Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Eva Moskowitz, Doing What She Does Best, Plays Victim

Eliza Shapiro and Conor Skelding at Capital NY:

Success Academy C.E.O. Eva Moskowitz says this week's New York Times feature about her network of schools is "slanted" and "unfair."

"The article contains many inaccurate statements and unfair portrayals of our schools—scenes that could come straight out of a Dickens novel," Moskowitz wrote in an email to Success employees on Wednesday night, a copy of which was obtained by Capital.

...

"The reporter constructed a story around unverified but titillating anecdotes from anonymous sources," Moskowitz wrote.

Moskowitz and Success have regularly sparred with the reporters that cover her, including Capital reporters, often accusing them of bias. Press representatives have been known to call reporters "anti-Success" and to decline interviews and comment for articles.

It was a sentiment echoed in Moskowitz's email.

"This is not the first attack on Success Academy, nor will it be the last," she wrote.

Moskowitz wrote that "attacks" on her schools derive from an entrenched system driven by special interests, specifically the teachers' union, suggesting that news outlets are functionaries of that system. That claim has also been made by her spokespeople in response to stories that contain criticism.

"Let's keep perspective," Moskowitz wrote. "We are disrupters, we are changing the status quo, and that threatens a system that has existed more or less unchanged for decades."

She loves to play victim, doesn't she?

But the victims in this tale are the children soiling themselves at their desks because they're too scared to go to the bathroom during the all-mighty Sucess test prep.

The victims in this tale are the children sent to "effort academy" (i.e., detention and extra test prep) because their eyes didn't snap to attention quick enough when one of the teachers snapped her fingers.

The victims in this tale are the children who are meant to feel "misery" when their teachers feels they're not trying hard enough.

The NY Times article did read like something out of Dickens, as I wrote when I first posted about this story.

But that's not because the author, Kate Taylor, was making things up or "slanting" the piece, as Eva charges.

That's because Success Academy is a Dickensian nightmare where the children are subject to stress, misery and physical and emotional abuse.

With that part of the "Success" story getting out into the mainstream, Eva is finding it harder and harder to play the victim.

Not that she won't try.

But notice how the media coverage of Eva is changing these days.

The Albany rally in March didn't get the same vaunted coverage it got last year.

Now she's got a front page Times story she needs to spin away.

Looks like Eva's just going to have to double down on her spin efforts.

Lucky for her Campbell Brown, Governor Cuomo and a whole host of Wall Street/hedge fund people are going to raise millions for her in a couple of weeks.

5 comments:

  1. It doesn't matter. The ghetto section 8, welfare happy minority "parents", will never understand. Instead, they feel special that their future welfare son/daughter is attending a specific area called, a charter school. "My son is at the Success school charter shit. They be holdin his ass till 6 at night. Keep that lil bitch in dat charter and let him beez a better man than his daddy, wherever that MF is at". Direct quote from a nice Success south brinx neighborhood crack welfare "mom". They will never understand RBE. This game is over. Nothing is stopping the Cuomo machine. War on education and all unions. Right to Work (Walker) exists in more than half the country. Over 10 are in the works to pass it to destroy unions. Less than 10 (including NY) have yet to pass it. LESS THAN 10 STATES! It's over. Try to make it to 55, that's it.

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    1. It's very easy for you to spout this racist puke when you hide behind "Anonymous."

      Somehow, I'm guessing that your shout-out to RBE is going to fall on deaf ears.

      There are a lot of reasons why people of color put their kids into charter schools. I have no doubt that some parents of kids of color have a sense of entitlement about enrolling their son or daughter in a charter school. For many, it's a hard choice between a not-so-good public school and a not-so-good charter school but I don't condemn anyone who has to make that terrible choice for their children.

      If you want people of color to make "better" choices about where they enroll their kids, I suggest we engage these parents in some conversation that might change their minds.

      I doubt starting the conversation with "Listen, you ghetto section 8 welfare-happy minority 'parent' who can't talk the Queen's English" will get you very far past a well-deserved slap in the face.

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  2. The other day around 20 of us from MORE and Change The Stakes were outside a Cuomo fundraiser, leafleting people going in and making them very uncomfortable. Maybe we'll try this again at this event.
    Signs like : You are supporting child abuse.

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  3. And nobody gives a damn as NYC Educator pointed out this morning.

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  4. Those kids were urinating on themselves out of joy over being tested. Haven't you ever pissed yourself in ecstasy? Ok maybe it was too much alcohol but weren't you happy? Eva is a very disturbed woman. I wonder if she sees anyone to talk about some of her issues.

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