Success Academy: Not Quite Ready For Primetime

Eva Moskowitz sells her Success Academy prison school network as the solution for all that ills public education and has plans to expand her network from 34 schools serving 11,000 students to 100 schools serving 50,000 students in the next few years.

There are some problems with that plan, however, as Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY foundthrough Success' own risk management assessment:

Before the network can seek to replicate its model elsewhere, Success is seeking to demonstrate that it can operate at scale in New York City.

The internal documents cited in this article illustrate some of the challenges that have already resulted from its early growth spurt to 30 schools, including considerable staff churn and uneven quality among schools within the network.

“Our network has mushroomed with giant departments, and yet we are always out of breath and can barely do the work to support 11,000 kids,” reads an internal memo on Success’s departmental goals for the 2015-2016 school year. “We certainly will not be able to support 50,000 kids in 100 schools unless we make dramatic changes and improvements.”

And in the risk assessment, a member of the senior management team expressed concern about at least the perception of a widening distance between management and teachers in the course of expansion.

“It is perceived that there is a lack of humanistic connections between upper management and employees,” said one of the interviewees.

“My colleagues and I would benefit from a better understanding of the rationale behind our strategic expansion,” a departing employee said in an exit interview, also obtained by POLITICO New York. “Do we want to prove that our model works across demographics? That there is high parent demand? That we are the solution for NYC? Knowing this will give authentic purpose to our work.”
But the risk most often cited by senior managers was the network’s ability to recruit and retain its existing staff, including school principals and top executives.

“We don’t have a qualified talent pool to fill the spots left by the departing school leaders,” said one executive in the risk assessment. “We are already in the territory of putting people in leadership role[s] who are not quite ready yet.”

“We are growing so quickly that it’s almost impossible to come up with a robust leader pipeline in order to ensure high-quality leadership for every new school,” said another.

It's interesting, at the very time Moskowitz should be taking full advantage of her nemesis, Bill de Blasio, and his corruption scandal woes, Eva finds herself on the defense with the leak of these internal documents to Shapiro at Capital NY.

Two consecutive negative stories about Success - here was yesterday's on the allegations that Success cheats its way to high test scores - and Success' problems put out for all to see.

I wonder, is Eva having a nice day?

Internal Report Of Success Acadmies Finds Cheating On Tests, Morale In The Toilet

I vowed not to do any education stories anymore unless they were linked to the corruption scandals facing de Blasio and Cuomo, but this one is too good to pass up:

Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz did not approve of the finding — made by an “ethnographer” she hired to study her rapidly expanding charter school network — that some teachers at the high-performing network might be responding to the enormous pressure placed on them by cheating.

So Moskowitz, Success's combative founder, deployed senior managers to inform the staffer, Roy Germano, that he was banned from visiting schools for the remainder of the year. Moskowitz disparaged Germano to other employees, according to a memo written by Germano in July 2015 and obtained by POLITICO New York, and he was told to halt his research projects immediately.

Germano was fired last August, approximately a month after the report was completed, and is now a research scholar at New York University.

Germano’s reports and memo, along with a trove of other documents obtained by POLITICO — a separately commissioned internal draft risk assessment report, a compilation of exit interviews, and internal Success staffing records, among other documents — paint a picture of a growing enterprise facing serious institutional strain in the form of low staff morale, unusually high turnover, and the kind of stress that could drive teachers to exaggerate their students’ progress.

“It seems possible if not likely that some teacher cheating is occurring at Success on both internal assessments and state exams,” reads the July report by Germano, which was titled “Research Proposal: An Investigation into Possible Teacher Cheating.”

While Germano did not conclusively prove that teachers were cheating, he reports multiple incidents of Success staffers informing him that Success teachers may have prepared students for specific questions on internal tests, allowed students to copy answers from each other, scored their own students higher than students in other classes, and pointed to incorrect answers on exams and warned students to rethink their answers.

He compared Success’s data-driven, high-stakes environment to the state of the Atlanta public school system when a widespread cheating scandal was uncovered there. Germano also suggested that Success introduce measures to spot check and prevent cheating, including regular reviews of exam scoring, interviews with teachers, a statistical analysis to track how often students changed incorrect answers to correct ones, and anonymous reporting channels.

“The credibility of the organization could be greatly undermined if a third party were to detect cheating among our teachers and leaders before we detected and began dealing with it ourselves,” Germano wrote. In that same report, Germano wrote, “there are no rewards at Success for ethical teachers who try their best and fail.”

Moskowitz did not react well to the report's findings, reportedly disparaging Germano, then firing him and banning him from Success.

Many of us have long questioned Success Academies test scores, especially on tests they grade themselves.

This report calls for much more scrutiny into the Success test score "miracle".

You can bet the powers that be won't like that because Moskowitz is the poster child for the "No Excuses!" charter sector.

As with Michelle Rhee and the cheating scandal that enveloped her in D.C., there will be powerful people who look to defend Moskowitz both in and out of public to make sure her scores never get the scrutiny they deserve.

That's why it's up to the press to dig into this story and talk to the teachers and staff, both current and former, to get to the bottom of the story.

"Got To Go" List Principal At Success Academies Takes A Leave

Surely this is voluntary:

The principal at a Success Academy charter school who created a “Got to Go” list of difficult students is taking a personal leave of absence, a Success Academy spokeswoman said on Monday.

Critics of Success Academy, the high-performing New York City charter school network, have said its high test scores are partly a result of weeding out underperforming and disruptive students. The existence of the list, reported by The New York Times in October, appeared to support the accusations.

At a news conference that month, Success Academy’s founder, Eva S. Moskowitz, said the list was an anomaly and that it existed for only three days in 2014 before the principal, Candido Brown, was chastised for it. Mr. Brown apologized, saying he was doing what he thought was needed to fix an unsafe school and that the list was his idea alone.

Still, nine of the 16 students on the list eventually left the school, Success Academy Fort Greene, in Brooklyn.

In short, the Got To Go" list kinda worked - more than half the students on the list left the school.

Alas, there also seems to be a "We Gotta Go" list for principals at the school:

The acting principal will be the school’s fourth leader since it opened in 2013.

Gotta love the attrition rates at Success Academies, where the only thing that counts is test scores and anybody who doesn't measure up has, well, got to go.

As for Candido Brown, the idiot who put the unofficial Success Academies "Got To Go" philosophy for kids not measuring up into writing, it appears he has to go too - especially with some of the parents of the kids on the list suing the school.

Success Academies Admits Teacher Turnover Problem Is Unsustainable

Big news out of the "no excuses" charter chain, Success Academies:

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.

Families For Excellent Schools Nixes The Albany Rally

This is interesting news:

Marking a significant shift in its lobbying strategy, the influential charter school advocacy group Families for Excellent Schools will not hold a political rally in Albany this legislative session for the first time since Mayor Bill de Blasio took office, several sources confirmed.

A spokesperson for FES did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. But sources close to the charter school advocacy sector said the group was no longer getting policy results from the costly rallies, all of which have sought to boost charter schools and critique de Blasio.

This isn't a surprise - the rallies themselves have become the focus of the coverage this past year or so - both the one in Albany and the ones in the city.

Some of the coverage engendered by previous rallies (these are just off the top of my head):

How much cash is FES dropping on the rallies?

How much is Jennifer Hudson being paid to sing at the rally?

Why won't Jennifer Hudson allow herself to be videotaped at the rally?

Why does FES chief Jeremiah Kittredge get so coked up before he goes to talk to the press at these things?

Why won't Eva make herself available for questions?

You can see why FES might have finally come to realize the rallies are counterproductive - they've been done before and nobody other than the charter shills are interested in the pre-fabricated messages and images.

Instead, FES and Eva (and they're pretty much synonymous - the rallies are overwhelmingly attended by Success students, parents and staff) are out on the defensive in the coverage, so much so that it seems they've decided to stop doing them - at least for now.

Lawsuit Alleges Achievement First Punished Special Education Student Because Of His Disabilities

Coming on the heels of the "Got To Go" list that Success Academies put together for students they wanted out of SA comes this news:

Special education students at a Brooklyn charter school did not get mandated services and were punished for behavior that arose from their disabilities, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday.

The suit, filed on behalf of five students at Achievement First Crown Heights, described a “systemic failure to provide them a free appropriate public education, in violation of their rights.” It said that students did not get physical therapy and other services for weeks at a time, and that a student with autism was disciplined for not looking in the direction a teacher instructed or for hiding under his desk.

In addition to the charter network and the school, the suit also named the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department, asserting they failed to make Achievement First, a network with schools in Connecticut and Rhode Island as well as in New York City, live up to its responsibilities.

“Kids with special needs not only should be granted accommodations for their needs, but they must be under federal and state law,” said Michelle Movahed, a senior staff attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group, a nonprofit organization that is representing the students and their families. “This is not just a question of doing the right thing.”

What kind of cretins would discipline a child with autism for not looking in the direction of the teacher?

The kind who run and/or work at Achievement First.

Oh, btw, they're hiring, so if you're in the market for a job where you get to abuse kids, especially special education students, head on over to Idealist and send the Achievement First cretins your resume...

Moskowitz Presser Addressing "Got To Go" List Allegations Is Theater Of The Absurd

Melodrama, Moskowitz-style, via Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

Eva Moskowitz said Friday that she will not fire the Success Academy principal who created the "got to go" list of struggling students he wanted to leave the school, as documented in a widely read New York Times article.

"At Success, we simply don't believe in throwing people on the trash heap for the sake of public relations," Moskowitz, the charter network's CEO, said during a press conference convened to respond to the Times piece.

Moskowitz said she had received "a lot of P.R. advice" suggesting that she fire the principal, Candido Brown.

Brown sobbed throughout the press conference, apologized for creating the note and said he was not directed to do so by any of his managers. He left before the event ended.

Brown and Moskowitz were flanked by dozens of Success principals, several of whom wept, and others who stood with their arms folded, looking stonily at the reporters before them.

While Moskowitz said she would not yield to pressure to fire Brown, reporters were handed print-outs of an email Moskowitz sent in which she describes Brown as "stubborn and somewhat dense."

"The normal intellectual explanation or boss tells [sic] to do something does not get through," Moskowitz added, in an email from December 2014.

That email was part of a thread that was meant to demonstrate to reporters that Brown was properly reprimanded after the "got to go" list was discovered by high-level Success administrators.

Moskowitz noted that Brown was immediately called into a meeting and was censured for creating the list.

Shapiro goes on to report that Moskowitz canceled another appearance today and that no one in the charter world would defend her (other than James Merriman who defended her yeserday in the Times story.)

Ah, if only Arthur Miller were alive to dramatize this story for the stage.

So basically Moskowitz throws the "dense" principal under the bus for putting into writing what is Success's push-out policy, but gets him to stay around so she can say that Success doesn't "throw people onto the trash heap."

Moskowitz also claims this "Got To Go" practice at SA Fort Greene was an anomaly that only happened at that one school. 

What a show!

I have a difficult time seeing how this helps Moskowitz long-term - it simply adds to the bad reputation, with the SA staff staring stonily at the press as the sacrificial lamb/dense principal cries through a press conference while also laying down a marker for the press to follow up on.

If the push out practice was an anomaly, then it had better not show up anywhere else.

The Taylor Times story reported that the practice did indeed happen at other schools.

Other news organizations have reported the same (see here, for example.)

That's a road map for reporters to follow to prove that the push out practice was not an anomaly, that it goes to the core of what Success does.

I can't wait to see what kind of press response Eva puts on if more stories of push out follow this one.

One final thing to say about Eva - you can see why the powers that be didn't want her to run for mayor and why they're not defending her now.

Not only was this the kind of scrutiny she was going to get as a mayoral candidate, but clearly, given the insane press response she put on today, she's not exactly the best at defusing these situations.

It's not going out on too much of a limb to make a prediction that Eva gets the heave-ho from Success if this stuff continues.

Just as Michelle Rhee was dispensable to the hedge fund managers/education reformers, so is Eva Moskowitz.

She's doing more damage than good to the charter/privatization cause - don't be surprised if there's not a lot of pressure behind the scenes from the SA sugar daddies to push her out.

NY Times Exposes The "Got To Go" List At Success Academies

It's interesting to see how the press coverage of Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies has changed in the past couple of years.

For a long time, the press dutifully covered whatever Eva wanted covered and mostly treated her and her schools with kid gloves.

But not anymore.

Kate Taylor of the NY Times had the "Kids are too scared to go to the bathroom during test prep so they soil themselves instead" story about Success Academies in the NY Times and she follows that up with an expose on the Success Academy "Got To Go" list:

Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave.

Taylor goes on to report that 16 students were on the "Got To Go" list at SA Fort Greene and staff worked to get the parents of these students to pull them out of school - an endeavor that worked with over half:

Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the third grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.

The "Got To Go" practice is rife throughout the Success network:

The current and former employees said they had observed similar practices at other Success schools. According to those employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs or their relationships with people still at the network, school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.

Success Academies claims the "Got To Go" list was a "mistake," that the principal that created it was "reprimanded."

Eva Moskowitz demanded an apology from PBS over a report by John Merrow on the Newshour about SA and their suspension rate.

In an interview Merrow asked Eva directly if she juiced her test stats through suspensions and push-outs.

Moskowitz turned red and sputtered a response, then quickly wrote an attack letter to PBS demanding the apology.

But now, just a few days later, we get a Times story that confirms what Merrow was getting at in his report for the Newshour - Success Academy indeed does seek to make life hell for students who they want out in order to get them to leave on their own.

Will Eva demand an apology from the Times too?

Moskowitz was going on the attack today against Bill de Blasio over pre-K funding, claiming the city was wrongly keeping money from charters to hold pre-K.

But instead of being on the attack all day, Moskowitz is instead going to be on the defensive, responding to another damaging report about Success Academies and their suspension/attrition rates.

How the media coverage has turned for Eva and Success these days.

Charter School Teachers Received "Guidance" For Families For Excellent Schools Rally

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY reports that the charter school teachers who attended (were forced to attend?) yesterday's Families for Excellent Schools charter school teacher rally received some "guidance" from FES for how to conduct themselves at the rally:

Teachers did not take questions from reporters after the City Hall press conference, and FES executive director, Jeremiah Kittredge, did not take questions from reporters. NY1's Lindsey Christ reported that some teachers were given guidance on how to speak with reporters, including, "reporters often take sound bites, often out of context, and you could easily be quoted saying something in print you didn't actually mean in the way it was portrayed."

The rally itself still looked similar to the numerous other events FES has held.

Teachers were given the same free T-shirts (blue, emblazoned with the words "teacher activist") that their students typically wear at such events, along with sturdy-looking white tote bags. Rally marshals in neon green shirts handed out water bottles and hibiscus doughnuts from Dough, a popular Brooklyn bakery.

Teachers were also given matching blue selfie sticks and encouraged to tweet their pictures with the FES hashtag #DontStealPossible, and asked to pose in front of a banner reading "Teachers for Equality." Teachers formed a long line in front of the banner to collect their printed pictures.

FES has released a series of anti-de Blasio ads in the last several weeks, one of which critics have called racist.

Highly controlled, highly coordinated, expensive and no questions from the press - that's how these Families for Excellent Schools events go.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew, in a statement in response to the rally, noted that given the teacher turnover rate at charter schools, one-third of yesterday's rally attendees won't be teaching at their charter school next year.

That's a pretty apt response.

No school system that controls its teachers and puts them through the burn and churn the way many charters do is sustainable or workable for the school system at large.

One final point - it's a shame FES executive director Kittredge stopped taking questions from the press.

He did such a great job of it last March at that Albany rally with Ashanti.

Success Academy Chair Donates $1 Million To Families For Excellent Schools

Ben Chapman in the Daily News:

Two hedge fund billionaires dropped $1 million each on a controversial charter school advocacy group in April, the Daily News has learned.

Officials at pro-charter lobbying powerhouse Families for Excellent Schools have declined to name the nonprofit’s funders since it was founded in 2012.

But a July filing with the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics shows finance titans Dan Loeb and Julian Robertson both donated a cool million to the group.

...

Both Loeb and Robertson have a history promoting the growth of charter schools, but neither has been directly linked to Families for Excellent Schools until now.

Loeb, who runs an $18 billion investment group called Third Point, is network chair of Success Academy charter schools, the city’s largest charter network.

Chapman goes on to write that the $2 million in cash from Loeb and Robertson "is probably just a fraction of the income the organization will receive in 2015."

And indeed, that's the case.

Families for Excellent Schools has broken lobbying expenditure records in the past (see here) and drops a huge amount of cash on lobbying on a regular basis (see here.)

They've got a lot of money to burn and they use it to help Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies.

Success Academies likes to maintain a distance from Families for Excellent Schools, claiming the two organizations are not linked or coordinating, but that's laughable on its face.

When FES released a race-baiting ad a few weeks ago, Eva Moskowitz of Success was one of the few to defend FES and the ad.

Though FES doesn't reveal its donors, we know at least one of those donors has substantial links to Eva (as Chapman reported, Dan Loeb chairs the SA board.)

And they often seem to coordinate "rallies," with SA students, parents and teachers making up much of the "audience" at the FES political functions (indeed, Eva even closes her schools for these rallies.)

They also coordinate messages, with both FES and Moskowitz hitting on the "De Blasio hurts black children" message in ads, press conferences and newspaper op-eds.

Families for Excellent Schools is the propaganda and political wing of Success Academies, spending millions in cash that appears to be raised from many of the same sources that SA raises its cash from, to promote Eva Moskowitz's political agenda.

The two entities can claim they're not one and the same all they want - with SA chair Dan Loeb revealed as an FES donor as well, we start to see just how closely linked these entities really are.

Moskowitz Can't Take The Scrutiny

Diane Ravitch posts that Eva Moskowitz is demanding an apology from the News Hour over the report John Merrow did on Success Academy and suspensions.

Merrow asked her directly if she juiced her test scores through suspensions.

Moskowitz turned all sorts of red and sputtered in response:

JOHN MERROW: Do you ever use out-of-school suspension as a way to persuade parents that…

EVA MOSKOWITZ: No. No. We don’t suspend in order to boost our academics. Like, that’s just crazy talk.

JOHN MERROW: But our sources, including several public school principals, quite a few former Success Academy parents, and one person inside her organization, charge that is exactly what she does, repeatedly suspend certain kids to push them out. However, none of these critics were willing to publicly confront Moskowitz.

EVA MOSKOWITZ: Well, the numbers just don’t support that, John. I mean, what you get is what you see, which is suspending kids doesn’t lead to high attrition rate. That is what the data shows.

JOHN MERROW: In fact, the attrition rate is at least twice that of another major charter network, KIPP. A Success Academy representative told thaws for every 100 new students, at least 10 leave before the year’s out, most of them in the first few months. They are then replaced by students chosen from the waiting list.

Watch the video and count the shades of red Moskowitz turns - it's kinda fun.

I never thought her supposed flirtation with running for mayor was ever real for this very reason - had she run for mayor, Success Academy would have gotten a lot of scrutiny that neither Eva nor the hedge fund sugar daddies who support her are used to.

Merrow challenged her fairly, substantively, with data to back his challenge up.

Eva's response?

To cry foul.

Like all bullies, Moskowitz can dish it out but can't take it.

Had she run for mayor, she would have gotten a lot worse than what Merrow gave her - and clearly, she isn't able to take it.

Families For Excellent Schools To Hold Charter School Teacher Rally

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

Families for Excellent Schools, the charter school advocacy group, will hold a rally of charter teachers next week in an attempt to undermine the United Federation of Teachers' representation of public school teachers, according to several people with knowledge of the event.

Wednesday's rally is intended to challenge the notion the UFT speaks for New York City teachers. More than 1,000 charter school teachers are expected to attend the rally to declare their support for charters, which typically are not unionized.

FES' messaging surrounding the rally does not refer directly to the UFT or to teachers unions. Instead, it alludes only to "special interest groups" that prioritize benefits for adults over education for students.

As is typical for FES events, the rally will be attended largely by teachers from Success Academy, New York City's largest and most controversial charter network.

FES is going to get a 1,000 charter school teachers to rally for the wonders of charter schools?

I dunno, seems like a bit of a comedown from the 15,000 they had at the last rally, no?

Not to mention that this is the kind of rally that allows charter critics to point out the brutal attrition rates at charters - especially Success Academies - and ask just how sustainable this kind of model would be for the system at large.

I'm no political strategist, but I don't exactly see that much upside to this idea.

Looks to me like Families for Excellent Schools, with money to burn, just wants to keep churning out the propaganda, but just as with the race-baiting ad they pulled out a couple of weeks ago, I'm not sure this one helps them that much.

What say you out there?

Is this a good idea from FES?

Does Eva Moskowitz Use Suspensions To Boost Test Scores?

From John Merrow's News Hour report on Success Acadmies last night:

JOHN MERROW: Success Academies are obviously doing something right. Last year, 93 percent of Success Academy students passed the state’s math test, compared to just 35 percent in the city’s traditional public schools.

Could out-of-school suspensions be a factor in the network’s academic success? Eva Moskowitz’s critics think so. They accuse her of suspending very young children over and over to persuade parents to change schools before state testing begins in third grade. Could that be true? We do know that some Success Academy students are suspended over and over.

The 44 suspensions at this school were issued to just 11 kindergartners and first graders. One child was suspended 12 times. Eventually, the family withdrew the child. At another Success Academy, 101 suspensions went to just 32 students.

...

JOHN MERROW: Do you ever use out-of-school suspension as a way to persuade parents that…

EVA MOSKOWITZ: No. No. We don’t suspend in order to boost our academics. Like, that’s just crazy talk.

JOHN MERROW: But our sources, including several public school principals, quite a few former Success Academy parents, and one person inside her organization, charge that is exactly what she does, repeatedly suspend certain kids to push them out. However, none of these critics were willing to publicly confront Moskowitz.

EVA MOSKOWITZ: Well, the numbers just don’t support that, John. I mean, what you get is what you see, which is suspending kids doesn’t lead to high attrition rate. That is what the data shows.

JOHN MERROW: In fact, the attrition rate is at least twice that of another major charter network, KIPP. A Success Academy representative told thaws for every 100 new students, at least 10 leave before the year’s out, most of them in the first few months. They are then replaced by students chosen from the waiting list.

Had Moskowitz run for mayor, this was the kind of thing that would have gotten zoned in on during the campaign - and I guarantee you, Eva and Success would not stand up to real scrutiny.

Not with those suspension numbers, not with those those attrition numbers and especially not with the anecdotes from former students and their parents.

Will The Families For Excellent Schools Race Baiting Ad Hurt The Charter Movement?

Michael Fiorillo on the Families for Excellent Schools race-baiting ad:

Regarding FES's charges of racism against De Blasio, see Projection, Psychological, defined as the psychological phenomenon where humans (or, in Moskowitz's case, a rather toxic facsimile thereof) denies some aspect of their behavior or attitudes, and assumes instead that others are doing or thinking the same thing.

Everything about this episode, from the planning and marketing of the demonstration itself, to this ad, shows how so-called education reform is an ethical Black Hole, where the gravitational pull of greed, power hunger, hypocrisy and manipulation seek to suck in all public resources within reach, while emitting no light whatsoever.

These are bad people, brazenly performing shameful acts. It's fortunate that, after so many years of their vicious lies being given a free pass in media and political circles, they're starting to meet with more exposure and pushback.

I also get the feeling that the other big charter chains are probably not too happy with this. It's long been rumored/reported that they too loathe Eva (though for their own venal reasons) and they clearly like to operate in a less confrontational, faux-friendlier and behind-the-scenes manner. They worry that she'll fuck up their sweet deal with her compulsive belligerence. That's the difference among these characters: KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Democracy Prep are aggressive, but smooth enough to not be compulsively belligerent (as opposed to strategically aggressive, which is what they do try to be), which they know in the long run to be unprofessional and dangerous.

Eva is kind of the Raging Id of the local charter school movement, and that makes for volatile situations, including possibility of the narrative turning against her.

Last year, Families for Excellent Schools spent more money on lobbying than any other entity - $9.7 million dollars - with record expenditures in September and October of 2014.

Here we are again in the September/October period and their lobbying expenditures are ratcheting up once more.

Only this time, they have gone with some overt race-baiting in their ads for extra-added outrage.

But as Michael notes in his comment, this act isn't helping the charter movement any.

Witness how the press treated FES head Jeremiah Kittredge at FES's March rally in Albany.




A few years ago, members of the press would have been dutifully writing down Kittredge's lies without pushback.

But not any longer.

This is the unintended consequence from the FES outrageousness.

Their credibility gets tinier and tinier.

Same goes for charter operators/chains associated with FES.

Maybe Jeremiah Kittredge and Eva Moskowitz think this belligerence will help them, but I think there's already some evidence this strategy is backfiring on them and will, in the end, hurt their beloved privatization, er, charter school movement more than help it.

Charter School Entrepreneurs Roll Out De Basio Attack Ad For Their "Not Political" Rally

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY:

A new television ad produced for the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools accuses Mayor Bill de Blasio of forcing minority students into failing schools, according to a copy of the yet-unreleased ad obtained by POLITICO New York.

The ad will likely be made public later on Friday, ahead of the group's pro-charter rally on Sept. 30. The rally, which will take the form of a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, is officially intended to help "restore school equality."

...

The ad features two young boys, one white, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a blue shirt, the other black, with a buzzcut and a red shirt.

The clip puts into stark terms the racial and class politics that FES and its allies have embraced in their fight against de Blasio over the last 18 months.

"Because he lives in a wealthy neighborhood, this 6-year-old will attend a good school," the ad's narrator says as the young white boy is walked to school by a white parent.

But when the black boy appears on the screen, the narrator says, "Because he lives in a poor neighborhood, this 6-year-old will be forced in a failing school."

The two boys briefly pass each other on the street as the narrator claims that the white child will likely go to college, while the black boy has little chance of ever attaining a college degree.

A split screen shows the two boys in school; the white boy is happily reading, while the black child is frowning, apparently bored, at his desk.

"Mayor de Blasio, stop forcing kids into failing schools," the narrator says. "Half a million children need new schools, now."

I know a child who attended one of Eva Moskowitz's test prep factories who frowned all the time at school because he was a) bored by the constant test prep and b) sick of being beaten into submission by the abuse and "discipline" from the Success staff.

He doesn't frown much anymore because he's out of the Success prison system and into a school where it's not "All Test Prep All The Time" and "Eyes Up Here!"

I'm sure this ad has been tested by FES and therefore will be effective at further driving down de Blasio's poll numbers, hitting him most where it hurts - with black voters - in order to help Eva Moskowitz or some other pro-charter shill to run for mayor against de Blasio in 2017.

But it's pure lies and propaganda for a whole host of reasons - from the exclusionary attack (charters are, by definition, exclusionary - just ask any child who's been tossed from Success) to the black children are bored in bad schools attack  (which certainly wasn't true in the case of the child I wrote about above.)

That they're rolling out a political attack ad on de Blasio before a rally that they insist is "not political" is even evidence of just how political and full of jive the charter entrepreneurs are.

Is Success Academies Breaking The Law By "Forcing" Political Rally Attendance?

A commenter left the following on this morning's post about the Families for Excellent Schools rally late in September:

It is now beyond obvious that charter schools are NOT public schools. If they are "forcing" teachers, students, and families to attend a blatantly political rally on school time, this proves that these schools are breaking the law. (NYC regulatoions forbids school employees from engaging in political activites during school hours) And please don't say that since these schools operate a longer school year schedule that it is not on school time. Wednesday, September 30th is a regular school day and these kids may have a brother or sister at a different public school that day. Parents have every right to have their kids in school on Wed, Sept 30th and should not be forced to attend a rally that they might not even agree with. (Same goes for the teachers of these schools)

The memo from the Success Academy "advocacy team" that got leaked to Politico NY does suggest that parents who do not attend the rally will have non-attendance held against them by Success Academies.

In addition, it's pretty clear from the memo that despite protestations to the contrary, this will be a "political rally" meant to damage the current mayor and promote a charter school agenda, with the side benefit that Success Academies Mistress Eva Moskowitz herself will benefit politically from both those goals.

Are they breaking the law by forcing teachers to attend a political rally while they're getting paid?

You can make the argument that there is a conflict of interest here, that's for sure.

Same goes with the "messaging assistance" Success staff are providing to parents that amounts to undue pressure and threats if they don't attend.

About That Moskowitz Mayoral Run

Eliza Shapiro has a piece at Politico NY about Eva Moskowitz and her prospects for mayor.

The gist is, Moskowitz wants to run and the tabloids, hedge fundies and charter shills/education reformers want her to run too.

But...

Her record at Success would likely to stake her the early backing of the city's tabloids, along with the families in her charter school network who are typically Moskowitz supporters, as well as other parents of children in charters across the city.

But charter parents do not constitute a significant voting bloc, and turnout is often low among charter families, leaving observers to wonder whether she can cultivate a base of support outside the reform movement.

At the most recent Sun Valley conference — an annual gathering of the country’s most influential CEOs and financiers — Moskowitz described herself as a “single-issue" voter, focused on the issue of education reform.

“Can she translate success as a charter school operator into a broader education agenda, let alone other issues?” asked David Bloomfield, a professor of education at CUNY’s Graduate Center and Brooklyn College.

And then of course there's this:

Moskowitz is not exactly what political consultants would call "relatable." 

In 2005, when she gave up her seat on the City Council to run for Manhattan borough president, the New York Times editorial board praised her as "smart and driven and an expert on education issues," but ultimately concluded "her style — often described by those who have worked with her as abrasive — would not be well suited to this office." (The paper endorsed Scott Stringer, who won with 26 percent of the vote to Moskowitz's 17 percent.)

As an employer, Moskowitz straddles the line between exacting and oppressive. She's infamously demanding of her teachers and employees, rattling off a constant stream of emails about school improvements and test scores, and current and former Success teachers have described anxiety and fear in their schools when Moskowitz has come to visit.

Political consultants who have worked with her in the past have said her lack of likability and temperament have been a problem.

Well, that problem has only gotten bigger during her Success Years, especially after the NY Times piece that exposed the "Kids Too Afraid To Go To The Bathroom So They Soil Themselves" reputation the place has.

On top of that, the unions will go out of their way to knock her out, as they did in the 2005 race for Manhattan Borough President.

Shapiro writes that a Moskowitz run is not a done deal until Eva's convinced she's got a shot:

She is expected to begin intensive internal polling and carefully track de Blasio's favorability in the coming months, her allies say privately.

If those numbers seem insurmountable, Moskowitz can simply say she wants to supervise Success’ expansion plans. But even the sliver of an opening could prove tempting.

I fully expect the charter/reform people to look to take de Blasio out in 2017, but I am not convinced Eva's going to be their candidate.

I think someone like Hakeem Jeffries - reformer-friendly, but without the abrasive personality and baggage Moskowitz has - is the kind of candidate they'll look to in 2017.

Even then, there's no guarantee any of this happens - Jeffries  may not want to leave Congress, Eva may decide she can't win, de Blasio may turn things around on the PR front and leave other potential challengers with a hard road to victory.

De Blasio's appearance on Morning Joe yesterday appears to have quieted critic Joe Scarborough, for example.

That's the sort of thing that is very, very important for de Blasio to survive in a city where both tabloids have it out for him, the governor wants to shiv him and the elites want Bloomberg Mach IV.

We'll see - we're really a year away from any kind of definitive movement in this other than PR.

But if the poll numbers don't turn soon, we could be looking at a pro-charter, pro-reform, anti-union mayor in 2017.

Some Republicans Not Sold On Eva Moskowitz For Mayor

A trial balloon was floated yesterday in the Murdoch Post about Mistress Eva of Success Academies running for mayor on the Republican line, but some cold water was thrown on that dream later in the day:

Rejecting a Manhattan GOP leader’s interest in having Democrat Eva Moskowitz run for mayor as a Republican, Republican chairs said today that they would prefer a registered Republican challenging Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“I’m not a big fan of Wilson-Pakulas,” said Craig Eaton, the chairman of the Brooklyn Republican Party. “I’m hopeful this time around we’ll have registered Republicans running on our line.” Mr. Eaton was referring to a state law that requires the approval of three out of five New York City party chairs for a candidate to run on a party line different than their own.

Ms. Moskowitz, the founder of Success Academy Charter Schools and a top de Blasio critic, has never expressed interest in party-switching or renting the GOP line. The practice drew scrutiny after Malcolm Smith, a former Democratic state senator, was convicted of trying to bribe his way into the 2013 GOP mayoral primary.

Adele Malpass, the chairwoman of the Manhattan Republican Party, wants Ms. Moskowitz to give the Wilson-Pakula more thought. “I would be very excited about Eva running for mayor,” she told the New York Post. “Education is a top priority for the next mayor and Eva is eminently qualified to do that. She’s outstanding.”

Ed Cox, the chairman of the State Republican Party, told the Post Ms. Moskowitz is a “visionary” on education issues, though he didn’t say outright she should run as a Republican.

Staten Island’s Republican chairman, John Antoniello, joined Mr. Eaton in calling for a real Republican to get the nod. “Without a doubt I’d prefer a registered Republican to run,” he told the Observer.

I don't see why Moskowitz, a registered "Democrat" can't switch parties and become a Republican?

Bloomberg did it, why not Eva?

Frankly she's a better fit for the GOP line than the Democratic line.

Her union-busting, anti-public education agenda won't sit well with labor and other traditional Democratic constituencies that put on big GOTV operations in primaries.

Republicans, Hedge Fund Managers Look To Run Eva Moskowitz For Mayor On Republican Ticket

As has been speculated here at Perdido Street School blog, if Success Academies Mistress Eva Moskowitz decides to run for mayor against Bill de Blasio, it will probably be as a Republican:

GOP leaders searching for a challenger to topple Mayor de Blasio in 2017 are so excited that Democratic charter-school champion Eva Moskowitz is weighing a run that they’re open to letting her enter the race as a Republican.

“I would be very excited about Eva running for mayor. Education is a top priority for the next mayor and Eva is eminently qualified to do that. She’s outstanding,” Adele Malpass, chair of the Manhattan Republican Party, said Monday.
 
Malpass said wealthy backers of charters are prepared to bankroll a Moskowitz campaign.

Moskowitz, who, as a member of the City Council chaired the Education Committee, is the founder and CEO of the city’s largest charter network, Success Academy. She has said she’s considering taking on de Blasio, but would need GOP permission to run as a Republican.

There's little chance Moskowitz could beat de Blasio in a Democratic primary - the unions and other key Democratic Party constituencies would make sure the anti-union Moskowitz would lose that contest.

That's why she has to run as a Republican, though even there she faces an uphill battle (and is a registered Democrat to boot):

Political insiders said de Blasio would be difficult to beat in a Democratic primary dominated by minorities, left-leaning voters and unions — unless he falters and an insurgent can chip into his base.

A challenger on the GOP line faces an even more daunting task, but former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said he’s proof that a GOP fusion candidate with a reform agenda can beat the odds.

GOP county leaders can use a “Wilson Pakula” procedure under state law to allow a Democrat to run on the Republican line.

The practice has been frowned upon — particularly after two party leaders were convicted of scheming to sell the ballot line to former Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith.

Of course Eva could just change parties and become a Republican - hell, Mayor Mike changed parties more often than he changed tuxedos, so it's not like it hasn't been done before.

Even so, if the hedge fundies and charter school shills want to beat de Blasio in 2017, Eva isn't the best candidate to do it.

She's got baggage as head of the controversial Success Academies where diapers come as part of the school uniform (so that the kids can keep taking their practice tests instead of going to the bathroom, of course!) and she has sued to keep from being audited.

Couple the Success Academies controversies with her prickly personality and temperament (if the press thinks Bill de Blasio doesn't answer their questions, just wait until they got a load of Mayor Moskowitz gaggles) and you see how flawed she is as a candidate.

No, I actually think running charter school shill Hakeem Jeffries against de Blasio makes more strategic sense for the charter school operators.

Jeffries can eat into de Blasio's support among the black community, Mayor Bill's strongest supporters in the latest polling, while sucking up a lot of Wall Street cash and charter school donations to be able to run plenty of attack ads against de Blasio.

I suppose the charter shills could try and run Jeffries AND Moskowitz, with the idea that Jeffries softens de Blasio up in the primaries and Eva finishes him off in November, but that seems unlikely.

I think Eva, ego maniac that she is, loves the attention over whether she'll run for mayor and is using the story line to push her personal and charter school brand, but I'm skeptical that in the end she decides to actually run.

She makes an awful lot of money now as Success Academies Mistress, she and Success get limited scrutiny from media now that would change if she decided to run for mayor, and she really isn't the best pro-charter candidate to knock de Blasio off.

De Blasio could be vulnerable to a center-right pro-charter school candidate in a general election in November, but given her flaws, I don't think Eva Moskowitz is that candidate.

My money is on either Jeffries or Ruben Diaz Jr. to try and get the charter school operators and hedge fund managers to bankroll a primary challenge against de Blasio and to get a receptive audience from them, while Eva continues to make sounds like she's going to run but in the end bows out against a less controversial pro-charter figure to run in 2017.

But we'll see how it all plays out - you never know how things go in politics.

Donald Trump's massive poll lead among Republicans even as he beats up on FOX News and hedge fund managers is just the latest demonstration of that, isn't it?

Amazon: The Success Academies Of The Internets

There has been plenty written about how badly Amazon, the world's "Most Like Walmart" company that never seems to get the same hostility Walmart gets, treats its blue collar workforce.

Today the NY Times reports on how they treat their white collar workforce:

SEATTLE — On Monday mornings, fresh recruits line up for an orientation intended to catapult them into Amazon’s singular way of working.

They are told to forget the “poor habits” they learned at previous jobs, one employee recalled. When they “hit the wall” from the unrelenting pace, there is only one solution: “Climb the wall,” others reported. To be the best Amazonians they can be, they should be guided by the leadership principles, 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards. When quizzed days later, those with perfect scores earn a virtual award proclaiming, “I’m Peculiar” — the company’s proud phrase for overturning workplace conventions.

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to one another’s bosses. Employees say it is frequently used to sabotage others. (The tool offers sample texts, including this: “I felt concerned about his inflexibility and openly complaining about minor tasks.”)

Many of the newcomers filing in on Mondays may not be there in a few years. The company’s winners dream up innovations that they roll out to a quarter-billion customers and accrue small fortunes in soaring stock. Losers leave or are fired in annual cullings of the staff — “purposeful Darwinism,” one former Amazon human resources director said. Some workers who suffered from cancer, miscarriages and other personal crises said they had been evaluated unfairly or edged out rather than given time to recover.

Even as the company tests delivery by drone and ways to restock toilet paper at the push of a bathroom button, it is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable. The company, founded and still run by Jeff Bezos, rejects many of the popular management bromides that other corporations at least pay lip service to and has instead designed what many workers call an intricate machine propelling them to achieve Mr. Bezos’ ever-expanding ambitions.

“This is a company that strives to do really big, innovative, groundbreaking things, and those things aren’t easy,” said Susan Harker, Amazon’s top recruiter. “When you’re shooting for the moon, the nature of the work is really challenging. For some people it doesn’t work.”

Gee, sounds like a wonderful place to work.

Perhaps they can pass out some Depends for the white collar workers, because God knows, there is NO TIME to go the bathroom when there is money to be made, businesses to be disrupted, innovation to be enjoyed, etc.

Sounds a lot like Success Academies, doesn't it?

And of course Dear Leader at Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is a supporter of education reformers like Success Academies.

Makes sense when you see the insanity of the company he created, the damage it does to its employees.

Comes out of the same mental, emotional and spiritual illness that Success Academies comes from.

Listen, if damaging your health, working 24/7 and never turning off the connection to work is what it takes to be a "success" in 21st Century America, then I'm happy to "fail".