Bed-Stuy need another Success Academy? Should charter and public schools share space?

•  2
 
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VOICE YOUR OPINION ON NHSQ! 

The charter school already operates two sites within a three-block radius of P.S. 297.

“As CEC members, we question the aggressive expansion of Success Academy,” said Mirian Lopez, vice president of the Community Education Council for District 14.

“As a member of the school community, we ask, why does Success Academy need any more schools?”  

Success Academy has more than 30 locations throughout the city, with plans for more over the next few years, according to reports.

Those opposed to the proposal say their main concern is the possible loss of a second-floor wing dedicated to services like occupational therapy, speech therapy and physical therapy.  

“The students with special needs would be the ones who lose the most,” said CEC 14 member Roberto Portillo, adding that it would be “irreparable to the community.”

P.S. 297 serves kids in pre-k through fifth grade. In the 2014-2015 school year, 26 percent of students were listed as special needs.

If approved, Success Academy Bed-Stuy 3 would have up to 160 students in kindergarten and first grade starting in 2016, and add one grade level each year, according to the city’sDepartment of Education.

As the proposal is still up for vote and concrete plans are not set for the layout of the co-location, Success Academy could not provide comment on the specifics for which spaces would be utilized, according to a Success Academy spokesman.

There is demand in the area, according to the charter school network. Success Academy received about 850 applications from parents who live in School District 14 and roughly 550 applications from parents who live in nearby District 16, the spokesman added.

While some detractors pushed back against a co-location, others outright protested another Success Academy in the neighborhood. Anonline petition was launched in Novemberobjecting the proposal.

Parents criticized Success Academy’s methods Thursday, recalling their children's past experiences at the schools and saying the network does not adequately provide for special needs students.

Robert Gilliam, whose 10-year-old son attended Success Academy Bed-Stuy 1 a block away on Tompkins Avenue, said his son was “broken” and “devastated” by his time at the charter school.

His son, Jordan, was in need of an Individualized Education Program (IEP) and did not receive the services he needed at Success, Gilliam said.

“For about six months, everything was fine. Once his reading comprehension went down and he had to get an IEP, everything changed,” Gilliam said. “He got disregarded like a piece of rag.”

The staff at P.S. 297 helped Jordan in his transition, he added, and the proposed new charter school would take what little space the elementary school has.

“Success is nothing but a money game. It’s nothing but about the numbers,” Gilliam said.

A Success Academy spokesman cited a survey administered by the DOE last year, in which 98 percent of Success Academy parents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall education their kids were receiving.

In addition, 15 percent of Success Academy students last year were listed as children with disabilities, he said. 

The charter school chain has recently faced criticism for singling out poor-performing or difficult students. Supporters have praised the network for students' high performance.

Another parent, Shanna Charles, said her experience at Success Academy Bed-Stuy 2 was “horrible,” with her son being suspended twice a month and the staff trying to “push him out.”

“Success Academy does not need to be inside P.S. 297,” Charles said. “This community has suffered enough.

“The only thing we should try to do in this community is try to build it up — and Success Academy is not a part of that.”

Teachers and students echoed similar sentiments, with many arguing that the proposed space for the charter school could be used for P.S. 297’s expansion.

“Why shouldn’t we be afforded the opportunity to grow our students beyond the fifth grade?” asked guidance counselor Jessica Cashman.

“Why do we have to let them go when we have the space to possibly make ourselves bigger and better than we already are?”

In addition to P.S. 297, the building currently provides space for community organization Good Shepherd and previously housed The Ethical Community Charter School, whichshuttered at the end of June.

Now, the building serves approximately 256 students from the elementary school, making it “under-utilized” since it has the capacity for 659 students, according to the DOE.

Parents, teachers and community members can weigh in on the proposal by sending comments to D14Proposals@schools.nyc.gov or by calling 212-374-0208.  

The Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled to vote on the plan at 6 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the High School of Fashion Industries at 225 W. 24th St.

Stress Academy - A Poem by Fred Smith: My Halloween Hangover with Eva

"Welcome to childhood." she cackled and said,
"We'll teach you to pass tests and pee in your bed.
We'll teach you good manners and staying in line;
You do those things and all will be fine."



"If you can't follow rules," she let out a shriek,
"Then you must go. We don't steal the weak.
Learning's not fun and life is a mess,
You must find out early how to Stress for Success."

Eva Moskowitz Comes to Rockaway as Nurse Ratched

Here are my 2 columns I submitted to The Wave for publication on Nov. 6. My theater column and my school column, both tied in together. By the way - if you want to come see me play the inept doctor in charge email me.
Do we have any photoshoppers out there who can do an Eva as Nurse Ratched for me?


School Scope: Nurse Ratched in Guise of Eva Moskowitz Coming to Rockaway?
By Norm Scott

There is so much about authoritarianism at a mental institution in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and its theater and film adaptations that I am reminded of how so many schools are run. I just finished my Rockaway Theatre Company column for The Wave about the upcoming show so if this column also makes this edition of The Wave, read the 2 columns in tandem.

Rumors are floating around that the evil charter empire, known as Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy Charter network, wants in on Rockaway gentrification to fuel their charter gravy train that funnels public money out of public schools and into private management. There is no better example of authoritarianism that Eva Moskwitz who is the Nurse Ratched of education – and proud of it.

For those not aware, Nurse Ratched, as Wikipedia states, “is the head administrative nurse at… a mental institution where she exercises near-absolute power over the patients' access to medications, privileges, and basic necessities such as food and toiletries. She capriciously revokes these privileges whenever a patient displeases her. Her superiors turn blind eyes because she maintains order, keeping the patients from acting out, either through antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs or her own brand of psychotherapy, which consists mostly of humiliating patients into doing her bidding.” Nurse Ratched engages in an epic battle with rebel inmate Randall McMurphy (Jack Nicholson in the movie). In polls, Nurse Ratched came in 2nd to The Wicked Witch of the North as the most evil female character in movie history.

I saw a Halloween photo of a teacher dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West wearing an Eva Moskowitz mask. This was not an exaggeration. People have termed conditions for some children at Eva’s schools as verging on child abuse.

In my last School Scope column I talked about the extremely high suspension rates of kindergarten children at Success Academy charters as exposed on PBS by reporter John Merrow, who used to love charter schools, until he found out how so many of them operate. Since they are bound by a lottery system, some unwanted kids may slip in. So they use extraordinary discipline procedures starting in kindergarten to force the unwanted young children into more and more frustrating acts and harass the parents daily, hoping they will remove the children from the school. The idea is cull the herd before the kids start taking tests that count. Thus you will find that an kindergarten class has lost 40-50% of their children by the 3rd grade when testing begins. Eva argues that these kids don’t fit the culture of her schools – so they are mostly tossed back into the public schools which has to take every child.

Eva retaliated against the child who appeared on the PBS report by releasing a history of his records, a violation of federal FERPA laws. But Nurse Eva always believes she is above the law. Funny thing is that that child ended up in the class of Jia Lee, who is running for UFT president against Michael Mulgrew on the MORE slate, and she loves the kid.

NY Times reporter Kate Taylor followed up her exposure of Success Charters back in May with a follow-up last week of a “Got to Go” list of kids the school was going to pressure to leave (http://tinyurl.com/pqbfckc). This article caused such a sensation, Eva was forced to hold a press conference with the principal of the school standing there and crying and issue a mea culpa that this only happened at one of her schools. In a pig’s eye it did.

A comment left on my blog by an anonymous parent stated: “They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either. When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind.”

Twilight Zone or asylum?

Stuyvesant HS teacher Gary Rubinstein blogged “When You “Got To Go”, You Got To Go” about the situation, publishing comments of parents who left Eva’s Gulag: http://tinyurl.com/obdrzdf.

Come see the RTC production of One Flew Over the Kuckoo’s Nest and see the Nurse Ratched as the model of Evil Moskowitz.

Norm admits to playing his own version of Randal McMurphy to his Nurse Ratched-like Principal. He can’t stop blogging about Evil at ednotesonline.com.


Memo from the RTC: Nurse Ratched Comes to Rockaway
By Norm Scott

“A cold, heartless tyrant, Nurse Ratched has become the stereotype of the nurse as a battleaxe. She has also become a popular metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and authority in bureaucracies such as the mental institution in which the novel is set. Nurse Ratched was named the fifth-greatest villain in film history (and second-greatest villainess, behind only the Wicked Witch of the West)” …. Louise Fletcher won the Academy Award for her performance in the movie…..Wikipedia.

And I play Nurse Ratched’s superior (technically), a drug-addicted doctor, who she resents because if she weren’t a woman in this early 1960s story would be in control but is forced to manipulate her inept boss to maintain her iron-clad control. Lynda Browning is playing Nurse Ratched in the upcoming RTC production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as a follow-up to her astounding performance as Bella in last spring’s “Lost in Yonkers.” Lynda is so good she can turn on a dime from the sweetest person in the world while joshing with the guys backstage into one scary lady once we are on stage. Lynda also played the role 10 years ago when RTC did the play the first time.

The nurse engages in an epic and legendary battle with new inmate Randal McMurphy, a rebel who is feigning mental illness to get out of a prison sentence and thinks he can game the system. Jack Nicholson made his mark by playing the role in the movie, which so many people loved. I did too ¬– until I found myself in the less well-known play which has so much more impact than the movie did. (And I’m hearing the novel is even better.) RTC newcomer John Stillwaggon does not take a 2nd seat to Nicholson as McMurphy in this must-see performance. John is an experienced actor and in this case I would say he was born to play the McMurphy role.

And oh those people playing the inmates. What a cast of characters and top-level actors, some of whom don’t draw the line between acting and being crazy. But more on them next time. Oh, and the Frank Ciati designed and master builder Tony Homsey set is so reminiscent of a real mental institution – or a school, which if you read my School Scope column you will see the similarities. (Director Michael Wotypra, also a teacher, constantly reminds me that Nurse Ratched is just another version of so many supervisors we have seen in the school system.)

Opening night is at 8PM on Friday the 13th – yikes – with other evening performances on Nov. 14, 20, 21 and Sunday matinees at 2PM on Nov. 15, 22.

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.com

The Mess at Success: Bloggers Go Wild on Eva/Success Academy

Some great stuff from the blogging world on the Eva/Success Mess.

Here are excerpts and links:

Success Academy has grown far too large to keep the lid on everything now.  Moskowitz enrolls 11,000 students in 34 schools.  She has around 1000 teachers and staff.  With such numbers and given their policies, there will likely be 1000s of former “scholars” and 100s of former teachers in short order, and all of them are not going to be intimidated into silence about what they saw while there.  The simple fact is that Moskowitz absolutely cannot keep total control over what people say and know anymore, and it is her own policies of driving away students she does not want and burning out teachers that has put her in this position.  So even if she fully recovers from this month, I think it is likely we will see many more months like this........Daniel Katz, Ph.D.
Eva Moskowitz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

The real anomaly, however, is the fact that the exclusionary practice that Success Academy silently demands in order to "succeed" ever was mentioned in the New York Times, which has an editorial board that remains entirely enthusiastic about the paternalistic segregated charter reform schools that corporate America promotes as a hideous manifestation of educational justice in blackface....
Schools Matter
Success Academy Find Its Scapegoat

Eva says the "got to go" list was an anomaly, one of those wacky things that happens once in a blue moon.  Yet there have been stories for years of kids pushed out of Moskowitz Academies, for inconvenient behavior, low test scores, whatever. Eva is now demanding public funding for the Moskowitz pre-K but refusing to submit to required oversight by the city. Rules are for the little people, and that would be us, the people who serve all children. If there's an "anomoly," it's the fact that this particular list was placed in writing.......NYC Educator:  The Moskowitz Anomoly - Eva says the "got to go" list was an anomaly, one of those wacky things that happens once in a blue moon. Yet there have been stories for years of kids p...

Success Academy's tearful apology for a 'Got To Go' list of students isn't accepted by every parent

Moskowitz Presser Addressing "Got To Go" List Allegations Is Theater Of The Absurd

Melodrama, Moskowitz-style, via Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

Comment Exposes Success Charter And Achievement First Tactics of Child Abuse

They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either.  

When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind.
........Abundant1 has left a new comment on your post "Eva's Got to Go, Not Children: NY Times Throws Another Grenade at Eva Moskowitz as She Holds Presser to Scam for More Money

----
Someone left this powerful comment on Ed Notes. We know how they work. To get rid of a child they don't want they start out with the small stuff - like demerits things described above. Young children especially those with some "issues" get that they are being picked on and then begin to react with frustration and begin to lash out and the school then has "documentation" of bad behavior.

Eva and her goons have people so scared of consequences - both staff and students, that a cone of silence has been placed over her operation. But now with some parents breaking the logjam, we are seeing something going on, not only with Success and Achievement First, but with KIPP. Teachers with long careers ahead are still too afraid to speak out publicly. And I still am betting they are forced to sign some non-disclosure agreement in their contracts.

These schools are run like the pre-Civil War southern plantations.

Success Academy, Achievement First, they are among the top offenders of tactics like this. The words in the article have been repeated time and again to city officials, and news reporters. We've had hearings and community gatherings. I spent my sons entire 5th grade in meetings trying to understand, advocate, advise, and reveal. Those who already knew had been resigned to the idea that the big money backers would make sure none of it would make a difference. As it had not made a difference over the decades that it took for these charter schools to become so prolific and take root in our communities. Now the story resurfaces as if it is news, but it is unmitigated child abuse that it is known by those in a position to change it, and or punish it, and here it is October 2015 still wrong and strong. God Bless people like Leonie Haimson who have not been deterred; and who continues to show up, and fight to expose and change the system of abuse for the children whose own parents barely know what is happening to them. 

When I see these mothers who are willing to participate in these propaganda commericals for these charter schools, I am sick about all that they don't know, and how their children are subsequently in a position to fend for themselves. 

I am glad this article repeats the one area that EVERYONE must know regardless of whether your child attends these schools or not. They are criminalizing these children to the point that the children are believing them, and begin to act as expected. When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind. 

What did the few parents who stood against their policies teach them? How to hide their abuses. They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either. 

It is a layered problem, but lets start with the illegal stuff and take it from there. But when the office of child welfare stops taking calls, and when you do get through tells you it will be more than a year before anyone even thinks about investigating the complaint, hopelessness can set in. Even the NYC agency set-up to protect children with special needs, failed. It was clear there was a network of silence at work, that is well funded... Anyway, I go on... 

Hopefully this will be the year, this will be the story, this will be the child that will break the system's back. No more charter abuses! 

Eva's Got to Go, Not Children: NY Times Throws Another Grenade at Eva Moskowitz as She Holds Presser to Scam for More Money

Let's see Eva try to fight her way out of this one... Leonie Haimson

At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have ‘Got to Go’

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-academy-charter-school-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Today Eva has a press conf demanding the city give her pre-k money even if she won't sign a contract like every other school does. These new revelations won't help her case.

This is open child abuse. 
Why did Eva release the records of that child and risk violating federal FERPA laws - a child who happens to now be a successful student at the Earth School with experienced teachers like MORE's presidential candidate Jia Lee, who teaches that child? To intimidate parents who were pushed out of Success from testifying.
See: Cease and Desist letter sent today to Eva Moskowitz of Success Charters

It hasn't worked.

Another goody on Success Charter Scam from NY Times' Kate Taylor. I met Kate in Sept. 2014 at a Success charter school hearing in Brooklyn when she was new to the ed beat and hadn't yet gotten a hold of the Success Charter scam. How nice to see the Times investing in investigative reporting on Eva.

Kate's article goes into the tactics used on 5-year olds. Beat them up over minor infractions until they get so frustrated they lash out and commit more and more infractions. Then tell the world these kids don't belong in their schools - but where else do they go but in public schools where there are great and experienced teachers like Jia who know how to deal with these kids in a humane way?

More parents are following the lead and revealing the excess at Success.

From left, Folake Wimbish, Nicey Givens and Folake Ogundiran all withdrew their children from Success Academy Fort Greene. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

Will Eva continue to violate FERPA lawa by releasing these kids' records?

Former Success staff are also beginning to talk - anonymously because they know they will be hounded and attacked for talking.

Principals at Success, many in their 20s and 30s, frequently consult with a team of lawyers before suspending a student or requiring a parent to pick up a child early every day. It was a member of that team who described a student’s withdrawal from the Success Academy in Union Square to colleagues as a “big win,” the current employee said. 

I love that Kate mentioned the ages of the principals. I wonder if staff don't have to sign some non-disclosure agreements when they sign a contract? Does anyone have examples of these contracts to publish?

For James Merriman, who heads the charter network and full well knows the evils of Eva, to try to defend them is indefensible.

James D. Merriman, the chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, a group that advocates and supports charter schools, said it was unrealistic to expect any given school to be a good fit for every child. And Mr. Merriman noted that the city had many traditional public schools that required a test or other screening for admission, schools that by definition did not serve all students.

That's an infinitesimal number of public schools and they are open and above board on their policies. Merriman used to sell charters as taking every kid through the lottery. Now they are explaining away their trying to beat the lottery.

And this was just sent out to the Twitter Brigade:

Hi Twitter Brigade,

The news keeps piling on, today the New York Times published an article confirming and detailing some disgusting suspension habits carried out by Success Academy Charter School Network.

The article proves that Success Academy uses frequent suspensions as a tactic to push students out, using a "Got to Go" list. Read the article here: http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

This sort of unfair treatment shows that Success Academy is not the "public school" they claim to be and that Eva Moskowitz will use ultimate autonomy to hand pick students.

TWEET WITH US NOW!!

Let Eva and her schools know this is unacceptable. Attached are some meme's and below are sample tweets.

9 of 16 students on @SuccessCharters #Got2Go list withdrew. Frequent suspensions force kids out http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

.@SuccessCharters uses frequent suspensions to push kids out, claims they #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

Moskowitz wages ultimate autonomy claims kids #GotToGo then suspends until they withdraw http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

.@SuccessCharters uses trolling parents with suspensions for minor infractions as form of pushing kids out #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

Parents choose @SuccessCharters then learn their child has #GotToGo with frequent suspensions http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

Parents say 'lives upended by repeated suspensions' @SuccessCharters says their child has #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

.@SuccessCharters staff ADMIT network uses suspension to let parents know their child has #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

Students that @SuccessCharters believe have #GotToGo are suspended frequently, left off re-enrollment list http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

.@SuccessCharters staff say certain kids leaving is 'BIG WIN' #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

.@SuccessCharters decide some students have #GotToGo, start suspending as young as kindergarten http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3

Alan Singer on Moskowitz's "Suspension" Academy's Code of Misconduct

John Merrow posted the Success Academy Network's disciplinary code which is distributed to all parents. Surprisingly I was unable to find it on any of the Network's numerous websites. 

I find the infractions petty and the penalties at Success Academy Charter Schools highly punitive, especially for younger children, but readers can judge for themselves. 

Success Academy rules are a manifesto for zero-tolerance policing policies brought into an elementary school. Research on the impact of zero-tolerance policies continually demonstrates that they are detrimental to both a student's emotional and academic growth, reinforce student behaviors they are supposed to eliminate leading to further suspensions, and increasingly exposed suspended to influences that virtually ensured further problems in schools and with the police. 

Some of the rules at Success Academy read like they could have been copied from a Department of Corrections guide for disciplining incarcerated prisoners. Others seem like a return to Maoist China "struggle sessions" during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s when people accused of misconduct made public confessions of their misdeeds and mis-thoughts. Students can be suspended from school or expelled for behavior that occurred outside of school time and off of school grounds. 

Alan Singer, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/moskowitzs-suspension-aca_b_8388616.html

Here is a link to the full Discipline code.

We know there are some teachers in public schools with major discipline problems who would love these policies -- but those schools either suffer from incompetent admins, many new and inexperienced teachers or an overload of kids with problems.

Charter schools do not have the latter but do have many inexperienced teachers who have not learned how to deal with kids with discipline issues. Thus the rigid code -- just dump the kid into suspension because the teachers can't handle them.

Leo Challenges Eva at AFT/Shanker Institute

It is a good thing when Leo and the AFT take on the Evil Madness so openly in the Shanker Institute report: Student Discipline, Race And Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools. I'm on the move, heading back to New York, so don't have time to read it all - I'm including it below. I noted this criticism from Leonie:

The continued insistence on the issue of backfilling I think is wrong-headed. Instead we should have data on attrition, which the state refuses to provide. Even if they backfill, does that negate the injustice of kicking out low-achievers? Moreover, if they do start backfilling, that will further disguise how many kids they kick out only to replace them with others. ... Leonie Haimson on Leo Casey's Shanker Institute report on Success Charter Discipline

Leo is Leonie's favorite person in the world as he so often attacks her when she dares to criticize the union's darling partners in crime in the de Blasio admin. When Leonie talks I listen but will take a closer look when I get home later.

Here's an excerpt:

At a recent press conference, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz addressed the issue of student discipline. “It is horrifying,” she told reporters, that critics of her charter schools’ high suspension rates don’t realize “that five-year-olds do some pretty violent things.” Moskowitz then pivoted to her displeasure with student discipline in New York City (NYC) public schools, asserting that disorder and disrespect have become rampant."

Sure - suspending a 5 year old who does terrible things ought to work - work getting the parents to pull their kid and out them in a public school.


http://www.shankerinstitute.org/blog/student-discipline-race-and-eva-moskowitz%E2%80%99s-success-academy-charter-schools

Student Discipline, Race And Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools

by Leo Casey -- October 19, 2015

At a recent press conference, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz addressed the issue of student discipline. “It is horrifying,” she told reporters, that critics of her charter schools’ high suspension rates don’t realize “that five-year-olds do some pretty violent things.” Moskowitz then pivoted to her displeasure with student discipline in New York City (NYC) public schools, asserting that disorder and disrespect have become rampant.
This is not the first time Moskowitz has taken aim at the city’s student discipline policies. Last spring, she used the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to criticize the efforts of Mayor Bill De Blasio and the NYC Department of Education to reform the student code of conduct and schools’ disciplinary procedures. Indeed, caustic commentary on student behavior and public school policy has become something of a trademark for Moskowitz.

The National Move to Reform Student Discipline Practices
To understand why, it is important to provide some context. The New York City public school policies that Moskowitz derides are part of a national reform effort, inspired by a body of research showing that overly punitive disciplinary policies are ineffective and discriminatory. Based on this research evidence, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and School Discipline Consensus Project of the Council of State Governments have all gone on record on the harmful effects of employing such policies. The U.S. Education Department, the U.S. Justice Department, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, consortia of researchers, national foundations, and the Dignity in Schools advocacy coalition have all examined the state of student discipline in America’s schools in light of this research.1

Their findings? Suspensions and expulsions, the most severe forms of school discipline, are being used excessively in American schools, often for such minor infractions such as “talking back” or being out of uniform. Further, these severe punishments are being applied disproportionality to students of color, especially African-American and Latino boys, students with disabilities and LGBT youth.

As a result of these data, the U.S. Education Department and U.S. Justice Department issued guidance to schools, based on their finding that discriminatory uses of suspensions and expulsions were in violation of Title IV and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Since this guidance came from the federal agencies that are charged with the enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, it added the force of the law to the powerful moral arguments for addressing the problem of discriminatory discipline. School districts and schools, public and charter, took notice. The more progressive minded, such as the new de Blasio administration of the New York City Department of Education, began to reform their disciplinary practices in accord with these regulations. As a consequence, the suspensions and expulsions from New York City’s public schools have been dramatically reduced.
Moskowitz makes no explicit mention of these developments in her attacks on the de Blasio administration, although a careful reading shows that they are a calculated response to them. Instead, with unverifiable anecdotes, cherry-picked statistics, and out-of-context quotations, Moskowitz dismisses New York City’s student discipline reforms as “edu-babble” and “nonsense.”2
In a revealing video interview that accompanied the Wall Street Journal op-ed, editorial board member Mary Kissel launches the conversation by declaring that the “Obama administration wants laxer discipline standards for minorities in public schools.” Moskowitz does not disagree. Under the cover of attacks on the policies and practices of New York City public schools, Moskowitz has delivered a shot across the bow of President Obama, retiring Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and incoming Acting Secretary John King. The message is, if you choose to enforce civil rights law when it comes to discipline in Success Academy charter schools, expect an all-out political war.

The Data on Success Academy Schools
Why would Moskowitz feel the need to lay down a gauntlet in opposition to a president and two secretaries of education who have all been vigorous charter school supporters? For that matter, why take on the entire civil rights community? To answer these questions, I decided to take a look at the data on suspensions from New York City schools, both public and charter. There are three repositories of these data: the Civil Rights Data Collection of the U.S. Education Department; the School Report Cards of the New York State Education Department; and the school discipline data reports of the NYC Department of Education to the City Council, as required by New York City’s Student Safety Act. (The UCLA Civil Rights Project provides a user friendly portal for viewing the federal data and, while the Student Safety Act data is not available on the internet, the New York Civil Liberties Union publishes useful annual Suspension Data Fact Sheets.) With three different repositories of data, one would think that it should be a simple matter to locate accurate information. But the reality is rather different.

Take the data published by the U.S. Education Department: The most recent available dataset is for the school year 2011-12, when the New York City Department of Education was under the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg’s NYC DoE reported suspension rates of 1.7 percent for secondary school students and 0.3 percent for elementary school students, figures which were far below the seven percent suspension rate it had provided under the Student Safety Act.3
But this inconsistency pales next to the data for Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools: Across all Success Academy schools, just two suspensions were reported to the U.S. Department of Education for 2011-12. During the same year, hundreds of suspensions were reported to the New York State Education Department, for an overall suspension rate of 17 percent.4
The numbers that Success Academy chose to report to the federal government were not only so radically at variance with those reported to the New York State Department of Education, but also so obviously wrong, as to appear contemptuous of the charter networks’ obligations under federal civil rights law.5
To provide the most complete picture possible of what is happening in both the Success Academy schools and regular New York City public schools, it was necessary to gather data from a number of different sources. Let us start with most recent dataset, for the year 2013-14, which was published late last spring as part of the New York State School Report Cards. According to the state data, in 2013-14, Success Academy Charter Schools had a total of 728 suspensions for a suspension rate of 11 percent, while the New York City public schools had a total of 9617 suspensions for a suspension rate of one percent.
We know that the NYC public school data is understated, however, because (just as in the case of its report to the U.S. Education Department cited above) only the most serious suspensions are ever reported to the New York State Education Department. Upon request, the New York City Department of Education supplied the Shanker Institute with the total number of all suspensions for the 2013-14 school year. These data showed 53,504 suspensions; yielding an annual suspension rate of five percent.6
From the standpoint of Success Academy, therefore, the most charitable reading of these numbers is that the charter school network suspended its students at more than double the rate of the New York City public schools, eleven percent to five percent.7
But these numbers are only the beginning of the story. New York charter school management has defended student suspension rates in their schools that are much higher than those of New York City district schools on the grounds that they educate more students with challenges – students living in poverty, students with special needs, and English Language Learners. The New York State Education Department data includes a fairly robust set of student demographics that make it possible to test this claim by comparing the student demographics of Success Academy charter schools and New York City public schools for the 2013-14 school year.8
In fact, on the most important measures, the student demographics of Success Academy schools indicate a lower need student population than are served by New York City public schools as a whole: while 81 percent of New York City public school students are “economically disadvantaged,” 74 percent of Success Academy students fall into that category; while 18 percent of New York City public school students have “learning disabilities,” 14 percent of Success Academy students fall into that category; and while 15 percent of New York City public school students are English language learners, only 5 percent of Success Academy students fall into that category.9
Thus, insofar as one credits the argument that a student population with greater needs will necessarily have more problems with behavior and more student suspensions, Success Academy schools should be suspending fewer – not more – students than the New York City public schools.
Why Age Matters
There is one more key issue of comparability that is often lost in these discussions: the age of students. As students enter into adolescence, misbehaviors generally increase and disciplinary consequences for those misbehaviors (such as suspensions) tend to climb in number. For a true “apples-to-apples” comparison, we should look at data for students in the same age groups. As it happens, during the years discussed here, Success Academy Charter Schools served no high school students and had very few students in middle school – in fact, over 90 percent of their students were in the elementary school grades of K through 5.
To adequately compare suspension rates in Success Academy Charter Schools with rates in the New York City public schools, we requested that the New York City Department of Education provide the Shanker Institute with a breakdown of student suspensions by grade level: In 2013-14, the elementary school grades had 6,634 suspensions, the middle school grades had 18,873 suspensions and the high school grades had 27,997 suspensions. That is, the elementary school grades accounted for nearly half of all New York City public school students (47 percent), but only 12 percent of all suspensions; the middle school grades accounted for 22 percent of all students, but 35 percent of all suspensions; and the high school grades accounted for 31 percent of all students, but 52 percent of all suspensions. In other words, in 2013-14, there was 1 suspension for every 67 students in the elementary school grades of New York City public schools and one suspension for every 11 students in the middle and high school grades. By contrast, in Success Academy Charter Schools, there was one suspension for every nine students in 2013-14, and these students were overwhelmingly concentrated in the elementary school grades – a higher suspension rate than for New York City public middle and high school students. Shockingly, when students of the same ages were compared, Success Academy Charter Schools was suspending students at a rate roughly seven times greater than in the New York City public schools.10
The Matter of Race
What were the race and ethnicity characteristics of Success Academy’s suspended students? Only the Civil Rights Data Collection of the U.S. Department of Education requires that districts and schools report the race and ethnicity of suspended students; but, as previously noted, since Success Academy reported only two of its hundreds of suspensions to the federal government, we have no direct source of information on this matter. We do know, however, that in the 2013-14 school year, seven of the eighteen Success Academy charter schools (Harlem Success I through V, Bed-Stuy Success I and Bronx Success I) accounted for nearly 90 percent of all suspensions, with suspension rates above the average for all Success Academy schools. In each of those schools, the combined share of African-American and Latino students was in the high 90 percent range.
While Success Academy is on the extreme end of the spectrum, the problem of excessive suspensions for African-American and Latino students runs deep across the charter school sector in New York City, as the Advocates for Children’s report, “Civil Rights Suspended,” has documented.
The challenge posed to Success Academy and similar charter schools by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education’s guidance on student discipline is serious. To be in conformance with civil rights law, these schools will need to make radical reforms to their “no excuses” school culture and practices. Now that Moskowitz has laid down the gauntlet on this issue, many eyes will be on the Obama administration for its response. Changing policies, practices and cultures to make schools into safe and welcoming places that do not resort to the excessive and discriminatory use of suspensions and expulsions is hard, challenging work.
Educators across the country will be watching closely to see if all schools are required to take it on. If the greatest transgressors of federal civil rights law are given a bye for political reasons, it is hard to see how the law can be successfully enforced anywhere. Public scrutiny of the issue is bound to grow in the wake of John Merrow’s powerful PBS News Hour piece on Success Academy’s suspension policy. The Obama administration’s initiative to end excessive and discriminatory suspensions and expulsions will ultimately stand or fall on its willingness to take on those, such as Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools, who openly refuse to abide by federal civil rights law.
Perhaps the specter of having to make these student discipline reforms was, by itself, sufficient cause for Moskowitz to take on the Obama administration, Duncan, King and the entire civil rights community. But it is not the only issue; Success Academy’s student discipline policies are also intimately tied to its practice of refusing to “backfill” empty student seats. I will take up the issue of “backfilling” in a follow-up post on Success Academy Public Schools.
*****
ENDNOTES
1 See the work of the U.S. Department of Education, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the UCLA Civil Rights Project, Discipline Disparities: A Research to Practice Collaborative, the Atlantic Philanthropies, and the advocacy coalition Dignity in Schools.
2 By way of illustrations, consider the following two examples: First, there is the claim in Moskowitz’s op-ed, repeated in the video interview, that “4 percent of New York City high-school students carry a weapon to school; 2 percent carry a gun.” These statistics do not reflect the actual numbers of students who were found in possession of a weapon in their school – despite the fact that in New York City, the penalty for possession of a weapon in school is a suspension, and thus appears in the suspension data. But it appears that the real numbers were too low to suit Moskowitz’s purposes, since she claims to have obtained her alternative numbers from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene epidemiological report, “Firearm Deaths and Injuries in New York City,” a report that incorporates data from the NYC Youth Risk Behavior Survey. A fuller examination of this survey provides a different picture of school safety than Moskowitz portrays. Since 1997, the numbers of New York City high school youth who reported carrying a weapon of any sort have fallen by more than half, and the numbers who reported carrying a gun have been halved. Indeed, the rate of weapon and gun carrying among high school age youth in New York City is well below the national average. Moreover, the numbers of youth carrying weapons are not uniformly spread across the city, but concentrated in neighborhoods of high poverty – the South Bronx, Harlem and Central and Northern Brooklyn: the rates of firearm violence (death and injury) among high school and college age youth in these areas were at least twice the City’s average. Now that Success Academy has begun to open its own high schools, one could employ Moskowitz’s logic in this op-ed to Success Academy charter high schools located in its areas of concentration in the South Bronx, Harlem and Central and Northern Brooklyn, and conclude that 8-10 percent of their students would be carrying a weapon in school. It is a safe bet that when it comes to assessing the safety in her own schools, the CEO of Success Academy will be returning to the statistics of students actually found in possession of a weapon in school that she was so quick to disregard in discussing public high schools.
Second, Moskowitz mocks the use of “restorative practices” in New York City public schools by ridiculing a quote from a website, which has no connection either to New York City schools or to any of the significant forces in the movement to reform student discipline. The NYC Department of Education discipline code includes a description of the restorative practices that should be employed in city schools, explaining how practices such as peer mediation can be used to resolve student conflicts and disputes before they escalate into violence. But Moskowitz ignores this authoritative information.
3 New York City public schools distinguish between “Principal” suspensions, used for less serious misconduct and limited to no more than five days of suspension, and “Superintendent” suspensions, used for more serious misconduct and extending for as long as a year. As the name suggests, it is in the authority of the Principal to issue a Principal suspension, but a Superintendent suspension requires the approval of the Superintendent and a more formal and quasi-legal due process hearing conducted by the NYC Department of Education. Under Bloomberg, the NYC Department of Education appears to have been reporting only Superintendent suspensions, which accounted for only 19 percent of all suspensions. Since the U.S. Education Department category is “out of school suspensions,” which would cover any loss of school days, there would not appear to be a plausible reason for reporting only Superintendent suspensions.
4 There were seven Success Academy charter schools which had been in existence long enough to report data to the U.S Education Department for its 2011-12 report: five Harlem Success Academies and two Bronx Success Academies. There is an anomaly in the corresponding New York State Report Card for Bronx Success Academy 2, which is missing data for attendance and suspensions. I therefore calculated the overall figures for Success Academy using the six schools with data. In the next year of the New York State Report Card, which includes data for all seven of the original Success Academy schools and an additional two new schools, the overall suspension rate rose to 19 percent.
5 In the years of the Bloomberg administration, Moskowitz had a close ally on student discipline and other issues leading the NYC Department of Education. Over the course of the decade ending in 2011-12, suspensions in the Bloomberg-run NYC public schools more than doubled. So long as the disciplinary policies of the New York City public schools were increasingly punitive, Success Academy had cover for its own policies. But, with changes in student discipline policies arising under the de Blasio administration and the new leadership at the NYC Department of Education, the Success Academy’s record has become increasingly vulnerable.
6 For the 2013-14 student registers in New York City public schools, I have used the numbers from the Department of Education’s public portal.
7 In her Wall Street Journal op-ed, Eva Moskowitz states that there is an 11 percent suspension rate in Success Academy charter schools, as opposed to a four percent suspension rate in New York City public schools, but does not provide a source for these numbers.
8 There are two missing data points that, if they had been provided, would make the comparison more complete. While the NYSED demographics do include students with disabilities, it does not distinguish between those students with minimal disabilities and those students who have more serious disabilities. And while the NYSED demographics do include a measure of economic disadvantage which is more sophisticated than the crude free and reduced lunch status measure that is often used as a proxy for poverty, it does not break out homelessness, which is the most severe form of economic disadvantage. 
9 What is particularly striking about the lower levels of need in the Success Academy student population is that their charter schools have been sited in the historically highest need communities of New York City – Harlem, the South Bronx, and Northern and Central Brooklyn – which should have led to higher, not lower, levels of need. These results would give credence to the claims that Success Academy charter schools have been “creaming” these communities, enrolling a disproportionate number of students that have low levels of need.
10 A more precise estimate would be possible if city, state and federal education authorities required all schools and districts to report their suspensions by grade level. This is a needed policy adjustment.