Success Academy has grown far too large to keep the lid on everything now. Moskowitz enrolls 11,000 students in 34 schools. She has around 1000 teachers and staff. With such numbers and given their policies, there will likely be 1000s of former “scholars” and 100s of former teachers in short order, and all of them are not going to be intimidated into silence about what they saw while there. The simple fact is that Moskowitz absolutely cannot keep total control over what people say and know anymore, and it is her own policies of driving away students she does not want and burning out teachers that has put her in this position. So even if she fully recovers from this month, I think it is likely we will see many more months like this........Daniel Katz, Ph.D.
Eva Moskowitz and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month
The real anomaly, however, is the fact that the exclusionary practice that Success Academy silently demands in order to "succeed" ever was mentioned in the New York Times, which has an editorial board that remains entirely enthusiastic about the paternalistic segregated charter reform schools that corporate America promotes as a hideous manifestation of educational justice in blackface....
Schools Matter
Success Academy Find Its Scapegoat
Eva says the "got to go" list was an anomaly, one of those wacky things that happens once in a blue moon. Yet there have been stories for years of kids pushed out of Moskowitz Academies, for inconvenient behavior, low test scores, whatever. Eva is now demanding public funding for the Moskowitz pre-K but refusing to submit to required oversight by the city. Rules are for the little people, and that would be us, the people who serve all children. If there's an "anomoly," it's the fact that this particular list was placed in writing.......NYC Educator: The Moskowitz Anomoly - Eva says the "got to go" list was an anomaly, one of those wacky things that happens once in a blue moon. Yet there have been stories for years of kids p...
Success Academy's tearful apology for a 'Got To Go' list of students isn't accepted by every parent
They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either.
When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind.
........Abundant1 has left a new comment on your post "Eva's Got to Go, Not Children: NY Times Throws Another Grenade at Eva Moskowitz as She Holds Presser to Scam for More Money
Success Academy, Achievement First, they are among the top offenders of tactics like this. The words in the article have been repeated time and again to city officials, and news reporters. We've had hearings and community gatherings. I spent my sons entire 5th grade in meetings trying to understand, advocate, advise, and reveal. Those who already knew had been resigned to the idea that the big money backers would make sure none of it would make a difference. As it had not made a difference over the decades that it took for these charter schools to become so prolific and take root in our communities. Now the story resurfaces as if it is news, but it is unmitigated child abuse that it is known by those in a position to change it, and or punish it, and here it is October 2015 still wrong and strong. God Bless people like Leonie Haimson who have not been deterred; and who continues to show up, and fight to expose and change the system of abuse for the children whose own parents barely know what is happening to them.
When I see these mothers who are willing to participate in these propaganda commericals for these charter schools, I am sick about all that they don't know, and how their children are subsequently in a position to fend for themselves.
I am glad this article repeats the one area that EVERYONE must know regardless of whether your child attends these schools or not. They are criminalizing these children to the point that the children are believing them, and begin to act as expected. When you get detention for squeaking the rubber soles on the floor, or coughing. or sneezing in a disingenuous way; when you are taught that asking for help when you are told not to talk, is a level 4 "disrespect of a teacher" your world begins to change. Twilight Zone comes to mind.
What did the few parents who stood against their policies teach them? How to hide their abuses. They decided to start with younger and younger kids, so the communication of abuses would be harder to decipher. They decided to tell the parents one thing, and do another to the child. I once stood in the hall and listened to a dean yell so violently at a student (behind closed doors) that I couldn't even discern the infraction. The child was thoroughly convinced he had committed a sin so unspeakable based on her threats, that he was too afraid to report the incident to his parents, hoping the she wouldn't either.
It is a layered problem, but lets start with the illegal stuff and take it from there. But when the office of child welfare stops taking calls, and when you do get through tells you it will be more than a year before anyone even thinks about investigating the complaint, hopelessness can set in. Even the NYC agency set-up to protect children with special needs, failed. It was clear there was a network of silence at work, that is well funded... Anyway, I go on...
Hopefully this will be the year, this will be the story, this will be the child that will break the system's back. No more charter abuses!
Principals at Success, many in their 20s and 30s, frequently consult with a team of lawyers before suspending a student or requiring a parent to pick up a child early every day. It was a member of that team who described a student’s withdrawal from the Success Academy in Union Square to colleagues as a “big win,” the current employee said.I love that Kate mentioned the ages of the principals. I wonder if staff don't have to sign some non-disclosure agreements when they sign a contract? Does anyone have examples of these contracts to publish?
James D. Merriman, the chief executive officer of the New York City Charter School Center, a group that advocates and supports charter schools, said it was unrealistic to expect any given school to be a good fit for every child. And Mr. Merriman noted that the city had many traditional public schools that required a test or other screening for admission, schools that by definition did not serve all students.That's an infinitesimal number of public schools and they are open and above board on their policies. Merriman used to sell charters as taking every kid through the lottery. Now they are explaining away their trying to beat the lottery.
Hi Twitter Brigade,The news keeps piling on, today the New York Times published an article confirming and detailing some disgusting suspension habits carried out by Success Academy Charter School Network.The article proves that Success Academy uses frequent suspensions as a tactic to push students out, using a "Got to Go" list. Read the article here: http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3This sort of unfair treatment shows that Success Academy is not the "public school" they claim to be and that Eva Moskowitz will use ultimate autonomy to hand pick students.TWEET WITH US NOW!!Let Eva and her schools know this is unacceptable. Attached are some meme's and below are sample tweets.9 of 16 students on @SuccessCharters #Got2Go list withdrew. Frequent suspensions force kids out http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3.@SuccessCharters uses frequent suspensions to push kids out, claims they #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 Moskowitz wages ultimate autonomy claims kids #GotToGo then suspends until they withdraw http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 .@SuccessCharters uses trolling parents with suspensions for minor infractions as form of pushing kids out #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 Parents choose @SuccessCharters then learn their child has #GotToGo with frequent suspensions http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 Parents say 'lives upended by repeated suspensions' @SuccessCharters says their child has #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 .@SuccessCharters staff ADMIT network uses suspension to let parents know their child has #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 Students that @SuccessCharters believe have #GotToGo are suspended frequently, left off re-enrollment list http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3.@SuccessCharters staff say certain kids leaving is 'BIG WIN' #GotToGo http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3 .@SuccessCharters decide some students have #GotToGo, start suspending as young as kindergarten http://nyti.ms/1MkDyX3
The city is SO using this eval to harass teachers. They don't even have to be verbally abusive any more.What do you think?
The eval is harassing enough and keeping everyone on edge. It will push out all tier 4 people before their time.That goes for workshop model too. You can't implement a work shop model in classes of 32 kids and keep endless records on all of them. That's why they'll never reduce class size. All meant to push out teachers.Total bullshit.
One hundred 10-year-olds spent the first week of school sitting on the floor. What was it they were supposed to have learned?...There were some people on Facebook skeptical of this report.
KIPP spends a great deal of money promoting its brand of total compliance, segregated charter schools as the “tough love, no excuses” solution for schooling in urban communities disabled by poverty and lack of hope. KIPP and its billionaire supporters contend that we cannot wait for an end to poverty to properly educate the children of the poor. No one I know would disagree with this premise, but everyone I know disagrees with KIPP's conception of what "properly educate" means.
KIPP requires the poorest urban children, those who have received the least in life, to earn everything at KIPP, from paychecks for good behavior and working hard to the very shirts they wear. At some KIPPs, children must even earn their right to sit at a desk (rather than on the floor) for 8 to 10 hours a day.
......... Jim Horn, Schools Matter and Alternet
NYC Teacher Talks: "The Weight Of Standardized Testing Is Absolutely Crushing"
Erik (Jennifer Preissel / Gothamist)
Last month, 240,000 students and their teachers returned to the corridors of New York City’s 500 public high schools. Gothamist sat down with teachers at different stages of their careers—some entering service, some with a few years under their belt, and a couple of vets. We talked about why they chose to teach, how they feel about the government's education policy and their thoughts on the charter system and the United Federation of Teachers. We wanted to know: are the teachers all right?When I was in college, I worked at Starbucks at the Mall of America. I saw that there were lots of problems—poverty wages, inconsistent scheduling, arbitrary firings, sexual harassment from the boss. So my coworkers and I started a union and we were able to change a lot of things. We got much more stable scheduling. We were connected to Starbucks workers doing some of these things across the US. We saw that when workers stand together you can have a voice and you can change things. So I got very involved in union organizing in the fast food industry for about seven years.
We'll run a different teacher profile each day this week (read them all here). Today we feature Erik, who is in his second year of teaching English as a second language and social studies in the Bronx. Erik is also the United Federation of Teachers' chapter leader for his school.
I also began working as a substitute teacher. I had this experience of essentially working with the people in the fast food industry whose kids I would then encounter in the classroom. And I saw that there was this very direct connection between poverty and academic success. I thought you could attack poverty both by union organizing, which is probably the most powerful tool we have, but that education also has to play a role, to give people the confidence to believe that we can live in a better world, to open their minds to different possibilities for themselves and for the whole society.
Eventually I decided to go into teaching, which took me into the New York City Teaching Fellows here in the Bronx. I had not planned on getting active in the union when I started as a teacher, but I rapidly saw that so many of the problems we have in the school system are actually workplace problems—they are problems of capitalism.
------I think we have to transform the UFT. The UFT is, I think, like most unions in the United States, it's based on a model of service unionism, where people pay their $54 a paycheck and in exchange they get services. They get advice, help with dental insurance, a catalogue with discounts on a security system for your home, maybe some professional development courses. But that's not where the power of the union lies. The power of the union lies in members talking to each other, figuring out what problems they have, what problems they share with the community and taking action. If we did that, the UFT would be an unstoppable force.
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The weight of standardized testing is absolutely crushing. It makes it difficult for teachers to foster critical thinking when students could be tested on more facts and figures than they could ever conceivably learn in a school year. All teachers do a dance of trying to make sure kids do well on these tests.
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Charter schools can kick kids out, so they take the kids who are easier to work with, need less support to succeed and they kick out the kids who have behavioral problems, learning disabilities, who are struggling to acquire English. Over time, this creates this gradient where the students who need less support do better because maybe because they have more stable family lives or they come from a higher socioeconomic class, they end up in the charter schools and the public schools get the kids who need the most help. But they are getting fewer resources than the charters to do this. The charter system is creating a two-tiered education system and that's been morally wrong always, and legally wrong since Brown vs. Board of Education.
Wonderful Jia! So glad you will shake up the UFT. Let's figure out how public school parents can work on your campaign to help get all teachers to vote for Jia in 2016! I feel a change coming!.. Janine Sopp, opt-out parent activist.
Can the privatization of public education serve the interests of Black children? Is the growth of TFA a net benefit for Black children or a problem? These are not salacious questions or conspiracy-mongering, but genuine issues that the movement will need to understand and take up, in words and deeds....Brian Jones
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If the Black Lives Matter movement is to grow, it must "connect the dots" between the struggle for justice in the streets and the struggle for justice in the schools. TFA is, in my view, on the wrong side of one of those struggles, which, at the very least, calls into question its ability to play a role in the other. And apparently, some TFA alums agree.... Brian Jones
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IN MOST places, these same education justice activists have been confronting the sweeping privatization of public education--that is, school closings, the proliferation of charter schools, union busting and the spread of high-stakes standardized testing--which has been the bipartisan policy on education at the national level for more than two decades. Yet the advocates of privatization have repeatedly cloaked their agenda in the robes of the historic civil rights movement.
-------Brian Jones, http://socialistworker.org/2015/10/26/teach-for-america-leaves-black-lives-behind
Teach for America leaves Black Lives behind
October 26, 2015A debate has developed among leading voices of the Black Lives Matter movement about the connection, or lack of one, between the antiracist struggle to the battle against the education reform movement, including Teach for America (TFA), an organization that recruits college graduates without any teaching experience and places them in schools in low-income communities, often in cooperation with charter school operators. Here, New York City educator, activist and writer sets out the context of this discussion and examines the arguments of those who believe Teach for America can help make Black Lives Matter.
New York City students protest plans to open another charter school in the Bronx
THE DIVERSE and determined movement against police violence and murder--now known to so many as Black Lives Matter--is facing a series of political challenges, as grassroots movements inevitably do. Choosing demands, deciding on strategy and tactics, selecting leaders and holding them accountable--all of these are difficult matters, and the road to success has potholes to avoid at every turn.
The phrase "Black Lives Matter" is open to a wide number of interpretations. Making Black lives matter in anonymous encounters with police officers is one, obviously. But many in the movement make connections to the fight for the $15-an-hour minimum wage or the struggle against violence directed at Black women and LGBTQ Black people.
Connecting these proverbial dots will only make the movement stronger.
Another obviously connected issue is K-12 schooling. Sixty years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, American schools are more racially segregated than ever, with Black children overwhelmingly concentrated in underfunded schools. They are disproportionately subject to significantly harsher disciplinary procedures than their peers, starting from pre-K--to such an extent that there is even a phrase for it: the "school-to-prison pipeline."
Across the country, parents, teachers and students have challenged the policies that uphold these patterns, consciously seeking to connect the Black Lives Matter movement to the effort to end institutional racism in public schooling. The students in Seattle who walked out of school to protest the decision not to indict Darren Wilson for the murder of Mike Brown are just one example.
And here is where it gets challenging.
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IN MOST places, these same education justice activists have been confronting the sweeping privatization of public education--that is, school closings, the proliferation of charter schools, union busting and the spread of high-stakes standardized testing--which has been the bipartisan policy on education at the national level for more than two decades.
Yet the advocates of privatization have repeatedly cloaked their agenda in the robes of the historic civil rights movement. From the Wall Street banker who called charter schools "the civil rights movement of my generation" to the former U.S. Secretary of Education referring to the anti-union, anti-public school film Waiting for "Superman" as a "Rosa Parks moment" for education, to the judge comparing the recent anti-teacher tenure lawsuit in California to the Brown decision, over and over, corporate reformers claim to be fighting for justice for Black children.
There is no single, authentic "Black" standpoint on this issue. Black people are genuinely on both sides. Former charter school CEO Geoffrey Canada favors privatization and claimed that his goal was to "destroy" public education. Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), says that fighting for Black children requires saving public education.
Nevertheless, it's not difficult to pull apart the claims of the privatizers. For starters, charter schools are more segregated than public schools.
Furthermore, the most celebrated charter schools are infamous for pushing out the students who are struggling, who are more expensive to educate, or who might lower the school's test scores--especially students with special needs, English Language Learners, etc.
Focusing instruction on raising standardized test scores does not a good education make, and the pressure to raise scores is felt most acutely in schools where Black students are concentrated--which has led those schools to cut art, science and even social studies in order to focus more time on tested subjects: reading and math. Following in the wake of this pressure are Zero Tolerance discipline policies and the austere, militarized environment that pushes kids into the school-to-prison pipeline.
Also, trade unions have been essential levers of access to middle-class incomes for Black people--especially union employment in the public sector. Black people continue to be more likely to be union members than any other racial group, and approximately one in five Black adults work in the public sector.
Black teachers are a small minority of teachers nationwide, but they are concentrated in larger numbers in schools that overwhelmingly serve Black students, and so their jobs have been disproportionately affected by privatization. A recent report on nine cities targeted for school privatization found that all have declining numbers of Black teachers.
New Orleans may be the place where, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the privatizers have completed their work to the fullest extent. Most schools in New Orleans are now charters, the teachers' union is gone, and standardized test scores are the "coin" of competition in school rankings. No school has any obligation to any particular child. The parents get to "choose" any school, but that really means they can apply to any school--there's no guarantee their child will be admitted.
But rather than emerging as a model of Black liberation, the schools in New Orleans are more segregated than ever, and Black students are concentrated in the lowest-performing and most underfunded schools in the city.
Meanwhile, more than 7,000 Black teachers in New Orleans have lost their jobs--while Teach For America has provided a steadily rotating crop of new teachers from outside Louisiana to take their places. The number of Black teachers has dropped by almost half, while the number of white teachers has nearly doubled.
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A NEW teacher unionism movement spreading nationwide is attempting to fight against the privatization of K-12 public schooling and fight the specific effects of institutional racism on Black people in schools. The most dramatic and inspiring examples of what it could accomplish were the 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike and the Seattle teachers strike of this year.
In Chicago, the CTU said public education in the city was an "apartheid" system and exposed the dramatic inequalities of the Chicago Public Schools, while putting forward its own vision of the schools Chicago's children deserve. In Seattle, the teachers demanded and won the formation of race and equity teams to work inside schools to end the disproportionate pattern of suspensions and other harsh punishments for Black students.
Both strikes showed the power of connecting the movement to defend public education by challenging the privatization agenda with the struggle against institutional racism.
But not all Black Lives Matter activists are for making that connection.
Two people who have risen to national prominence in the fight against racist police violence and murder, DeRay Mckesson and Brittany Packnett, are proud alumni of TFA, the nonprofit that places inexperienced teachers in classrooms nationwide after only six weeks of preparation and that has enthusiastically supported the spread of nonunion charter schools. Packnett is executive director of TFA in St. Louis.
In a response to critics who she claimed made "salacious" arguments and portrayed her as an "evil Trojan horse" and "sell-out opportunist," Packnett wrote that TFA responded effectively after the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson and the militant demonstrations that followed, using its substantial resources to help families in need and even sending people to the protests.
Packnett supports TFA's work in schools, she writes, because TFA is doing "hyper-local" teacher training that is "culturally responsive" and is placing "more diverse" teachers in schools than ever before.
But in six weeks, how "culturally responsive" can a teacher learn to be? The problem remains that, nationwide, Black children are disproportionately taught by inexperienced teachers--a problem that TFA exacerbates.
Packnett writes that she is willing to work with anyone who will fight for justice, but:
[t]hat will require that we stop yelling at one another and put children back at the center. It will require that we elevate our conversations beyond our personal ideological frameworks and the salacious viral posts that entrench them, and earnestly seek out what works best for kids--regardless of where it comes from.Sure, we don't necessarily need to yell. But we do need to be able to discuss important disagreements. And good intentions are not enough to make the changes we need.
Another marker of one particular view among Black Lives Matter activists is Packnett's participation in President Barack Obama's task force on policing. But Obama's rhetorical support for ending police murder hasn't been matched by action when it comes to federal prosecution of murderous police officers.
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MCKESSON, LIKE Packnett, argues that much of what his critics say amounts to ad-hominem attacks. In various tweets and Facebook posts, he calls for a more "nuanced" conversation about charter schools. In one thread, he wrote:
I was a TFA corps member, yes. And I taught in a public school. And was a senior leader in two public school districts. I've always supported school districts, and I don't think charter schools are the solution or that they'll scale, but I think that, to a degree and in some places, they serve a purpose. But again, there's nuance there.For the record, this commentary is not claiming any salacious or evil conspiracy at work. I don't assume that Mckesson or Packnett hate unions or teachers of color or that they want to ruin public education. I assume they mean what they say and say what they mean. I assume they believe in what they are doing and in the alliances they are forging. I do think, however, that they are joining forces with organizations and institutions that are hostile to a broad movement for justice.
It's just so interesting that the conversation is never framed about what's best for kids, and that the assumption is that I hate unions or teachers or color and want to ruin public education.
This represents a substantial political disagreement on how to win justice--in the streets and in schools--for millions of Black and Brown children in this country. On one side, we have people, like Mckesson and Packnett, who see wealthy and powerful corporations and political elites as allies in the fight against police terror. On the other hand, you have people, including many teachers' union activists, who view the corporate and political elite as fundamentally part of the problem.
Packnett says she will never again respond to critics. That's unfortunate, because this debate is important to the future strategy of the movement in which she is playing a leading role. In a recent speech in Philadelphia, Mckesson alluded to "my own critique of TFA," Given his role in this movement, it would be useful to know what that critique consists of.
Can a movement against state violence work with the executives of the state and against them at the same time? Can the privatization of public education serve the interests of Black children? Is the growth of TFA a net benefit for Black children or a problem? These are not salacious questions or conspiracy-mongering, but genuine issues that the movement will need to understand and take up, in words and deeds.
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THE PRIVATIZATION of public education is not, in my view, compatible with making Black Lives Matter in the streets or anywhere else. Yes, nuance requires us to acknowledge that some people experience the move from a public school to a charter school as an improvement in education. But at least an equal number experience the opposite move as an improvement.
While Packnett and Mckesson may not go this far, the federal and elite policy has been to promote charter schools and other elements of the privatization agenda as the solution. They do so in a manner that is totally disproportionate to the merits of privatization for ordinary people, because that elite benefits from it, politically, economically and socially.
Besides weakening the labor movement and socializing all of us to accept our lot in life, the school privatization movement has the added benefit to the elites of opening up new revenue streams for investors. For real estate investors, the Wall Street Journal reports, the latest gold rush is charter school construction. One fund promises investors a 10 percent return on their money.
Ultimately, TFA is part of this privatization "movement"--led by millionaires and billionaires like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Stanley Druckenmiller and more--that is using genuine grievances and frustrations of oppressed communities to break up one of the last remaining strongholds of the public sector: K-12 schools.
The elites who support this agenda make a lot of noise about "racial justice" and always claim to have the best interests of children at heart, rather than the interests of various adults, especially teachers, who are implied to be selfish, by contrast. But children eventually grow up, which is one simple reason why the interests of children and adults are inseparably linked.
What kind of institution is so worried about children but treats adults like dirt? Walmart, the largest private donor to TFA, is also the largest employer of Black people in the U.S. Many of its full-time employees rely on public assistance to survive, yet somehow we are to believe that this corporate giant is "earnestly" and disinterestedly seeking out "what works best for kids."
It may be that Mckesson does agree that the Black Lives Matter movements should "connect the dots" between economic justice and racial justice. But a report on his recent speech in Philadelphia noted:
In his view, what's best for students isn't necessarily improving their socioeconomic status, though important, but rather "having a teacher who believes they can learn." What we need are "great teachers in every classroom, every day, and a system of schools that are high quality at scale," said Mr. Mckesson, who was appalled to learn that the school district of Philadelphia, a month or so before grades go in, still has a vacancy count of almost 200 teaching positions.It seems that Mckesson feels the issue of economic equality can be put to one side while we deal with issues of teacher quality and police violence. Here, he is, consciously or not, echoing the narrative of the privatization movement, which claims to bring justice to Black children without actually redistributing any wealth or resources, and without giving up any power or privilege.
We would do well to remember the actual civil rights movement--the one where Dr. King died in Memphis trying to help Black sanitation workers form a public-sector union.
Dr. King was right when he said that genuine justice was indivisible. There won't be justice in the schools without justice at work and justice in the streets. We cannot take from one group in order to get "justice" for another. We cannot get justice for children by beating up on adults, just as we cannot have racial justice without economic justice.
If the Black Lives Matter movement is to grow, it must "connect the dots" between the struggle for justice in the streets and the struggle for justice in the schools. TFA is, in my view, on the wrong side of one of those struggles, which, at the very least, calls into question its ability to play a role in the other. And apparently, some TFA alums agree.
This isn't yelling or an ad hominem attack. This is a political disagreement about the future of the struggle for justice for Black people.
Hallelujah! --- Leonie Haimsonttp://m.timesunion.com/local/
No noblesse oblige to kick around anymore. Too bad she seems to be leaving on her own terms--20 years too late. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. ... Fred Smith
John Merrow posted the Success Academy Network's disciplinary code which is distributed to all parents. Surprisingly I was unable to find it on any of the Network's numerous websites.Here is a link to the full Discipline code.
I find the infractions petty and the penalties at Success Academy Charter Schools highly punitive, especially for younger children, but readers can judge for themselves.
Success Academy rules are a manifesto for zero-tolerance policing policies brought into an elementary school. Research on the impact of zero-tolerance policies continually demonstrates that they are detrimental to both a student's emotional and academic growth, reinforce student behaviors they are supposed to eliminate leading to further suspensions, and increasingly exposed suspended to influences that virtually ensured further problems in schools and with the police.
Some of the rules at Success Academy read like they could have been copied from a Department of Corrections guide for disciplining incarcerated prisoners. Others seem like a return to Maoist China "struggle sessions" during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s when people accused of misconduct made public confessions of their misdeeds and mis-thoughts. Students can be suspended from school or expelled for behavior that occurred outside of school time and off of school grounds.
Alan Singer, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/moskowitzs-suspension-aca_b_8388616.html
Time to kick out the insanity and replace it with humanity... Jia LeeThere was joy in Mudville - in the real reform anti-ed deform community and throughout the opposition to Unity Caucus at the announcement from MORE that Jia Lee would oppose Michael Mulgrew for the office of UFT President in the upcoming UFT elections this winter.
Accolades came in from around the city, state and nation. Our pals at Port Jefferson Station posted the announcement: thepjsta.org/2015/10/26/more-announces-jia-lee-will-oppose-michael-mulgrew-in-2016-uft-election … with this photo of Jia. Our pals in the Chicago Teachers Union and CORE expressed their support on Facebook and twitter.TFA/BlackLivesMatter/
CampaignZero Activist Brittney Packnett (Almost) Tries to Defend the Indefensible By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
Wed, 10/21/2015 - blackagendareport.com
Stung by growing public recognition of Teach For America's heinous role in destabilizing communites and destroying public education, CampaignZero/BlackLivesMatter activist & TFA's Brittney Packnett took to Huffington Post last week to defend herself and TFA's mission. But school privatization is so unpopular she had to resort to misdirection and mumbling about her St. Louis orgins and supposed conspiracy theories against her instead.TFA/BlackLivesMatter/
CampaignZero Activist Brittney Packnett (Almost) Tries to Defend the Indefensible As the pivotal role of Teach For America in the elite bipartisan drive to privatize public education comes more sharply into public view, it's natural that TFA operatives and apologists will try to defend their missions and careers. That's what Brittney Packnett's sad and disingenuous “Let's Get Back To Work” piece in Huffington Post last week was about.Packnett's problem however, and Teach For America's too is that their mission so clearly indefensible that they can't really talk about what Teach For America actually does, and why it does those things.TFA, whose St. Louis director is Ms. Packnett, cannot just come out and say they spend hundreds of millions a year in corporate and government funds replacing experienced, qualified, mostly black public school teachers with undertrained and mostly white temps to facilitate the policy goal of their corporate funders, which is the privatization of public education.Organized public school teachers used to be the backbone of civic life in black communities... they were well-educated and decently paid, had roots in the communities where they worked, and their short commutes gave them plenty of time to take part in local affairs. Now that's history, in good part thanks to the work of Brittney Packnett, Deray McKesson and their mentors and corporate funders. TFA's part in transforming the public school workforce has served three purposes....
business” bosses; business” principals and administrators. Former Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd Bennett is pleading guilty to a kickback scheme involving one such “academy” and in the current session of Congress eight members of the Congressional Black Caucus “abstained” from voting on a bill that would have directed the Department of Education to investigate crooks and conflicts of interest in the charter school industry... Packnett's colleagues and sponsors among them. Some of these black congressional reps were doubtless among the boosters of her “braintrust” gathering at the Congressional Black Caucus's annual meeting in DC this September. And lest one imagine there's a great deal of difference between the two branches of BlackLivesMatter, CBC at the same time was also courting the "official" BlackLivesMatter "co-creators" as well.The one piece of Packnett's Huffington Post piece that seems absolutely sincere was its “Let's Get Back To Work” title. Certainly Packnett and TFA would like a lot less attention paid to what they actually are, and what TFA actually does, so they can get back to work. But they ain't workin' for us.Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and a member of the state committee of the Ga Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via email at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendarepo
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