School Scope: How Do You Spell “Success”? – Part 1

Submitted to The WAVE for publication Dec. 9, 2017

School Scope:  How Do You Spell “Success”? – Part 1

By Norm Scott

The current issue of The New Yorker is running a story by Rebecca Meade, Success Academy’s Radical Educational Experiment: Inside Eva Moskowitz’s quest to combine rigid discipline with a progressive curriculum. Good luck with that – the very idea of child-centered progressive education is incompatible with rigid discipline. The schools, forty six so far in NYC with a goal of one hundred, run by Moskowitz, have been controversial on a number of grounds. Educators have long been suspect of the test outcomes, which far surpass not only public schools but also all other charters and even match results in the high performing suburbs. That has caused more than a little skepticism, especially since Moskowitz claims the kids in her schools come from the same pool as the public schools. In essence, the Success lobby is claiming they are miracle workers and their demands for space in public schools keeps increasing even when so many of the 1800 public schools are also competing for space.

Educational professionals who worked with populations of students similar to those being claimed by Success have been skeptical. As someone who taught elementary school (grades 4-6) in schools with many struggling non-white children and who also holds a Masters in reading instruction, I am a skeptic, especially since I spent years trying to figure out how to break through with kids with reading issues. There are no miracles, though once in a while I saw a child make a major breakthrough.

One of the major problems for struggling readers is language – even kids born here who hear another language at home. A second issue is whether there are opportunities to read at home or have parents who focus on reading with their children. Even immigrant families whose children read in their native language can make major progress fairly quickly. Generally, the level of income and the amount of economic struggles have a direct impact on the entire process. If one were to go through any school and match reading ability with income in the home, even in the working poor, there would be a strong correlation.

I taught in a system where classes were made up of kids grouped by reading scores. Thus the so-called top class had the best readers and so on down the line. The bottom class students were the hardest to teach reading too. The UFT contract allows teachers to rotate from the top classes to the lower level readers and back every year, though in my schools, principals save the top classes for their favorites and sometimes we had to file a grievance. I did this for almost twenty years, so I had a good feel for the differences between the kids, who all pretty much lived in the projects across the street. The two times I had the very top class, I was astounded at their general on grade reading ability and also the fact that there were many less discipline issues. Now these were not wealthy people – many were on welfare or had low paying jobs. And there were a lot more two parent homes in the top class than in the bottom. Most of them had been in our school since pre-k (and we found that kids who went to pre-k did better than those who didn’t – shout out to de Blasio). Many of the students entered pre-k with some reading readiness.

Now I would bet that in Success schools we would find a heavy concentration of the same kinds of students that were in our old top classes. And those who do get into the lottery who are struggling with academics or discipline face high suspension rates and attempts to push them out, a standard operating procedure at most charters.

How can we tell? Of the 72 students who began at the first Success school in kindergarten, only 17 were left to graduate high school. What happened to the other 55 students?

There are no miracles. More next time.

(Link to New Yorker article: https://tinyurl.com/yabebvqx)

Norm  does manage to perform miracles every day at ednotesonline.com.

Another de Blasio Giveaway to Success Charters - Playing the Consolidation Card

There is a proposed consolidation of P.S. 269 and P.S. 361, buildings K864 and K869 (where P.S. 361 is currently located). If approved by PEP, PS 361 would become vacant. The NYCDOE is proposing to use the vacant space for the opening of a new Success Academy middle school that will serve rising middle school students from Success Academy- Bergen Beach and Success Academy Bensonhurst, both of which would serve fifth grade students for the first time in 2018-2019. ... A concerned parent

We recently pointed to the giveaways in District 21 with commentary from Leonie Haison.

De Basio Caves in Blackmail Scheme: Eva/Success S...
 https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2017/11/de-basio-caves-in-blackmail-scheme.html

Leonie does more spadework on the consolidation plan:

If the two schools are zoned and have separate zones, then the merger should need CEC 22 approval. 

According to the most recent Blue Book (2015-2016), PS 361 is made up of two buildings, with a total enrollment of 538 and combined utilization of about 100% -- and lacking 3 of its allotted cluster rooms.  The minischool has lots of preK and Kindergarten classrooms.

22    K864    P.S. 361  (OLD 89) - K    363    411    88
22    K869    P.S. 361 MINISCHOOL - K    175    128    137

Here are the annual space surveys:

http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/AFS/K864.pdf

http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/AFS/K869.pdf

The main building has a swimming pool according to this, which I'm sure Eva would love.

The BB says PS 269 is at only 55% capacity with 390 students and with a capacity of 736; it is also lacking 3 of its allotted cluster rooms.

http://schools.nyc.gov/documents/AFS/K269.pdf is the space survey.

If these two schools were consolidated and their enrollment figures from that year are still the same,  that would put the combined enrollment at 928 and would put the school at about 127%.

PS 269 would likely lose a lot of classroom space, including science, ESL rooms etc.

And we know the capacity formula is aligned with larger class sizes than they should be.

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director
Class Size Matters

De Basio Caves in Blackmail Scheme: Eva/Success Steals More Space from Crowded Public Schools as Class Size Soars

Bulletin: Eva Moskowitz to be next chancellor, replacing Farina.

Just joking -- why would Eva take such a big pay cut? But she might as well be chancellor since she can dictate whatever terms she wants. And with her aim of 100 schools she will be in basic control of the public school system.

If you think Janus is the biggest threat to the UFT you are wrong. It is the expansion of Eva's union busting growing charter movement. I would bet that Eva and crew will one day establish their own company union as a way to control their growing teacher corps. You know the drill -- once they get their foot in the door of a building the ultimate aim is to do what they can to undermine the coloco public school and gain control of the entire building.

Politico reports (see below) that Eva and cohort threats to run an ad campaign against de Blasio over denial of space in public schools in District 21 - one of the whiter districts in Brooklyn - led to his caving in at the speed of light. Leonie highlights the overcrowding in Dist. 21 (Bensonhurst area and south Brooklyn).
D21 schools average 99% utilization; with 22 schools at 100% or more, 2 of them middle schools.

From Arthur:

I'm sitting in my packed-to-the-gills high school right now, with 4700 students attending school in a building designed for about half that. We have rooms that are converted closets, rooms in which there are portable AC units that are so loud you can barely teach when they're on. A whole lot of teachers turn them off rather than utilize them. Meanwhile, Eva Moskowitz, funded by hedge fund zillionaires running an expensive ad campaign for her, is crying that the city is discriminating against her students.  
------ Arthur Goldstein at NYC Educator

Maybe Arthur can threaten to run a major media campaign accusing de Blasio of not providing enough space in his school. How about the sounds of silence from our UFT/Unity leadership?

I hope you read Arthur's piece the other day - The Audacity of Eva
where he pointed to the vast overcrowding leading to higher class sizes at his school. Arthur follows up on the class size issue with his UFT Ex Bd report: Nov. 20th Executive Board Takeaway--Happy Talk from Unity and Recycled Class Size Issues

Yes happy talk from Unity Caucus which has not been concerned about class size for, oh, 50 years. By the way -- if you check any literature coming out of the so-called opposition in the UFT you won't find class size mentioned on any list of priorities either. [One of the reasons we formed ICE Caucus in 2004 was over the lack of attention to class size by the then opposition.]

Leonie Haimson reports on the class size matters and nyc public school parents blog:

Nov 21:NYC Class sizes increase again this year; Parents, advocates and attorneys urge NYSED Commissioner rule on complaint and make DOE take action now

Nov 20: Data & charts with 2017 class size data, showing sharp increases since 2007

Leonie also provides commentary on Eva's theft of more space:

Politico (more below) says that DOE has agreed to provide space in D21 and D22 school buildings for two new Success middle schools as well as more middle school seats in district schools as yet unspecified.  Which particular buildings aren’t yet reported either.  This is the result of the Mayor giving into the threat of a 7-figure ad campaign paid for by Eva’s hedge fund backers.

City officials noted the de Blasio administration has identified 5,000 seats for Success Academy students over the last four years. The network will gain an additional 1,000 seats through the space deals brokered Monday.

D21 schools average 99% utilization; with 22 schools at 100% or more, 2 of them middle schools.  Only 37% of seats needed to alleviate overcrowding and accommodate enrollment growth, according to DOE, are currently funded in the capital plan.  See data here: District 21 

Meanwhile, the DOE capacity formula assumes class sizes of 28 in grades 4-8, rather than the 23 in the C4E plan.

D22 schools are at 108% on average  with only 35% of needed seats funded in capital plan – and with NO seats as of last year sited or in scope or design.  26 of their schools are at 100% or more; one a MS at 122%.  See District 22 data. 

If only the more than 500,000 NYC public school students in overcrowded school buildings had hedge funders to pay for a seven figure ad campaign.

Thanks Leonie

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/newsletters/politico-new-york-education/2017/11/21/city-finds-space-for-success-charters-010421

SCOOP: CITY FINDS SPACE FOR SUCCESS CHARTERS, AVOIDING SHOWDOWN — POLITICO's Eliza Shapiro: Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration has found public school space for several growing Success Academy charter schools, Department of Education officials told POLITICO on Monday. The space arrangements allow the city to avoid another potentially bruising battle over school space with New York's largest and most politically influential network, run by one of de Blasio's most reliable foes, Eva Moskowitz. The city has identified buildings that will allow two Success schools, Bergen Beach [D22] and Bensonhurst [D21], to grow into middle school grades.

Moskowitz warned that over 700 of her students would be forced to seek other schools if the DOE didn't find suitable space by the end of the year. The DOE has also identified options for other new and growing Success schools. The network has over 15,000 students in 46 schools across four boroughs. City officials noted the de Blasio administration has identified 5,000 seats for Success Academy students over the last four years. The network will gain an additional 1,000 seats through the space deals brokered Monday.

Moskowitz and the lobbying group that supports Success, Families for Excellent Schools, have launched the latest in a series of hashtag-ready campaigns in recent weeks to pressure the city on space. The so-called #SpaceToLearn campaign has included press conferences, media calls — the latest of which was scheduled for Monday afternoon and canceled — and a New York Daily News trial balloon in which Success officials indicated they would move ahead with a six-figure ad buy to pressure the mayor. Spokespeople for Success did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The deal allows the city to avoid another major dust-up with Success after a similar fight in 2014.

But this year's fight lacked the political urgency of the 2014 battle, which became a referendum on not only de Blasio's stance on education reform but his political instincts during the first months of his administration. That's partially because city officials have said for months that the DOE was planning on identifying space for the growing network, a sharp contrast to 2014, when it was initially unclear whether the city planned to simply shutter several Success schools. Read more here.

 

Hudson Yards Success charter parents to Eva Moskowitz: The school "broke our children’s spirit and erased their self confidence in less than 3 weeks"

Leonie Haimson has the full letter on her blog: https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/10/hudson-yards-success-charter-parents-to.html

Ben Chapman of the Daily News reported yesterday that a group of parents whose children attend a new Hudson Yards middle school in the Success Academy charter network is protesting the rigid and abusive disciplinary methods of the network.  The school opened this year and enrolls about 200 students in grades 5 and 6, to be expanded to 480 students through eighth grade in future years.

The school is sited in a high-rise building on the far West Side of Manhattan.  The space also houses a Success charter elementary school and the Success Academy Education Institute, established to train teachers from throughout the country in the Success techniques.  The two schools in the building are supposed to serve as "lab schools" for the Institute. The commercial space in the mixed use tower was acquired for $68 million by Success in December 2016. 

The full letter from Hudson Yard parents to Eva Moskowitz, the Success CEO, is reprinted below, and describes how the principal and faculty at the school "broke our children’s spirit and erased their self confidence in less than 3 weeks." Many of the specific practices outlined below have been reported by parents at other Success charter schools.

New York's Greatly Hyped Success Academy Tainted by Racist Board Members and Radical Right-Wing Money | Alternet

Yet another Success Academy Board member has a long history of making incendiary racial comments.

Here's a link to an article on Eva you won't see posted on Chalkbeat.

http://www.alternet.org/success-academy-race-baiting-trolls

An excerpt:

Board member Charles Strauch has had a blog for years that specializes in right-wing race baiting and recycled conspiracy theories from the dregs of the Internet, many with a racial tinge.Strauch’s blog, Wealth Creates Good, was taken down on September 5th, not long after I began Tweeting excerpts of his posts to Success, asking for a response. (An archive of some of Strauch’s post can still be viewed here.) 

Go ahead and try to get info about these characters as they declare themselves private when inconvenient - one of the best arguments to make for why charters should not exist.

Harris Lirtzman found a nugget in a CB link that touches on this transparency issue.

We can regret Chalkbeat's place in the media solar system but it still breaks interesting stuff:  A classic example of CMO executives claiming 'public school' status for political purposes while wrapping themselves in 'private school' protections when they're useful ....

https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/09/21/private-managers-of-public-schools-charter-leaders-enjoy-extra-buffer-from-public-records-laws/

Diane Ravitch reports on the same issue:

Eva Moskowitz to Chalkbeat: Buzz Off! We Are a Private Corporation, Not Public! by dianeravitch

Chalkbeat thought that it would be interesting to gain access to the email correspondence of Success Academy Network to find out how they handled the Dan Loeb crisis. It's reporter filed a Freedom of Information request. Dan Loeb is the billionaire who is chairman of the SA board who made a racist comment, writing that the leading African American legislator in the State Senate did more damage to black children than the KKK. The SA Network refused to release any records because they are private, not public. Public records laws don't apply to them, they said.

CB today does link to a a review of Eva's book:EVA'S EDUCATION The latest review of Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz's new memoir calls it "the most intimate look to date into ... a woman who is as infamous as she is admired." The Atlantic, Chalkbeat 

Chalkbeat As Astroturf Journalism

Chalkbeat: Softball Interview With Success Academy attorney
The interviewer asks not a single question about the numerous charges vs. Success; their push out and disciplinary policies; and the numerous court cases/civil rights complaints and confirmed privacy violations at Success that Kim as the attorney for Success allowed to continue and defended time after time..... Leonie Haimson

See https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/09/why-emily-kim-former-attorney-for.html

True reformers have been growing increasingly critical of the constant pro-deform drum from Challbeat's so-called "journalism." Leonie nails them on this interview with former Success Academy lawyer Emily Kim: Chalkbeat

Success Academy's former lawyer is trying to start her own charter network. We sat down with her to hear her vision for schools.

A pushed out parent had these comments about Kim in Leonie's post:

Emily Kim had a personal hand in making sure my son's IEP was not met. This happened continuously from first to third grade. She conducted herself unprofessionally in meetings, emails, and during phone conversations. On more than one occasion I had to not only seek but retain legal counsel to try to protect his civil rights and to obtain his mandated services as required by his IEP. 

When I was banned from entering the school, Emily personally enforced the ban with no evidence of any misdeed on my part, and instead offered to find a new school for my child. The ban wasn't lifted until I appeared at a press conference with the Public Advocate Letitia James, in which Ms. James asked SUNY to investigate the abuse of special needs children.

Here is another example of Chalkbeat duplicity - publishing a link at another biased "journalism" site run by Campbell Brown - this biased anti-public school teacher absentee "study"

CHRONICALLY ABSENT Teachers in traditional schools are more likely to be chronically absent than teachers in charter schools, according to a new study by the Thomas F. Fordham Institute. The 74

The argument is that less sick days for teachers is better for students. And charters of course have less benefits -- not that charter school teachers have to come in when they are sick because they fear being fired. And by the way -- many new public school teachers without tenure also fear taking sick days. And also -- why believe any data coming out of charter schools?

Before it became Chalkbeat it was Gotham Schools. They used to have a party every year. At one of them Eva and her hubby showed up - I bet with a donation.

Arthur has been doing a number of pieces on what he terms "reformy" Chalkbeat. A quote from a recent piece:

Reformy Chalkbeat Peddles the Moskowitz Book

After reading a story by Juan Gonzalez, instead of asking, "Holy crap, how does she get away with this?" reformy Chalkbeat wonders why everyone is ganging up on poor Eva Moskowitz. That's the kind of coverage you get when Gates and Walmart subsidize the education press. You get "theories" as to why Moskowitz might be a controversial figure.

 Another piece by Arthur:

Reformy Chalkbeat Still Sucks

And if you haven't been following another Chalkbeat fave, super astroturf Families for Excellent Schools which will get 10 people out to some anti-teacher, anti-union event and get coverage from CB as if they were a legit organization instead of being funded by the same people who fund CB:

Authorities Close In On Pro-Charter School Nonprofit For Illicit Campaign Contributions

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/19/massachusetts-charter-school-group-fined-new-york/

Success Academy's Loeb latest Insults - How About Them Schwarzes?

To be clear: racism is not just carrying a torch in Charlottesville, or writing a bigoted comment on Facebook. Racism is also the failure of those in power to hold white supremacists accountable for actions and words that harm and demean people of color.
Cuomo, Klein and Flanagan may not be carrying tiki torches, but they are implicitly endorsing racism from certain donors like Loeb who send the biggest checks.

...Loeb has previously compared teachers’ unions to the KKK, and he referred to a Prem Watsa, an insurance company CEO of Indian ancestry as a “schwarze” – a derogatory Yiddish phrase for blacks. Yet he continues to sit on the board of the Success Academy charter school network, and he is among the top political contributors to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other prominent elected officials in New York. 

..... Zakiyah Ansari,

http://cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/dan-loeb-and-the-political-price-of-racism.html

It keeps getting worse.  Loeb called someone a "schwarze" in email.  Message to Eva and Success: Not who you want heading

Daniel Loeb Vision of UFT Meetings

your school board where 93% of the kids are kids of color. Or any school board for that matter. Word is that with the resignation of DFER head Shavar Jeffries (still a scuzball in my book) there is not one person of color on the Success main board.

More News:  

Eva Vs. The People: Battle to Keep JHS 145X Open - Hearing Tonight - 5:30

While closing schools is not as widespread as it was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it is still occurring and it is very troubling. The Department of Education still fails to provide proper resources for schools and then calls them failures... James Eterno, ICE blog

 I'm taking the subway up to Yankee Stadium tonight, not for a Yankee game, but to take the long walk from there to 1000 Teller Ave for the JHS 145 hearing. I never go to the Bronx, even for Yankee games, because it is as far away from where I live as possible and still be in NYC.

If Eva and her little band of slimeballs show up to tell us about their scholars I'm going to be retching, so I better not eat.

This is not about closing a struggling school but about yet another giveaway of a school building to Eva Moskowitz, who has enough money to rent Radio City Music Hall for a test-prep rally, but wants to toss poor kids into the street in another avaricious grab. And the DOE is closing the school - or trying to - because they fear the slings and arrows of the charter lobby publicity machine.

As for the UFT -- they are supposedly doing things behind the scenes. Ho-hum --when what is needed is a strong public stand against the Farina/deB giveaway to Eva. DeB thinks if he pays off charters they will lay off him in the election. Good luck with that.

I reported on teacher Jim Donahue's heroic efforts to help organize resistance -- Closing JHS 145 So Eva/Success Academy Can Ge..

When Jim spoke at the UFT Ex Bd they acted dumb -- it was Jim and MORE that asked for the item to be pulled from the March 22 PEP agenda which so far has not happened. March 22 may turn into a redux of Bloomberg era resistance.

James Eterno reported on tonight's hearing at the ICE blog:

SCHOOL CLOSING BATTLE IN BRONX TONIGHT

The common perception from the UFT is that school closings are not a real problem under the current Mayor Bill de Blasio and his Chancellor Carmen Farina. While closing schools is not as widespread as it was under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, it is still occurring and it is very troubling. The Department of Education still fails to provide proper resources for schools and then calls them failures.

Tonight there will be a Joint Public Hearing to save Junior High School 145 in the Bronx. JHS 145 is slated for closure. Eva Moskowitz has already claimed the building for one of her Success Academy charter schools.

The only trouble with this arrangement is the school community at 145 is waging a valiant fight to save their school. Tonight is their Joint Public Hearing, a public meeting required before a school can be closed. If you can make it to the Bronx this evening, I suggest that you attend the hearing to show your support for 145. Get there before 6:00 p.m. to sign up to speak. Schools targeted for closure need the public to be behind them to have any chance of surviving.

I certainly know how the JHS 145 people feel as Jamaica High School, where I taught for 28 years, was phased out and then closed in 2014.

Here is an email from MORE leader Jia Lee on tonight's JHS 145 hearing.

Colleagues, 

An injury to one is an injury to all. Success Academy is slated to take over the building where JHS 145 has been for generations. Incredibly, SA has advertised for their new middle school even before the vote has taken place at the March 22 PEP. 

The staff and families of JHS 145 are fighting to keep their school open. They serve students who have been mislabled based on faulty test score metrics. A large showing of support for the school and resistance against charterization will send a message to the DOE that we will not stand by while they destroy public schools. 

Please join me at this joint hearing with JHS 145 and Success Academy

JHS 145

1000 Teller Ave. Bronx NY

Take any train to Yankee Stadium or 

take the A or 1 train to 181 Street in Washington Heights, then take the Bx35 bus toward the BX.

Report from Success Academy on non-Snow Day

Just overheard, three Success Academy staff members talking about their day yesterday. One was joking about how in one class, the teacher preached all day from a Bible. (Is that on the test???) Then they went on to make fun of a child who apparently spoke up about this. Real nice..... .......Public school teacher in co-located school

Eva Moskowitz Banned from Williamsburg School Event Due to Unethical Behavior

Eva and her Success Academy representatives did not abide by the rules. She would have her folks go around collecting names and information from sign in sheets and then use them for her own outreach. She had been asked to discontinue this practice. I was also told that she "crashed" several other events and finally had to be told she was not welcome to have her schools participate any more. 

A report from a contact:

Yesterday District 14 held School Fest sponsored by Town Square. (Links for info below).

I was there because our community book bus was open for visitors and I was handing out literature and encouraging people to visit. As I strolled through, many of our local public schools and day care centers were exhibiting and telling parents about their programs. A few of our charters were also there as well as education vendors. All the schools, public, private and charter, Pre-K through high school and a college or two, were together. The atmosphere was open and friendly. We even heard magnificent Afro-Caribbean drumming pieces by one local vendor. 

But something seemed odd. 

The biggest and most controversial charter chain was not present. Success Academy had been there every year prior with their flashy displays. I wondered if Eva finally thought she didn't didn't have to tell the neighborhood about her three or four schools in our community or recruit students. 

Wrong! Eva was banned, I learned, from any more Town Square events by its chairperson. I was told this on very good authority, not by Susan Anderson herself who is a community parent. 

Eva and her Success Academy representatives did not abide by the rules. She would have her folks go around collecting names and information from sign in sheets and then use them for her own outreach. She had been asked to discontinue this practice. I was also told that she "crashed" several other events and finally had to be told she was not welcome to have her schools participate any more. This is a victory for our community. I applaud Susan Anderson and her Board of Directors for taking a stand with Eva and insisting that Eva Moskowitz' unethical behavior had to cease and desist. 

 
http://www.townsquareinc.com/about-us

http://www.townsquareinc.com/

The Case of Eva and the Disappearing Sucess Academy Clueless Training Videos

....taking down of 430 out of 485 videos is an extreme — even paranoid — response to the analysis of one blogger about four of their videos.  I hope they put the videos back up soon but I’m assuming they won’t.
Update:  On Thursday September 6th the videos, for a brief while, temporarily reappeared, all of them, but a few hours later every video became password protected.  So we went from 485 to 56 to 485 and then to 0 all in 24 hours.....
these videos were posted originally, presumably, to help the public schools learn what they can do to be as high performing as Success Academies.  These videos were a public service.  If this is true, it seems very harsh, cruel even, to take them down just because some blogger links to four of them and criticizes them. If they’re going to do this, why leave up 56 videos?  The truth is that I did not sift through the 485 videos looking for incriminating stuff.  Basically, I can pick pretty much any video they have and the issues I had with the other videos I wrote about are all clearly there... 
 
One thing about this video is that the teacher seems to have some warmth while in the videos that were deleted, the teachers were somewhat hostile.  The other videos had teachers doing some very bad things, for example, making kids raise their hands to reveal to the entire class that they got a poor score on an assignment. Another deleted video had an assistant teacher putting a sticker on a child’s face as the assistant teacher circulated around the room.
The videos seem to show that Success Academy is a place where students live in fear of their over-controlling teachers.  It does not look like a place where kids get the opportunity to be kids.  I do think there there is a subset of kids who can do well in this environment, but most, I think, can’t.
........Gary Rubinstein

Gary Rubinstein is on the case. There were 500 videos up and Gary was critical of the 4 he watched. So Success took them all down. And then they put back their "best of" 50. And then they took those down and then.... well, let Gary tell the story:

Success Academy Scrubs Their Public Video Page: Updated

There’s a famous saying, I think it originated with Watergate, “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.”

My last two blog posts have been based on videos I found on Success Academy’s public video site on Vimeo.  This is the collection of videos that they promised in The Wall Street Journal back in May after a few very public scandals.
Now Success Academy is very private about what happens in their schools so you’d figure that all their videos contain things that they are proud of.  Surely they spent considerable money producing these videos and there were many people involved in what sorts of things would be permitted to be in these videos.

There were 485 videos on the page when I first came across it a few days ago.  Randomly clicking on a few of them I found four videos among the nearly 500 that I analyzed, three in the first post and one in the second post.  I noticed in a comment today on the most recent post that the video I wrote about was taken down from the site.  Then I looked at the first post and found that two of those three videos were also removed from their site.  I went back to their site to find that all that remains of the 485 videos that were up just 24 hours ago is now down to just 56 videos.

 more at  Success Academy Scrubs Their Public Video Page: Updated

Chalkbeat Desparate to Prove Charter Co-locos work by ignoring those that don't

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Although some members of the community objected to Success Academy’s co-location, as school leaders, we felt it was our responsibility to make the best of sharing our space. When our schools work together, we’ve found that our students reap real rewards.”

— Jonathan Dant and Erin Lynch, whose schools share a building in Bensonhurst --- Chalkbeat

One of several posts that CB has run praising the purported benefits of co-locations. A function of their Gates grants?

I was at the PEP last week where another charter was shoved into a public school - 100 people from the school showed up to show this was inappropriate.

Here are the first 3 stories from the June 30 CB Rise and Shine where the negative story on Eva and charter co-locos is bracketed by positive stories. Note how they first present something that tries to make Eva look good - I don't believe it. I know what people at Seth Low think of Eva.


CO-LOCATION VICTORY The principals of Success Academy Bensonhurst and I.S. 96 Seth Low explain how a formerly contentious co-location ended up helping both schools. Chalkbeat
CO-LOCATION CONCERNS Williamsburg's J.H.S. 50 is a Renewal school showing signs of improvement. But its principal says it is being squeezed by the space demands of a Success Academy charter school that shares its building. New York Times
CHARTERS GET A BOOST Editorial: Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, argues that changes to state funding and a major national grant from the Walton Family Foundation will help charter schools thrive. New York Post

MORE CB pro-coloco posts.

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/06/26/raise-your-hand-where-are-co-located-schools-working-well-together/#.V3bMupD3arU


http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/08/28/what-makes-a-school-co-location-work/#.V3bNIJD3arU

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2016/06/29/first-person-years-after-co-location-fight-two-principals-say-sharing-space-has-made-both-schools-better/#.V3bNQpD3arU

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/12/gates-foundation-invests-nearly-25-million-in-seven-cities

Breaking: Eva Moskowitz Files for Co-Location Space in Guantanamo

EdNotesNews report:
Soon after President Obama's announcement today that he would make one final attempt to vacate Guantanamo, Eva Moskowitz made her move to put a Success Charter into the base in Cuba before they dismantle the torture equipment. Charlotte Dial is expected to be the principal of the school.

"Fiddly dee", was Moskowitz' response when questioned why Guantanamo was an attractive space for a YASSIC (Yet Another Success School Interrogation Chamber). "We believe in striking while the iron is hot.
Too many children are being coddled," she said. "We expect test scores to go through the roof at SAG( Success Academy Guantanamo) as we try out new techniques to wring the most out of our children."

The Guardian: Eva/Success Mainstream Press Critics Grow

Within testing years, the enrollment drop rate observed at Success Academy is greater than the enrollment drop rates at next door public schools 70% of the time. Furthermore, in 61% of these cases, this difference is so large that we can reject the hypothesis that it occurred due to random variation in attrition rates, at the 5% significance level.”...

Success Academy, New York City’s largest charter school network, loses more than 10% of its enrolled student population each year once testing starts, compared to 2.7% at nearby schools... The Guardian

Now we're getting to it as Eva gets more and more scrutiny and will have to engage in bigger coverups and maybe even back off some of its policies over time. It might even begin to affect their ability to grow, in addition to beginning to see some test scores go down as they are more sensitive to tossing kids out and thus have to suffer their test scores - unless they find a way to lock them away on test days of maybe slip in surrogate test takers. Who knows what they are capable of?

I admit I was surprised to see the well-respected Guardian take a good look at Eva. Hopefully, more to come.

'Got to Go': high-performing charter schools shed students quickly

Monique Jeffrey and her son, Brendin Smith. Photograph: Monique Jeffrey
George Joseph
Sunday 21 February 2016 13.16 EST

Brendin Smith was only four years old when his mother, Monique Jeffrey, realized her son was no longer wanted at Success Academy. Jeffrey says that administrators at one of the charter school’s Brooklyn locations told her the kindergartener “wasn’t going to make it”. Jeffrey later found out that Brendin was one of 16 students who been placed on the school’s “Got to Go” list, a list uncovered by the New York Times that singled out students that the school wanted to shed.

Success Academy, the largest charter school network in New York City, also has some of the highest test scores. Critics have alleged that the city achieves this in part by driving low performers out.

A Guardian analysis has found that the school system loses children between the third and fourth grade, the first two years of New York state testing, at a rate four times that of neighboring public schools. Success lost more than 10% of its enrolled student population from grade to grade, compared to the average rate of 2.7% at public schools in the same building or nearby during the same years.

The analysis compared Success and traditional public school populations in high poverty neighborhoods and therefore excluded data from one Success Academy site on the Upper West Side where only about 25% of students were classified as “economically disadvantaged”. This school’s relatively well-to-do student population features the only example of a Success Academy class that grew in size from second to fourth grade.

According to Jeff Jacobs, a researcher at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, chance alone cannot adequately account for these enrollment drop differences. “Within testing years, the enrollment drop rate observed at Success Academy is greater than the enrollment drop rates at next door public schools 70% of the time. Furthermore, in 61% of these cases, this difference is so large that we can reject the hypothesis that it occurred due to random variation in attrition rates, at the 5% significance level.”

Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who focuses on education policy, said: “It could be that Success is counseling out weaker students, encouraging them to leave, or it could be that Success is not backfilling [replacing students] in the same way that traditional that Public Schools do, or it could be a combination of those two things.”

Whatever the cause, Kahlenberg said the decline “provides a tremendous advantage to Success that we have be aware of when we compare the test scores”. Not replacing lost students with new ones in later years could provide Success a significant test score advantage, since highly transient students tend to do worse in school.

Brian Whitley, a researcher at Success Academy, said some of this enrollment shrinkage is to be expected since, up until last year, Success did not accept new students after the third grade. In an email to the Guardian, Whitley also argued that enrollment numbers don’t take into account whether public schools are losing even more kids and taking in new ones to replace them. Last March, Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz told the Brian Lehrer Show that if Success added new students in older grades, the incoming students’ lower academic preparation would negatively affect the schools’ other students.

To make its calculations, the Guardian pulled data from 25 Success classes that had enrollment numbers from pre-testing grades up until the fourth, and pulled comparable data from public school classes that were either in the same building or one block away from Success Academy sites.

The analysis also found that at sites where the majority of Success Academy’s student populations are from low-income families, classes in the school’s later testing grades served far smaller proportions of students with disabilities (13.2% vs. 27.6% ), students with limited English proficiency (2.4% vs. 16.3%), and poor students (78.7% vs. 92.1%). Such demographic data from many of the earlier grades is not publicly available, and thus it is difficult to determine whether these types of students are dropping disproportionately within Success Academy’s shrinking classes as schools approach the testing years.

Whitley said the disparities in limited English proficiency students and those with disabilities are in part a result of the fact that these students are quickly “integrated” into the general population. “Regarding students in poverty, we have a random lottery that allows kids across the city to apply, so it’s possible that’s because the district as a whole would have fewer poverty students than one of the schools we are co-located with,” he said.

But some former Success parents argue that the high enrollment decline rates and lower high-needs populations are also driven, in part, by a concerted effort to push out students through tactics such as repeat suspensions.

In January, 13 parents filed a civil rights complaint with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging that Success Academy discriminated against their children because of their learning disabilities and repeatedly suspended them without due process.

Fatima Geidi, one of the parents in the complaint, said the treatment her son received at Success was, in part, driven by his inability to quickly complete Success’ mock state exams, which ramp up in third grade, the first testing year.

“Third grade was the most serious year of testing ever and they were suspending Jamir like crazy,” said Geidi, who claims her son had received around five suspension by the middle of the school year. “One day on a practice exam, Jamir’s teacher yelled at him. She said she was going to fail him because he wasn’t writing fast enough. After that, Jamir had an anxiety attack and had to go to the hospital. That was it for me. I decided I couldn’t fight them anymore. My son was deteriorating right before my eyes.”

Over the past few years, Success Academy has had suspension rates four times the district average, and seven times the average for public schools.

Last week, footage released by the New York Times raised new controversy for Success when it showed a “model teacher” chewing out a student for being unable to solve a math problem and ripping up the first grader’s paper.

In the face of numerous allegations, Success Academy’s high-profile leader, Eva Moskowitz has remained defiant. After the video was released, Moskowitz, a former city council member, hired a new PR firm and held a press conference, denouncing the newspaper as biased.

In January, Moskowitz brushed off the importance of a federal investigation of the school fir discrimination, saying, “If someone makes a complaint, OCR [the Office for Civil Rights] investigates. It means nothing in and of itself other than that a complaint has been made.”

Documents obtained by the Guardian, however, indicate that the federal civil rights office had already decided to initiate its own investigation into Success Academy for disabilities discrimination, months before parents had filed civil rights complaints.

“I wouldn’t say an OCR investigation is something that should be taken lightly,” said John Jackson, a former senior policy advisor in OCR. “There are certain situations where without a complaint the Office for Civil Rights can do an investigation on their own. Typically they do that if they see some data if it looks a little awkward,” continued Jackson, noting that the Washington DC staff sometimes alerts regional offices when they find red flags in schools’ enrollment data.

“They may say, ‘Have you seen this data at Success?’ They’re in tune with the pulse of what’s happening across the country. They read newspapers.”

Howard Schwach on Negative Impact of Moskowitz Charter on Rockaway Schools

To make room at MS 53, the city’s DOE is moving its district 27 Alternate Learning Center [ALC] to the Beach Channel Educational Campus... [a program] for really troubled kids who can’t be maintained in traditional schools and who have been serially suspended for things such as assaulting other students and staff, assaulting safety officers, bringing a weapon to school and selling drugs in the school building. And, they will be all ours by the beginning of the next school year in September.... Howard Schwach

Eva invades and they pull the most troubled kids from the building and dump them in a vast building like Beach Channel HS which already has 5 or 6 schools. My former editor at The Wave, retired NYC teacher Howie Schwach, now has a web-based Rockaway news service, http://onrockaway.com/. As always he's on the case.
Arverne by the Sea, a middle income area of homes that has stabilized the center of Rockaway is Eva's target, not the nearby projects. Eva must already have a massive got to go list for any of those kids that slip into the lottery.

Moskowitz charter coming to Rockaway, forcing problematic students to Beach Channel and revealing lie to ABTS parents

February 15, 2016 / rockaway / 0 Comments

Success Charter School, headed by CEO Eva Moskowitz, left, will soon be coming to MS  53 in Far Rockaway, forcing a program called “Alternate Learning Centers” to move from that school to Beach Channel Educational Campus. ALC is a program for disruptive students who have been suspended for a year and up because of Level 3 and Level 4 violations of the DOE’s discipline code.

The local ALC has been running at MS 53 in Far Rockaway, a school aptly sited right behind the 101 Precinct house.
By Howard Schwach
Commentary from onrockaway.com

Rockaway has been dumped on one more time and this time it especially impacts those Arverne by the Sea homeowners who were promised a charter elementary school and parents and students at the Beach Channel Educational Campus, as well as the rest of those who live in Rockaway.

Follow the bouncing ball.
Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of the Success Charter School network and earns more than $300,000 a year for running two dozen schools wants to come to a school in Rockaway.
After first stating that charter schools would no longer be granted co-location in crowded public school buildings, he relented and now regularly gives public school space to charters, allowing them to avoid paying rent in a private building.
The fact that Moskowitz, who was once the chair of the City Council’s Education Committee and is therefore well connected, wants to come to Rockaway should come as a surprise to homeowners who live in the 2,200-unit Arverne by the Sea. They were told last year by Gerri Romski, the CEO of the development that, despite the fact they had long been promised a K-8 school, they were going to get a middle school charter sponsored by the Rev. Les Mullings, whose assistant principal is City Councilman Donovan Richard’s wife.
When challenged, Romski said very clearly that they had to accept the middle school because nobody wanted to open a charter school in Rockaway. Then, comes Moskowitz with a K-1 school in Far Rockaway that will, if it follows the pattern of the other schools in the network, expand each year by one grade.

Where will her charter school, which has not yet been approved by the city, but most likely will be before the end of this school year, will be sited at what is now Middle School 53, at 1045 Nameoke Street in Far Rockaway, the school directly behind the 101 Precinct.
To make room at MS 53, the city’s DOE is moving its district 27 Alternate Learning Center to the Beach Channel Educational Campus, on Beach 100 and Beach Channel Drive.
What is an ALC?
You don’t want to know, because it will not be good either for the surrounding community or for those who ride public transportation during the time students are going to or from school.
According to the DOE’s own website, “ALCs provide an educational setting for students who are serving a Superintendent’s Suspension up to one year.  Each borough has a principal that oversees 5-9 sites. Each site has a site supervisor, four core content area teachers, one special education teacher, one counselor, one paraprofessional, and one school aide.  Our goal is to provide a continuity of education for ALC students. “ALCs cultivate pro-social beliefs, attitudes and behaviors in students, and provide a variety of positive behavioral programs such as Positive Behavior Support Systems (PBIS), Restorative Approaches, and Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI).  ALCs offer the same Core Curriculum materials schools have for consistency, and provide intervention measures that build students’ capacity to return to school better able to be productive and engaged members of their school communities.”
That’s all edu-speak for really troubled kids who can’t be maintained in traditional schools and who have been serially suspended for things such as assaulting other students and staff, assaulting safety officers, bringing a weapon to school and selling drugs in the school building. And, they will be all ours by the beginning of the next school year in September.
When I was teaching at then Intermediate School 53 in the 80’s and 90’s, the city had 600 schools, so named because they had designations such as PS 605 and Junior High School 630. Those schools were heavily monitored and school aides were off-duty or retired cops. The ALC program is the new iteration of that program.
People are already lining up to stop the ALC from coming to Rockaway Park, led by local politicians and civic leaders.
The questions do not stop there.
Why is Moskowitz getting an elementary school charter in the east end of Rockaway when homeowners at ABTS were told by Gerri Romski that he had personally contacted every charter group in the city and that none of them wanted to come to Rockaway?
He should be asked that question by the homeowners.
Ed Williams is the head of the Harbor Point II Homeowners Association, one of those who was promised an elementary school.
“We were lied to, and I feel betrayed,” he told onrockaway.com. “Now that [Moskowitz] is here, you have to wonder whether this whole thing was a fair process. We were told that no charters wanted to come to Rockaway and now it turns out that one of the largest did want to come here all along.”
Then there is a growing question about Moskowitz’s charter network.
There have been allegations in the New York Times and other daily papers that her Success Charters are not all they are cut out to be.
Recently, there was proof that at least one of her schools had a list of students who were not performing up to standards or who were disruptive. The list was called “The Got To Go” list internally and parents of those children were reportedly harassed by the schools and then told to take their child back to the local public school.
Published reports said that such lists were widespread in the Success network.
In another case, a video of an interaction between a Success teacher and one of her students has gone viral as a lesson in how not to treat children.
In the video, a first-grade class sits cross-legged in a circle on a brightly colored rug. One of the girls has been asked to explain to the class how she solved a math problem, but she has gotten confused
She begins to count: “One… two…” Then she pauses and looks at the teacher.
The teacher takes the girl’s paper and rips it in half. “Go to the calm-down chair and sit,” she orders the girl, her voice rising sharply.
“There’s nothing that infuriates me more than when you don’t do what’s on your paper,” she says, as the girl retreats.
The teacher in the video, Charlotte Dial, works at a Success Academy in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. She has been considered so effective that the network promoted her last year to being a model teacher, who helps train her colleagues.
After sending the girl out of the circle and having another child demonstrate how to solve the problem, Ms. Dial again chastises her, saying, “You’re confusing everybody.” She then
The video was recorded surreptitiously in the fall of 2014 by an assistant teacher who was concerned by what she described as Ms. Dial’s daily harsh treatment of the children. The assistant teacher, who insisted on anonymity because she feared endangering future job prospects, shared the video with The New York Times after she left Success in November.
After being shown the video last month, Ann Powell, a Success spokeswoman, described its contents as shocking and said Ms. Dial had been suspended pending an investigation. But a week and a half later, Ms. Dial returned to her classroom and her role as an exemplar within the network.
Moskowitz dismissed the video as an anomaly. Interviews by the New York Times with 20 current and former Success teachers suggest that while Ms. Dial’s behavior might be extreme, much of it is not uncommon within the network.
She did not address the other incidents detailed in the New York Times article, including threats to call 911 and repeated meetings designed to wear parents down until they withdrew their students.
According to the Times, Success is known for its students’ high standardized test scores, and it emphasizes getting — and keeping — scores up. Jessica Reid Sliwerski, 34, worked at Success Academy Harlem 1 and Success Academy Harlem 2 from 2008 to 2011, first as a teacher and then as an assistant principal. She said that, starting in third grade, when children begin taking the state exams, embarrassing or belittling children for work seen as slipshod was a regular occurrence, and in some cases encouraged by network leaders.
Following a report detailing Success Academy schools trying to remove unruly students, school founder Eva Moskowitz denied any systematic effort to push students out of her schools, took responsibility for the oversight of her school leaders, and elicited a tearful apology from the principal who created the list.
Success Academy is the largest charter-school network in New York City, serving 11,000 students, and its schools post impressive test results in traditionally hard to serve communities. Critics have long accused the network of posting high test scores by pressuring undisciplined students to leave.
Moskowitz and other Success Academy leaders have frequently compared the schools in their network to district schools, making the case that Success provides superior educational opportunities. At several press conferences and this year, Moskowitz has called on Mayor Bill de Blasio to treat charter schools as equals and provide them with better space and funding.
Yet on Friday, Moskowitz said that “a very small percentage of kids,” particularly those with special needs, might not find the right support at Success and should instead consider a district school.
“Success may not be the absolute best setting for every child,” she said.
The third question, of course, is why put a school full of problematic students in the midst of other schools that have a good reputation in the community, including the highly-rated Channel View School for Research, with which it will share the building, its cafeteria and gymnasium.
The answer: Because they can and because they have to find room for an elementary charter at MS 53.

Should Eva Be Forced to Change Charter Name to "Success" in her Version of Guantanomo?

Is Success Academy really the model we want for the education of urban children of color, many living in economic disadvantage? "Got to go" lists? High suspension rates? Teachers who rip up their students' work (according to one teacher in the Times story, it happens regularly at SA)? Test score fetishism? Churning faculty, many of whom are young, white, and not adequately trained? Chanting in the classrooms and marching in the halls? Moskowitz's approach is premised on the idea that urban students of color need extraordinarily harsh discipline codes; she says so herself: - See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2016/02/success.html#sthash.4dl03TsW.dpuf

Jersey Jazzman pretty much sums it up with his blog post:
"SUCCESS" by putting the word in quotes. The use of the very word "Success" by Eva is turning into a horrifying joke. There should be an attachment: By Any Means Necessary.

The latest "Success" School at Guantonomo

The blogosphere is alive with comment over the NY Times released video of child abuse at Eva's gulag. Ed Notes has been on the case: Video: Child Abuse on Eva's Plantation

Reporter Kate Taylor deserves credit for sticking to the Success story. I met Kate when, new to the Times ed beat, she attended a hearing for another Eva invasion in Brooklyn's District 13 in Sept. 2014. MORE had 8 people there to join community members to speak out. I remember noted charter abuser Steven Perry, looking to get a piece of the charter gravy, in the audience there to observe. But Eva only sent a few observers and no one to even try to make the case. Eva knew it was a slam dunk. I wonder if that arrogance turned on some light in Kate Taylor that has led her to where she may one day win an award for exposing the mess at "Success". Unless someone with power gets to the Times to stop Kate. (I've seen other NYT reporters who had a clue like Mike Winerip and Anna Phillips be moved out.)

I taught grades 4-6 and at times did engage in some behavior that if someone filmed would be embarrassing. But I can honestly say that it was rare behavior on my part and I did deal with older kids.

Jersey Jazzman makes a similar point:

I'm not about to say, on the basis of a one-minute video, that Dial should be fired immediately. If any teacher tells you that they've never said anything to a student that they later regretted, they're either lying, deluded, or a living saint.

I've been in touch on FB with a chunk of former students from my 1978 and 79 5th and 6th grade classes (I looped and had most of them for 2 years.) Their memories 40 years later seem pretty positive. When children are treated badly in school those memories last a long time. I can remember a few of the times where I was yelled at by a teacher even today.

But these little kids who are 5 and 6 years old? What damage! And to me it is also disturbing that so many "Success" parents want this for their kids. I have had disagreements with some of my colleagues in ICE and MORE over how to address these parents, who most make excuses for. I on the other hand have had numerous conflicts with those who are used politically to back Eva and at one point, as we began to see each other at meeting after meeting, began to have some decent dialogues going.

There are some wonderful commentaries out there on this issue. Here are a few.

NYC Public School Parents

The growing storm around Success Academy

Ravitch: NY Times: 8 Experts Censure Moskowitz SA Methods

deutsch29 - Mercedes Schneider

Moskowitz’s Success Academy Is Being Sued Again

Jersey Jazzman
"SUCCESS" 

Alan Singer at Huffington Post:  Success Academy's War Against Children

Jersey Jazzman gets into the race issue that touches so many charters where young, white, mostly women, are engaging black children.

The fact that Dial is white and the student is black makes this especially troubling. I'm all for teachers being authoritative, but too many students of color are living a school experience where they are dehumanized by teachers of a different race. To be clear: I don't think this is confined just to "no excuses" charter schools; we've seen far too many examples of bad behavior against students of color in public district schools to pretend that it's only the charters that are guilty of perpetuating a hidden curriculum.

See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/#sthash.T5K9chmx.dpuf

Let's get into the white teacher/black student issue in further depth in future posts since it ties in with our call for more teachers of color to create a diverse teaching corps that is a better reflection of the student backgrounds.

ADD-ON:

Russ on Reading

Fear and Learning at Success Academy

NYC Educator

Whatever Eva Wants, Eva Gets