Success Academy, the high-achieving charter school network, told employees this week that it would shorten its school day next year, altering a feature that has distinguished the network from New York City’s regular public schools but has also made it hard to retain teachers.The school day for most students at Success’ elementary schools will go from lasting eight hours 45 minutes to eight hours, with students being dismissed at 3:45 p.m. instead of at 4:30, according to an email from Success’ founder, Eva S. Moskowitz, that was sent to employees on Tuesday....In the email, Ms. Moskowitz said the change, which was reported by Politico New York on Tuesday, was meant to address the concerns of teachers and families.“We have found that the length of our current school day is difficult for both scholars and teachers, and it doesn’t leave enough time for clubs, sports programs, and the tutoring and extra support that some scholars need,” Ms. Moskowitz wrote. “It is also challenging for staff to find enough personal time to recharge and be at their professional best.”“This schedule change will allow for more personal time on workdays,” she continued, “and we hope it will allow everyone to find the balance that will best serve our scholars, families, and faculty!”
Gee, you mean the 6:30 AM-6:30 PM workday for teachers, along with the "Homework Help" phone hours until 10:00 PM, was hurting their staff recruitment and retainment efforts?
I can't imagine why.
Go on Idealist and look at all the charter ads for teachers - especially for Success Academies.
They never stop running recruitment ads.
And no wonder - the turnover never stops at their schools.
It will be interesting to see what happens to their test scores and student attrition next year with the schedule changes.
I would imagine they'll keep the same grueling test prep schedule for the kids, but now it will be shoved into the shorter school day.
That means other stuff - like their vaunted chess matches - will have to make way for the test prep.
That should be a great sell to parents:
Well, we have shorter days, but the test prep schedule is the same, so we got rid of lunch and afterschool chess.
Don't steal possible.
Eva, Don't Steal Grammatical or, for that matter Truthful...
ReplyDeleteThe charter school story in NYC has been the most incredible use of smoke and mirrors I have ever seen. What a crooked organization of people who have used and abused educators to further their salaries and destroyed lives of hard working people not to mention the distasteful practices regarding students - not scholars. For the life of me I can only detect that our society is just so over populated - especially with the tremendous growth of immigrants - and illegal immigrants - that organizations such as these bogus charters are in existance. How else could ms. moskowitch earn a salary of nearly half million dollars a year with preying on the weak and poor at the hard work of teachers who want a career teaching but soon find out that they are in a corrupt world fueled with smoke and mirrors. For example, the funding issue is so corrupt it is beyond comprehension. These charters suck out money from nyc students while these charters also have private backing adding millions of dollars to their systems. These charters consume space inside nyc school buildings taking away from the nyc students when in fact these charter organizations spend millions of dollars each year advertising how great they are and how awful public schools are. Read the real data and find out that indeed these charters are organizations that operate using smoke and mirrors and they got the mirrors and the smoke from mike bloomberg who gave these neophytes the run of the city at our nyc public school kids expense. I say lets rid ourselves from these charter schools and close them all down now as they are just too corrupt and getting worse by the day
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody know what their pay is like? I hear people say they make less than DOE teachers, other say more. Never got a straight answer.
ReplyDeleteI knew a teacher at a charter school next to city hall. This was a few years ago and the salary was the same - but she worked until 5 daily and had to work 2 Saturdays a month. She also paid substantially into her health care. Bloomberg wanted this scenario for all public schools, Farina is continuing in this vein - with the full cooperation of Mulgrew (remember the health benefit clause in the last contract). She eventually quit and moved back to her southern state. One can only hope for the same from Farina.
DeleteThe NY Times article buried the lede -- the real reason is that the higher income middle class people won't go there with these long hours because that actually have activities for their kids to do after school. These people are Eva's real target.
ReplyDeleteHa! "Don't steal possible!" Just exploit a vulnerable population in order to create more revenue streams and tax shelters. It actually borders on evil.
ReplyDeleteOh, no, it's well over the line, and is straight-out evil...
DeleteActually, the criminal mismanagent and theft of taxpayer money is unsustainable. Indict these crony capitalists, Moskowitz, Cuomo,
ReplyDeleteMulgrew, Weingarten under the RICO statutes.
Kids might be let out at 3:45 but I will bet that teachers will still have to stay way later than that. Oh yeah, if they are all about "No excuses" then why are they changing their program?
ReplyDeleteHold on to your wallets. Eva is after your money. Kaching.
ReplyDeleteIt's unconstitutional to take public resources and pay private companies to use them. Lemon vs. Kurtzman (1971). UFT should bring it to court. It's time to rid NYC of these Charter Companies.
ReplyDeleteSuccess Academy is failure Academy. War is Peace. Love is Hate. Testing is Learning.
ReplyDeleteFrom the New York City Ministry of Education Handbook.
Your ignorant. The New York City Ministry of Education's handbook states: "War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength, and Testing is Learning."
DeleteFrom the MiniEd handbook revision 12.16.2015
Scholars. LOLZ
ReplyDelete