Message from NPE - A Sharp Turn Right: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda

Dear Norman,   We were not surprised by the approval of a religious charter in Oklahoma this week. Betsy DeVos and her allies are determined to use education to advance "God's kingdom" along with their political agenda. And the spread of right-wing charter schools, combined with vouchers and the culture wars, are part of the plan. That is our conclusion following an in-depth investigation of the accelerating growth of right-wing and Christian nationalist charter schools.   Click on the image below to read our groundbreaking report.

A Sharp Turn Right documents how right-wing politicians and operatives are involved in the establishment and governance in these schools, sometimes even benefiting financially. It also exposes the religious and quasi-religious symbols and practices in which many of these schools engage, blurring the line between church and state.    This is a report you will not want to miss. Please share it on social media today.   NPE cannot produce our groundbreaking reports without your help. Please make a tax-deductible donation today.

Donate Here

Our Tenth Anniversary Conference with its line-up of outstanding speakers will be our best and most important conference yet as we gather to fight against the right-wing forces determined to destroy and defund public education and turn it into a marketplace system of unregulated voucher schools, homeschools, online schools and yes, Christian nationalist charter schools.   We meet in Washington, D.C. on October 28 and 29. Please join us.    Our nation, democracy, and our children are depending on us Register today.

Register Here

 

The Charter School Scams Continue: Phony Reasons to Raise Cap Despite Loss of 7500 Students: Where are those waiting lists?

Success Academy Attrition Worse Than Ever - Gary Rubinstein

On April 5th The New York Post published their annual ‘100% of Success Academy students get accepted into four-year colleges’ editorial. The class of 2023 will be the sixth graduating class of the infamous charter chain and according to the first paragraph of the editorial, Success Academy has accomplished this feat six years in a row.

I’ve been fact checking claims like this for about 12 years now and if you follow me at all you know that of course the 100% four year college admission statistic is a lie, but you will want to know how much of a lie it is this time. Looking at the year to year attrition, the thing that always jumps out at me is how almost half the students who are in 9th grade will graduate on time four years later. For this years analysis I found one of the most bizarre examples of short term attrition I think I have ever seen.- Continue reading

Saturday, April 15, 2023

The mainstream media repeats the lie of long waiting lists for charter schools and the public believes it and the argument is used to expand charters. For many years I have been challenging charters like Success Academy to show us their lists. AQE has a list of its own showing the drops in enrollment of charters in NYC.

And Gary Rubinstein's latest exposes the lie about Success having 100% of its grads being accepted to 4 year colleges - after they made much of the cohort disappear. 

By the way, the UFT needs to do a better job of opposing charters than calling for more transparency. They should be taking out TV ads with the info from Gary and AQE.

Here is the AQE bulletin:

 

Please send a letter to the governor using this tool from AQE. No more money for charter schools in the NYS budget!

Budget negotiations are dragging into another week, and Governor Hochul is planning to push hard in the coming days for her proposal to reauthorize “zombie charters” — charter schools that failed and closed — in an effort to allow new charter schools to open. Email Governor Hochul and your State Legislators now and tell them: Don’t raise the cap, and don’t reauthorize zombie charters in the final budget. Make no mistake: Hochul’s zombie charter proposal is no compromise. Either of her proposals to expand charter schools — reauthorizing zombies, or lifting the regional cap — would mean more new charter schools opening in New York. And the fact is that New York doesn’t need more charter schools, period.   While they have been busy lobbying in Albany for expansion, New York City’s charter schools have eliminated 7,500 spots for students — including some of the biggest chains and worst offenders when it comes to transparency and accountability, like Success Academy. Clearly, there are already plenty of seats in charters going unfilled.

So why is Governor Hochul fighting for more charters to open at all — either by lifting the regional cap or reauthorizing “zombie” charters that failed and closed — when there aren’t enough students to fill the seats that already exist?

If data were driving public policy, we would not be talking about charter schools right now. It is only on Governor Hochul’s budget agenda because of the influence of her billionaire donors, who have their own interests and profits at stake in the charter fight.

Email Governor Hochul and your State Legislators now and tell them: Don’t raise the cap, and don’t reauthorize zombie charters in the final budget!

In solidarity,

Jasmine Gripper

 

72% of increase in state foundation aid to NYC public schools since 2017-18 diverted to charter schools

Shocking! Since 2017-18, NYS Foundation Aid to NYC public schools increased by $1.5B --meant to provide public school students w/ a sound basic education. But 72% of amount or $1.1B went to increased charter school payments (not even counting rent).

See https://www.nysut.org/news/2023/february/testimony-k12 for NYSUT testimony

Chart here: https://nysut.docsend.com/view/z676sshuhvr4v4vx

 

 

Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

One of the things that irk me about Democrats from all wings of the party and progressives to the left is how the charter schools are often avoided in so many discussions - I think that is intentional because they don't want to alienate segments of the non-white community who support charters. 

Those of us who have been involved in fighting ed deform over the past 25 years see charters as the point of the spear aimed at privatization of fundamental public services. Anti union, anti labor.

I'm watching a webinar from the Democratic Socialists with Jamaal Bowman, Naomi Klein and SARA NELSON International President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. (Call her the anti-Randi of the progressive labor movement). The goal of the webinar is to link green new deal to labor struggles and jobs by urging passage of the PRO-ACT. Dems who won't support the pro labor act are giving in to their corporate sponsors. The PRO Act gives unions tools to overturn the right to work laws in their states.

Bowman spoke eloquently, as usual, and made that charter school connection and how they must be fought to stop that movement. They are an occupying army. Just today see the duplicitous Eva Moskowitz once again whining about space in public school buildings to the pro-charter NY Post which always shades the stories in her favor.

The charter is pushing for the city to either renew the spot at I.S. 238 — which was never put to use due to the pandemic — or find an alternate location before documentation is required by March 12....The DOE countered Friday the existing space is reserved for special needs students.

“Everyone has been aware of this for the past twelve months—we prioritized in-person learning for our most vulnerable D75 students and we cannot and will not leave these families hanging,” said spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon.

Exactly right. Eva knew full well about the arrangement but as usual chooses to make up stories. Her goal is to occupy and take over entire real estate swaths of the NYC school system. It is time for the progressives in the legislature to rewrite the laws charter friendly Cuomo wrote -- stop the paying of rent and giving free space. Success especially has enormous resources. I would still support smaller mom and pop charters.

NY Times Pulls Race Card in Report on Charters While The Guardian Exposes Sham Astroturf Protests

Recently a crowd of protesters disrupted a speech by Elizabeth Warren. The activists might have seemed grassroots, but they weren’t... The Guardian, Billionaire-funded protest is rearing its head in America
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/billionare-funded-protests-america

But the NY Times (intentionally) fell for it as evidenced by this biased front page article in the Nov. 27, 2019 edition of the Times: Minority Voters Chafe as Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools. 
The NYT doesn't raise the issue: Why is there a charter school industrial complex designed to make a lot of money for a lot of people using kids as a device.

[Addendum since publication - Ravitch on the same subject: Robert Kuttner (and I) Challenge the New York Times Slant on Charter Schools By dianeravitch November 29, 2019]

Contrast the reports from the Times and the Guardian:

NYT:

Outside the Atlanta studio where the candidates were assembling for Wednesday’s debate, more than 300 people chanted “Our children, our choice” to the drumbeats of a marching band from a KIPP school. The next day, black and Latino charter school parents shouted the same refrain at Ms. Warren as she tried to start a speech about race in Atlanta. .... Since 2016, public polling has shown a widening divide on charter schools between white Democrats and their black and Latino peers. White Democrats’ approval of charter schools dropped to 27 percent from 43 percent between 2016 and 2018, according to a poll conducted by Education Next, a journal based at Harvard that is generally supportive of charters. Black and Latino approval for the schools remained basically steady at about 47 percent for each group.

Hmmmm - does this mean the majority of parents of color do not approve and why is that downplayed - note how misleading the NYT headline is: Minority Voters Chafe as Democratic Candidates Abandon Charter Schools

I don't expect anything less from NYT reporter Eliza Shapiro who shows bias in her reporting since she was at Politico - When she moderated a debate on charters I attended with Carol Burris as one of the participants challenging charters, I saw clear evidence of bias so I never trust her ed reporting --- at times Trump is right about NYT fake news -- NYC education activists have known that for decades.

Guardian:

Last week, Elizabeth Warren went to Atlanta to give a major speech about issues of concern to black women. Her speech touched on knotty, existential topics such as the legacy of slavery, institutional racism, voter suppression, mass incarceration and reparations. But the next day’s headlines overwhelmingly focused on the fact that the speech was interrupted by a loud group of pro-charter school protesters.
We were supposed to be talking about challenging centuries of institutional racism, but now we’re talking about charter schools. How did that happen? If you suspect that some sort of nefarious action that can be traced back to plutocratic billionaires is involved – well, of course.

The protesters themselves were, by all accounts and appearances, a group of concerned people who passionately oppose Warren’s plan to bolster public education and crack down on the charter school industry. But they did not all materialize in the crowd together in matching shirts by chance. Their existence was orchestrated by pro-charter school groups that are funded by an array of billionaires, including Netflix founder Reed Hastings, art and philanthropy titan Eli Broad and, most prominently, the Walton Foundation, controlled by the staggeringly wealthy family that owns Walmart. Thus we are all forced to deal with the spectacle of classic tactics of grassroots protest being coopted and fueled by a tiny group of the very sort of people that such tactics were developed to target in the first place.

NYT: their [charters] waiting lists swelling into the hundreds of thousands. ​
What bullshit about waiting lists - charter propaganda. The reporters should ask to see these lists. We know there are empty charter seats in Eva schools here in NY.

And are there also massive waiting lists for some public schools?

Why White Parents Were at the Front of the Line for the School ...

https://www.nytimes.com › nyregion › beacon-high-school-admissions-nyc

Nov 15, 2019 - 

One more bit from the Guardian to highlight how easy the charter lobby can distract from real issues:

One of the emotional backbones of Warren’s speech was the story of the 1881 Atlanta washerwomen strike – a relatively little known incident in labor history that she was no doubt inspired to cite by the union leader Sara Nelson’s recent speech on the same topic in front of the Democratic Socialists of America convention. Yet what should be a shining example of radical ideas rising to mainstream prominence in a presidential campaign has been pushed to the bottom of most news stories in favor of the charter school ruckus. This points to the fact that astroturf campaigns don’t have to be very sophisticated, or even very secret; they just need to make enough noise to weasel their way into a 30-second TV hit to get the job done.

 Oh, and Howard Fuller is one of the biggest pieces of crap and indicative of the slime the charter industry attracts.

Read both articles in full below.

======

Billionaire-funded protest is rearing its head in America

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/27/billionare-funded-protests-america

Bernie is right on charter schools - Carol Burris, Diane Ravitch

Bernie is right on charter schools

By Carol Burris  and Diane Ravitch

| New York Daily News |

Jun 07, 2019 | 10:55 AM

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to the crowd during a rally at Central Piedmont Community College on the lawn of Overcash Center in Charlotte, N.C. on May 17. (David T. Foster III / Associated Press)

Late last month, 11 people connected to California charter schools were indicted on criminal charges of grand theft, conspiracy, personal use of public money and financial conflict of interest. According to the Washington Post, over $50 million in total was stolen; the L.A. Times reports that $8.18 million went into the bank accounts and charitable trusts of the charter management company’s leaders, Sean McManus and Jason Schrock. The pair allegedly inflated enrollment numbers and cheated the kids who attended the schools they used as piggy banks.

This story is far from unique. During the month of May alone, we identified more than 40 newspaper stories from across the country documenting charter mismanagement, failure and outright fraud.

There was the May 29 story of the Tennessee charter CEO who was running a side business out of his charter school while its teachers were not being paid. and the May 25 story about the former charter board member who is seeking to make a real-estate killing based on knowledge he gained while on the Monument, Colo., charter school board. There was the May 6 story of a former school board member in Milwaukee who was bribed by a Philadelphia-based charter school company to operate three schools in Wisconsin.

Charter corruption, which now occurs every day, was one of several reasons why the NAACP called for a moratorium on new charter schools. Yet these daily instances of mismanagement, failure and fraud have not been enough to persuade charter advocates to address the concerns of our nation’s most prominent civil rights organization.

It is equally inexplicable that when Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders publicly supported that moratorium, he was subjected to a racialized attack — not only by The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools but here in the Daily News. It is long past time to set the record straight.

The majority of black and Latino families choose public schools, even when charters are an available option. Charter schools drain funds from public schools, and for the kids who choose the local public school, they and their schools have less. Sanders’ plan includes a tripling of Title I funding, whose greatest beneficiaries would be disadvantaged kids, both in public schools and in charters.

For those students who are already enrolled in charters, Sanders does not call for their schools to be shut down. Rather he calls for a moratorium, a pause, on the opening of new charters until charter schools clean up their act.

He is right. The lack of transparency that leads to scandal and the ability to profit and self-deal does not promote innovation or serve the interests of children of color. When charter schools shut down (one third of all charters close in less than 10 years), students, who are more often than not disadvantaged, are left scrambling for a school. There is nothing progressive about showing up to school, sometimes mid-school-year, to find the doors are shuttered and locked. But that is the reality that some kids face.

Why don’t charter advocacy organizations like the Progressive Policy Institute call for charter reform? Perhaps they don’t want to offend the billionaires like the Walton family who fund charter schools.

The claim that for-profit charter schools, which Sanders’ plan would ban, are rare is flatly wrong. Nearly every state with charter schools allows for-profit management companies to run them. In the state of Florida, about 45% of all charter schools are run by for-profit management companies.

From real estate leases, to tax breaks, to exorbitant salaries, self-dealing and sweetheart deals, lots of folks have, like McManus and Schrock, figured out how to get rich off taxpayers and disadvantaged kids.

Unfortunately, the charter industry is now overrun with scoundrels profiteering from people of color. Thank you, Bernie Sanders, for standing up and being willing to expose the scams that the charter establishment refuses to acknowledge or fix.

Burris is the executive director of the Network for Public Education. She served as principal of South Side High School in Rockville Centre for 15 years. Ravitch is president of the Network for Public Education and a research professor of the history of education at New York University. She is the author of numerous books on public education, including “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.”

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.

 

Ed Deform Coming Unhinged

Is ed deform, mistakenly labeled as a real reform movement, coming apart at the seams? The opt-out movement where 220,000 did not take the test in NY State is the most obvious sign. Also the media criticisms of Eva and Success Academy as the press becomes more skeptical of charter claims.

Look at the media coverage on charter scams, testing, the attacks on teachers as the cause of the problems there has been a turning - you can hear it in commentary as many former ed deform supporters have begin to see the light of the failures of those policies.

Now don't get me wrong -- ed deformers are loaded with dough and have bought a chunk of ed coverage -- ie - Chalkbeat and the Campbell Brown phony The 74 ed media as examples, plus the Gates, Walton, hedge funds etc. They claim the anti-ed deform movement is fueled by the teacher unions when we know full well how little the unions have done as they waffle on the fence though Randi and crew have become more bold as the worm turns - always tailing but we'll take what we can get from them.

In just the past few days here are some things to munch on.

Ravitch: Jesse Hagopian: The Black Resistance to Charters and Corporate Reform is Just Beginning

The New Yorker - wonderful piece: Stop Humiliating Teachers

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/stop-humiliating-teachers
------

The lawsuit just filed on behalf of the receivership schools

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-lawsuit-just-filed-on-behalf-of.html
-----

Fred Klonsky: In Chicago, DFER has been run out of town
https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/in-chicago-dfer-has-been-run-out-of-town/
---------

Washington State Supreme Court: Charter schools are unconstitutional

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/state-supreme-court-charter-schools-are-unconstitutional/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=article_left_1.1

-------

The Charter School Movement Is a Vehicle for Fraud and Corruption

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48531/california-charter-schools/
--------

The Fight to Bring Transparency to California’s Charter Schools

http://www.alternet.org/education/fight-bring-transparency-californias-charter-schools

---------
E.D. Hirsch, Ed Reformer Pivots -rethinking his position on blaming teachers:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/education-reform-movements-co-founder-denounces-its-focus-on-teacher-quality/2016/09/11/79da4976-763d-11e6-be4f-3f42f2e5a49e_story.html
-------

A blistering opinion should shame Connecticut lawmakers, who have failed to address the problem of educational inequality.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/12/opinion/a-holistic-ruling-on-mbroken-schools.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
------

Ed deform is racist in nature:

Ed Deform Racist Policies Attack Black Teachers - a Civil Rights Issue for Our Times

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/black-teachers-public-schools-education-system-philadelphia

-----

Charter privateers on the defensive but not giving up on their Orwellian takeover schemes 

 

John Oliver take down of charter schools - Over 5 Million Views - Charter Lobby on Attack

I'm sure ed notes readers have seen the John Oliver charter school video take down.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=l_htSPGAY7I



Leonie had some comments on her blog. Here are excerpts with links.

Saturday, August 27, 2016

Charter privateers on the defensive but not giving up on their Orwellian takeover schemes

It's been a hard few weeks for the charter lobby.  First, members of the NAACP overwhelming approve a resolution calling for a national moratorium on charter schools.

Then, the Black Lives Matters movement called for an end to the privatization of our schools:

John Oliver on HBO's Last Week Tonight did a terrific take down of the corruption and chaos that charters bring to our public school system.

John Oliver's satires can be quite influential.

See how his critique  of testing companies in 2015, including the infamous Pearson Pineapple, helped influence parents to turn against standardized testing in a nationwide survey:

But don't feel too bad for the charter lobby. Backed by millions of dollars of "dark money" from right wing corporate interests and Wall St. hedgefunders, they aren't giving up.

NY Times Major Hit on Charters: A Sea of Charter Schools in Detroit Leaves Students Adrift

...the unchecked growth of charters has created a glut of schools competing for some of the nation’s poorest students, enticing them to enroll with cash bonuses, laptops, raffle tickets for iPads and bicycles. Leaders of charter and traditional schools alike say they are being cannibalized, fighting so hard over students and the limited public dollars that follow them that no one thrives.

After her experience with the failing charter school in southwest Detroit, Ms. Rivera moved her younger son, Omar, to another charter nearby. It has had three principals in the three years since it opened. Nearly 20 teachers have left, and in January, the Wisconsin-based company that operates the school announced it was leaving. So for fifth grade she has enrolled him in a Detroit Public School, where instruction will be split between Spanish and English. “I’m a little fed up with the charters,” she said.... NY Times

The NY Times seems to have woken up to the charter school catastrophe. A major front-page piece doesn't seem to have gotten enough notice. The fact is the Detroit story is the inevitable outcome all over of the unfettered charter movement and why I oppose the very concept - schools are a public institution and so is the concept of a neighborhood school from K-12. Competition and choice is not the answer. They involve competing for the kids who can perform. Bad neighborhood schools need to have oversight. But putting in awful principals make the problem worse. Until teachers and parents get to play a major role in choosing the school leader, the system will self-destruct.

A few tidbits before you read the entire piece:

“We’re spreading the money across more and more schools; it’s no wonder that every school struggles,” said Dan Varner, the chief executive of Excellent Schools Detroit. “They’re all under-resourced.”

To throw the competition wide open, Michigan allowed an unusually large number of institutions, more than any other state, to create charters: public school districts, community colleges and universities. It gave those institutions a financial incentive: a 3 percent share of the dollars that go to the charter schools. And only they — not the governor, not the state commissioner or board of education — could shut down failing schools.

For-profit companies seized on the opportunity; they now operate about 80 percent of charters in Michigan, far more than in any other state. The companies and those who grant the charters became major lobbying forcesfor unfettered growth of the schools, as did some of the state’s biggest Republican donors.....
Even as Michigan and Detroit continued to hemorrhage residents, the number of schools grew. The state has nearly 220,000 fewer students than it did in 2003, but more than 100 new charter schools....
By 2015, a federal review of a grant application for Michigan charter schools found an “unreasonably high” number of charters among the worst-performing 5 percent of public schools statewide. The number of charters on the list had doubled from 2010 to 2014.

Go read it all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/for-detroits-children-more-school-choice-but-not-better-schools.html

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 

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.