Proposed For-Profit Charter School In Rochester Linked To Cuomo Corruption Probe

We've already had one education link to the ever-expanding Cuomo corruption probe, with former Cuomo aide Joe Percoco's wife, the ex-teacher, getting paid for some education consultant work from a company of interest in the federal investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo's economic development programs.

We now have a second education link:

Maple Street Charter School, the for-profit charter school hoping to open in Rochester next year, has paid tens of thousands of dollars to a lobbying firm at the center of a rapidly expanding federal investigation into improper influence in Albany, state records show.

Maple Street's parent company, National Heritage Academies, has been using the Albany-based lobbying firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna since at least 2007. A WOH subsidiary in Washington, D.C., was led until recently by Todd Howe, a former associate of Gov. Andrew Cuomo who is at the center of the probe by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

The Buffalo News reported earlier this week that Bharara issued a subpoena to Cuomo's office requesting, among other things, all documents relating to Howe and WOH. That would likely include aspects of its lobbying on behalf of the Maple Street application.

...

The most recent disclosure report shows NHA paid WOH $12,000 in the last six months of 2015 for lobbying related to charter schools. The expected lobbying targets included Cuomo's office, the state Assembly and Legislature and Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren.

In the same six-month time period, NHA also paid $45,000 to Park Strategies, a powerful lobbying firm run by former U.S. Sen. Al D'Amato, R-N.Y.

NHA Chairman J.C. Huizenga has given more than $400,000 in campaign contributions in New York since 2005. Most of it went to Republicans, but he also has given $49,000 to a Cuomo fundraising entity.

For-profit charters are banned in New York State, in part because a previous NHA for-profit charter was such a problem, but NHA got this current proposal through a loophole - the SUNY charter board used one charter slot left over from 2007 to give the Maple Street Charter School the opportunity to open under the old, less onerous charter rules.

How did they get the loophole exception?

Could it be the lobbying through WOH or D'Amato's Park Strategies?

Could it be the $49K to Cuomo?

Could it be a mixture of all three?

You bet it could.

And then, just as a Buffalo Billion Project RFP was written so that only a Cuomo donor could win it and a SUNY dorm RFP was written so that only a Cuomo donor could win it, this RFP was written so that NHA was pretty much guaranteed to win it:

Because it predates the 2010 ban, that charter can go to a for-profit provider. The request for proposals was written in such a way that NHA was one of only two possible candidates; the request also was not publicized along with a concurrent, broader charter school proposal cycle.

Ah, such fun in New York - if you pay-to-play, you can achieve just about anything.

What an exciting message to teach the kids at the new NHA Maple Street Charter, with its emphasis on "character education."

But I'm guessing now that there's some sunlight on this deal, the Maple Street Charter School may not open as NHA hoped.

Help Wanted: Lead Designer Of Culture For Charter School

I know somebody looking for a job in non-profit work.

She is using Idealist as part of her search.

She says nearly every listing these days is for charter schools and that many of the listings have these great Orwellian names.

For example:

Associate Director, Knowledge Management

Or:

 Lead Designer, Culture and Personal Development

Both those gigs are for Achievement First, which like many of these large charter outfits, appears to be awash in cash and hiring all the time - and not just for teachers.

Now what exactly does the "Leader Designer- Culture" do at Achievement First?

Sounds like the kind of thing Goebbels did, doesn't it?

And it turns out it kinda is:

1. Accelerated Academics: Our students need to be among the best in the world
2. Habits of Success: Our students will truly thrive when they also develop the habits, mindsets and life skills that promote productive and joyful lives
3. Excellence in Enrichment: Our students need a taste of the joy that comes from passionate excellence outside of traditional academics
4. Student, Family and Staff Motivation: Our students, staff and families will exhibit an unstoppable level of shared commitment and drive 

Uniforms and armbands are included, which is nice, because you don't want the kids thinking about anything else other than their "unstoppable level of commitment and drive" as they "need be among the best in the world" in their productivity and excellence.

If you're in the market for a new job and you feel like a good fit for a Lead Designer of Culture, why not take a stab at it over on Idealist.

But you need a very specific skillset:

• You are an entrepreneurial and ambitious educator
• with a passion for innovation and an eagerness to strategically redesign schools because kids could be learning much faster and deeper than traditional school models allow
• who is deeply committed to living the habits of success: personal growth, drive, curiosity, empathy, gratitude and teamwork.
• who embraces an all hands-on deck start up environment and lives for change
• who can't wait to work at the vision level and in the weeds 

Oh - and you have to love data.

On the plus side, it turns out you can do this job anywhere:

This job can be performed from a remote location.

Isn't technology in the neo-liberal world a great thing?

Charter schools have so much to teach the regular public schools, don't they?

New Jersey Charter Schools Hoard Money, Sit On Large Fund Balances

Proving once again that charter schools are not public schools:

Charter schools across New Jersey have built up savings so large that one school has more money saved than it needs for an entire year of operation, according to an analysis by the Newark-based Education Law Center.

...

The Education Law Center analyzed the most recently available audited school budgets of more than 80 charter schools. Nearly all of the schools had fund balances — the difference between revenues and expenses — larger than 2 percent, according to the analysis.

Public school districts are not allowed to have fund balances that are more than 2 percent of their budget, and The Education Law Center this week called on the state to impose the same cap on charter schools.

The money charter schools have beyond a 2 percent fund balance should be returned to the districts from which students came, said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center.

"The excess charter fund balance is available to provide desperately needed teachers, staff and programs for students in district schools," Sciarra said. "Since charters are public schools, they cannot be allowed to carry unlimited, excess surplus they don't need while the education of students who choose to attend district schools suffers from deep budget cuts."

Jeb Bush Calls For Merit Pay For Federal Employees, Disruption For Federal Government

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush laid out a plan today to "disrupt" the federal government if he is elected president, saying that he will cut the federal workforce by 10% and institute merit pay for government workers:

In a speech on Monday in Florida, the Republican presidential candidate unveiled his plan for "disrupting" Washington by downsizing the federal government.

Bush's plan takes aim at the federal budget. He proposes cutting the number of federal employees by at least 10% and radically overhauling the budget process to require a balanced budget, a controversial prescription popular with the conservative base.

"It will not be my intention to preside over the establishment, but in every way I know to disrupt that establishment and make it accountable to the people," Bush said.

...

Bush says that he will institute a policy of hiring one employee for every three who leave when it comes to federal hiring, with the exception of national-security related jobs. Bush suggested that federal agencies shouldn't replace many workers who retire — according to the governor, 10% of the federal workforce will retire within the next five years, and "not everyone who leaves has to be replaced."

And then there's this:

• Merit pay. Bush claims too many mediocre federal employees are being paid the same as exemplary employees. Though he didn't delve too far into specifics on this point, the former Florida governor said that he'll make it easier to fire bad federal employees.

It seems both the rhetoric and policies of Jeb's education reform agenda will now be leveled at the federal government and federal workers too.

Can "turnarounds" for federal departments be far behind?

Maybe receivership for some federal departments, with goals to be hit or the whole thing gets turned over to a non-profit charter entity?

Oh, the ideas for bringing education reform ideas to Washington government are limitless.

How exciting! 

Newly Released Charter School Data Shows Most Charters Are Mediocre

Still on the road, but didn't want to miss a post on this new charter data out from the IBO.

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY:

The New York City Independent Budget Office on Monday released a trove of data on New York City charter schools, confirming trends about the sector's significant growth, its demographics and its controversial attrition numbers and backfill policies.

Among the report's most politically salient findings is that the Success Academy charter school network, the city's largest, significantly outperforms all other charters on standardized tests. Success' prowess at producing high test scores has been well-documented and frequently advertised by its founder, Eva Moskowitz, and the charter groups that advocate on its behalf, including Families for Excellent Schools.

... 

The findings are likely to boost Success' reputation as one of the city and state's highest-performing charter networks. However, the report notes that while Success is often portrayed as the face of the city's charter sector, it is hardly reflective of the sector as a whole. Independent charters, for example, have lower standardized test results but often focus on high-needs populations, and other networks with similar "no-excuses" discipline styles to Success still record lower exam scores.

On average, charters are still producing mediocre standardized test scores, though they are performing better than many district schools.

According to the report, most charter school students are scoring a Level 2 on state math and English exams, which is not considered proficient. Forty-three percent of all charter students scored at Level 2 on English exams and 34 percent scored at Level 2 on math exams, compared to 5 percent of charter students who scored Level 4, the highest level, on English exams, according to the report.

The IBO data also showed significant demographic differences between charters and district schools:

The I.B.O. report included a demographic breakdown of charter students, confirming that the vast majority—93 percent—are black or Hispanic.

Charters enroll fewer English language learners (E.L.L.s) and special education students than district schools, a fact that has already emerged in various studies and which remains a key point of contention between charter leaders and the sector's critics.

Six percent of charter students speak a language other than English as their primary language, compared to 15 percent of district school students, according to the report.

...

Charter schools also have fewer students with special needs compared to district schools, and the report highlights one important difference in how special needs students are classified in each system.

Mediocre test scores for all but Success Academies (which Success achieves through an insane prep regimen that cannot and should not be replicated anywhere else) and significant demographic differences between charters and district schools on ELL and support services enrollment.

Can we finally dispense with the meme that charters have something to "teach" district schools?

Note To Cuomo: Charter Schools Are Destroying Catholic Schools In

Cuomo to the NY Times, trying to push his education tax credit/voucher giveaway:

In the interview, Mr. Cuomo cited Catholic schools closing “all over the place,” and said the opposition to the legislation was being driven by teachers’ unions.

“They don’t want the competition of these schools where they don’t represent the members,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding: “There’s no principle here. There’s no argument.”

He said that Assembly members opposed to the proposal were upstate members being pressured by the statewide teachers’ union, New York State United Teachers, as well as “the predictable sort of Manhattan liberals” concerned about the separation of church and state.

The biggest competition to Catholic schools these days is not the public schools - it's charter schools.

You want to help Catholic schools, governor?

Stop shilling for the charters.

Rudy Giuliani Declares Himself The Savior Of Black People

I've already posted how former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani blamed teachers for police shooting black people, saying cops wouldn't need to kill black people if the teachers would just accept charter schools, vouchers and merit pay (no seriously - he said it.)

That wasn't the only ridiculous thing he's said recently.

There was also this:

“If you look at my eight years in office, I saved more black lives than any mayor in the history of the city,” Mr. Giuliani claimed.

 Just in case you're thinking maybe he misspoke, well, this is the second time he's said this:

'I probably saved more black lives in this city than any mayor in the history of New York City, with the possible exception of Mike Bloomberg, who was there for 12 years,' he said.  

That's some assertion by Saint Rudy of 9/11 - it goes quite well with blaming teachers for tragedies like the Eric Garner case.

If we'd just accept charters, vouchers and merit pay, Saint Rudy of 9/11 would be able to save even more black people from the evils of the teachers!

And Rudy Giuliani is like a Black Moses.

Makes sense, I guess, what with Isaac Hayes being dead and Rudy Giuliani being an asshole and all.

Rudy Giuliani: When Black Men Are Killed By Police, It's The Fault Of Teachers

Via Raging Horse we learn that former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the Saint of 9/11, said this:

“Maybe all these left-wing politicians that want to blame police, maybe there’s some blame here that has to go to the teachers union, for refusing to have, for refusing to have schools where teachers are paid for performance, for fighting charter schools, for fighting vouchers, so we can drastically and dramatically improve the education situation. Maybe they should be talking about and holding rallies about the problem of black fathers taking care of the children they fathered,” he said.”

Wow.

I've heard all sorts of reasons for why ed deformers want charter schools, vouchers, merit pay and a busted teachers union, but this is a new one.

I wonder if Giuliani will blame teachers when worldwide protests explode after the U.S. torture investigation report is released?

The Dr. Ted Morris Greater Works Charter School Edifice Comes Crashing Down

If you've been following the story of 22 year old Dr. Ted Morris, the proud owner of a Regents-approved charter school in Rochester, you know that Diane Ravitch, Peter Greene and Merecedes Schneider all raised questions about Dr. Morris' background and qualifications in the last 24 hours.

The Democrat and Chronicle published a puff piece about Morris yesterday, but the same writer came back with a piece tonight that confirms Dr. Ted isn't all he was cracked up to be in the D&C piece yesterday.

It is now confirmed that Morris didn't graduate from School Without Walls in Rochester as he first told the Democrat and Chronicle he did:

He said Sunday that he graduated from School Without Walls in Rochester, but clarified Monday that he withdrew from that school in 2008 and graduated later that year from Penn Foster High School, a private online high school based in Pennsylvania.

Former School Without Walls principal Dan Drmacich and the Rochester School District both verified that Morris left the district in 2008.

"From what I remember, he was very articulate, a great conversationalist, but ... he didn't go to many of his classes," Drmacich said. "We constantly worked with him through his teacher adviser and the school counselor, to no avail — to the point he realized and we realized he was just coming to school and hanging out versus attending classes on a regular basis."

Morris denied not attending class regularly but said he did not feel challenged at School Without Walls, part of the reason he left for an online school.

It had been reported that Dr. Morris had a BA from an online college, but it turns out that he may not actually have a BA at all.  In addition, his MA and Ph.D claims are also in dispute (which makes sense since it doesn't seem like he actually has a BA):

Morris said in interviews and in paperwork submitted to the state that he got a bachelor's degree from Western Governors University, an online college based in Salt Lake City. But a school spokesman said he attended classes there but did not graduate and is not currently enrolled.

From 2008 on, Morris' education included little time in a traditional classroom. He also took classes at the online Grand Canyon University and eventually got a master's and doctoral degrees from Concordia University Chicago through a program that required him to be on campus for one weekend a month, he said Tuesday.

Representatives from Penn Foster, Grand Canyon and Concordia could not be reached to verify those claims.

The D & C reported that Dr. Morris didn't give a resume with the 2014 application for his Greater Works Charter School, but the resume Morris handed in with a 2013 application for the charter had several "misrepresentations" (i.e., "lies") on it (UPDATE - Mercedes Scheider writes that he did give in a resume with the 2014 application and that it contains many of the same items from the 2013 version.)

Morris wrote he was the assistant chief executive officer for the Hickok Center for Brain Injury, with duties including "developed and implemented all program policies and procedures" and "served as acting CEO in the absence of the CEO."

Elaine Comarella, the center's CEO, said his title was actually administrative assistant, and that the responsibilities he listed in the resume were "a little overshot."

"He worked on all those things, but he didn't actually do all that stuff himself," she said.

...

 Another of the jobs listed on his resume was director of Church Women United's Task Force on Courts. That was accurate, but in the resume he submitted to get that position, obtained by the Democrat and Chronicle, he claimed he had bachelor's and master's degrees from Almeda University, an unaccredited online school in Idaho.

That apparently isn't true. He said Tuesday he'd never heard of that school and didn't know why it was on his resume.

...

A third job listing was senior administrator for Victory Living Christian Faith Centers from 2003 — when he was a few months shy of his 11th birthday — to 2010. The resume said he "hired, trained and supervised a staff of seven administrators ... (for) a national Christian organization)."

Morris reiterated Tuesday that he did in fact start serving as an administrator at age 10, "as little as I was," and "did all the official paperwork" in those seven years. His hiring and supervisory responsibilities started when he was around 15 or 16 years old and were done together with other leaders, he said.

Victory Living didn't return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

And so Dr. Ted Morris' Greater Works Charter School dream comes crashing down in a clatter of lies, half-truths, misrepresentations and delusions.

That the New York Board of Regents approved this dude for a charter school gives you a glimpse of what the future is going to bring after they raise the charter cap or eliminate it completely.

Regents Chancellor Tisch said the following to the Daily News post-election:

“As we look to this legislative season, people are going to say we need to raise the charter cap. I personally am a great believer in charter schools ... I believe in opening them aggressively” Chancellor Merryl Tisch said on the John Catsimatidis radio show. “I’d like to push more charter schools.”

If Dr. Ted Morris, the 22 year old with the unconfirmed online high school diploma (who lied about graduating from School Without Walls), the disputed online BA, a disputed MA and Ph.D and a phonied up resume could get a charter school in New York State before they eliminate the charter cap, just imagine what's going to happen after the cap is eliminated.

This is an embarrassment for the Board of Regents and I don't think it's going too far to say that the individuals who approved Dr. Ted and his Greater Works Charter School need to be forced out immediately.

In addition, the Regents Chancellor herself needs to be called to account for this mess.

I am under no illusion either of those things will happen.

But if there were any justice in this world, they certainly would.

Eva Moskowitz Can't Pay Rent For Her Charter Schools But Can Afford $31 Million For New Offices

Eva Moskowitz criticized Mayor de Blasio as a hater of children in the latest issue of More Magazine (whatever that is):

Controversial Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz attacked Mayor de Blasio in an interview with More magazine, calling him a "former operative of the teachers' union."

"At best, we've prevented the mayor from acting on his hostility in the most dramatic, consequential way for children," she said of her former political rival in the City Council.

In February, de Blasio tried to revoke space in traditional public school buildings for three Success Academy schools, and received huge backlash from critics and Gov. Cuomo, who helped organize a wave of charter school students to rally in Albany and later signed protections to allow them free space in public school buildings.

In the profile, on newsstands Tuesday, Moskowitz decries the state of public education in New York City and paints herself as a warrior for students who face placement in struggling schools.

"I'd be bullied, maybe, if children weren't at stake," she said. "But my momma-bear instinct kicks in when people try to do bad things to children. And the school system on a regular basis is doing bad things to children."

She continued ripping into city public schools, saying the majority are "incredibly segregated and getting unbelievably poor results."

"There are many, many hundreds of schools I would not send my own children to," she added.

Juan Gonzalez reports that Moskowitz is taking in more than half a million dollars as CEO of Success and paying $31 million deal for new Wall Street offices - here is much of that Gonzalez report

Last November, Moskowitz, who for years boasted of opening her Success Academy Charter Schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, quietly shifted her corporate headquarters from Central Harlem to 95 Pine St. (aka 120 Wall St.).

The new offices will cost her organization $31 million over 15 years, according to its most recent financial report.

The same report shows Moskowitz received an eye-popping $567,000 during the 2012-2013 school year. That’s a raise of $92,000 from the previous year, and more than double the $212,000 paid to Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

The move to Wall Street took effect just months before the much-publicized battle between Moskowitz and Mayor de Blasio over who would pay the rent for three new Success Academy charter schools the mayor had refused to place in public schools.

In March, Moskowitz organized a charter school protest in Albany against de Blasio’s decision. She followed that with a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign financed by her hedge fund backers.

Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature responded with a new law requiring the city to pay rent for all future charter schools.

As a result, the school system is spending $5.3 million this year to house the three new Success Academy schools in buildings owned by the Catholic Archdiocese.

Meanwhile, Moskowitz and her administrators — records show the size of her central staff doubled last year to 258 — are headquartered in 58,000 square feet of office space in the Financial District, at a more than four-fold increase over their Harlem rent.

And Moskowitz is not the only Success Academy exec who enjoyed a hefty raise and salary last year.

At least five officials at the nonprofit network, which had some of the highest scores on state tests of city public schools, were paid more than $240,000 last year, though only 2,800 pupils were enrolled in its schools at the time.

The network’s Executive Vice President Kerri Hoyt, for example, received a $104,000 raise, to $366,000. Its director of pedagogy Paul Fucaloro jumped by $100,000, to $246,000.

Ryan Alexander, the network’s former chief financial officer, was paid $350,000.

So almost simultaneously as Moskowitz is pleading poverty over paying rent for her charter schools and having over $5 million in attack ads run against de Blasio last spring, she's finishing moving her staff into their new offices on Wall Street and raising the salaries of some of her consiglieres by a $100,000 or more.

Last week Moskowitz demurred answering a question posed by NY1's Errol Louis on whether she was thinking of running for mayor in 2017 - but it was a coy demurral and served very much as a trial balloon for a 2017 run.

When I posted about that story, I noted this:

There is a huge downside for Eva if she decides to run.

Success Academies will get the kind of public scrutiny it so far has mostly avoided.

There's nothing better than a run for a higher office like NYC mayor to shine some light on a person's business practices.

You can see a little of what I'm talking about in this Gonzalez piece - and that's just the stuff that Eva has to report in her public disclosure.

Imagine what an intrepid reporter like Gonzalez will find once he starts rooting around in her business and talking to former employees or Success parents who hate her and have an axe to grind (and reportedly, there are many of those.)

But even what's already out there is damaging enough.

Let's say Eva chooses to run in 2017 against de Blasio, claiming she's doing it for the children or whatever.

She attacks de Blasio over the rent issue and de Blasio, now in a campaign for his political life, takes the gloves off he kept on in the last fight with her and launches back with

a) You paid $31 million for new offices at the same time you were claiming you couldn't pay rent to the city for space.
b) You raised the salaries of your top five employees, some by more than $100,000
c) You paid yourself $567,000 - more than double what the NYC chancellor gets
d) Tell us again why Success Academies couldn't pay rent for space and now forces the city to pay millions to subsidize your salaries and office space?

And that's assuming there's not some other scandal between now and 2017 that supersedes this rank Moskowitz hypocrisy (e.g., financial improprieties, cheating scandal, etc.) 

Moskowitz is very good at garnering headlines and playing the poor victim, but once she throws her hat in the political ring again and runs for mayor, I think some of those headlines will turn on her and she really is going to be victimized - by her own business practices and track record.

Cuomo Takes $60,000 From Charter School Backer On Same Day He Spoke At Charter School Rally

Via State of the Politics, this shows up in the NY Times piece on how much Governor Cuomo has raised for his re-election campaign:

He also got $60,800 from Stanley Druckenmiller, a charter school backer and former hedge manager, on March 4, the day the governor spoke at a pro-charter rally in Albany. By the end of the month, he had pushed through a bill giving charter schools in New York City some of the strongest protections in the country.

The Cuomo camp was dismissive of any sense that the donation was associated with the governor’s advocacy. “It also rained that day,” said Peter E. Kauffmann, a spokesman for the Cuomo campaign. “Are they connected, too? Because one had nothing to do with the other.”

The Cuomo campaign can be as dismissive of this as they want - there is a trail of documentation on how much Quid Pro Cuomo has taken from the charter school industry and education reformers in general.

Here's Gotham Schools in January:

Backers of a top charter school network that Mayor Bill de Blasio has singled out in his plans to curb charter school growth are filling Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s campaign chest.

Cuomo’s reelection bid has so far received  nearly $400,000 from a cadre of wealthy supporters of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter School network, according to an updated tally of newly-released campaign filings. Some money has even come from Moskowitz’s political action committee, Great Public Schools, which has given $65,000 to Cuomo since 2011.

A broader analysis of the filings shows just how much the charter school sector and its education policy allies have embraced Cuomo, a Democrat, during his first term as governor. It also shows how much support from the state’s powerful teachers union, a more traditional ally, has waned.

By one tally of the 2014 filings, Cuomo racked up at least $800,000 in donations from 27 bankers, real estate executives, business executives, philanthropists and advocacy groups who have flocked to charter schools and other education causes in recent years. 

The totals far exceed what the same group gave him for his first run in 2010: $136,000. The union, meanwhile, has donated one-quarter of the sum it gave Cuomo in 2010.

After having a close friend in City Hall for 12 years, the flood of contributions is a sign that charter school backers in New York City may have found a new powerful ally in government at a time when they need one badly.

And of course the seminal piece in the NY Times in 2010 that chronicled Cuomo's meeting wealthy, well-heeled members of the Democrats for Education Reform in order to raise cash:

When Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet certain members of the hedge fund crowd, seeking donors for his all-but-certain run for governor, what he heard was this: Talk to Joe.

That would be Joe Williams, executive director of a political action committee that advances what has become a favorite cause of many of the wealthy founders of New York hedge funds: charter schools.

Wall Street has always put its money where its interests and beliefs lie. But it is far less common that so many financial heavyweights would adopt a social cause like charter schools and advance it with a laserlike focus in the political realm.

Hedge fund executives are thus emerging as perhaps the first significant political counterweight to the powerful teachers unions, which strongly oppose expanding charter schools in their current form.

After hearing from Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Williams arranged an 8 a.m. meeting last month at the Regency Hotel, that favorite spot for power breakfasts, between Mr. Cuomo and supporters of his committee, Democrats for Education Reform, who include the founders of funds like Anchorage Capital Partners, with $8 billion under management; Greenlight Capital, with $6.8 billion; and Pershing Square Capital Management, with $5.5 billion.

Although the April 9 breakfast with Mr. Cuomo was not a formal fund-raiser, the hedge fund managers have been wielding their money to influence educational policy in Albany, particularly among Democrats, who control both the Senate and the Assembly but have historically been aligned with the teachers unions.

They have been contributing generously to lawmakers in hopes of creating a friendlier climate for charter schools. More immediately, they have raised a multimillion-dollar war chest to lobby this month for a bill to raise the maximum number of charter schools statewide to 460 from 200.

...

Mr. Cuomo also has expressed support for charter schools. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo declined to answer questions about the breakfast at the Regency, but Mr. Williams said it had gone well.

“We said we were looking for a leader on our particular issue,” he said, and as a result, when Mr. Cuomo is next required to disclose his contributors, “You will see a bunch of our people on the filing.”

Yes, it rained on the same day Cuomo got a $60,000 campaign donation and spoke at Eva Moskowitz's charter school rally.

It rained cash for Cuomo.

As it has throughout his tenure for governor, as it did even before he was elected.

Quid Pro Cuomo is squarely in the charter school/education reform camp and they have rained down cash on him in return.

De Blasio Signs Bill Requiring Charter Schools To Report Data

From Daily Politics:

Mayor de Blasio signed a bill Tuesday to require the city to publish reports detailing the demographics and academic records of all charter schools co-located with traditional public schools.

Officials will have to spell out the number of kids who get free lunch, proportion of kids learning English and special education students, racial breakdown, and test scores at the schools involved in the controversial co-locations.

“Reports will be a valuable tool for parents [and] educators,” de Blasio said.

Charter school entrepreneurs were not impressed:

Jenny Sedlis, executive director of the pro-charter StudentsFirstNY, dismissed the new law a “political theater,” noting much of the data can already be accessed by the public.

One piece of data the public can't access is exactly what happens to those kids who start at charter schools and end up out of them.

The vaunted Harlem Success Academy 1, for example, had a 56% attrition rate:

Harlem Success Academy 1 Has 44% Graduation Rate, 56% Attrition Rate

Eva Moskowitz and her backers like to tout a 100% graduation rate at her schools, but as Norm Scott points out in an Ed Notes piece, it's not a 100% graduation rate when 56% of the students disappear from the school before graduation:

The longer Success Charters are in business, the more they get exposed. This one is big. I'm sure the remaining 32 kids out of the 73 who began 8 years ago are fine. Does anyone know what happened to the 41 kids who were not there to graduate? Would a study of those kids be worthwhile as a check on Success claims of success? They will argue that kids move around in public schools too -- but most end up in other public schools. Did the missing 41 end up in other charters or mostly public schools? And how about this? If Eva's schools are so great an attraction - and we know people choose places to live based on schools - why did they just disappear? We also know that she is allowed wide leeway in the neighborhoods they can draw from. One would expect if parents really found Success such high quality you would see more than 44% stay around. Eva can answer some of these questions by making the data on the missing available - names and number please. (Can someone FOIL this given their claim they are public schools?)

Where did the other 41 children who started first grade at Success Academy 1 with the class that is now graduating go?

And why won't the press take up that investigation instead of just taking Moskowitz's claims of 100% graduation at face value.

When you have an attrition rate of 56% of your graduating class, you do NOT have a 100% graduation rate.

Now there's some data we'd like to access, Jenny.

Where do the former HSA's go?

For that matter, why do they go?

Do they go on their own accord?

Are they pushed?

Is it a combo?

Eva Moskowitz Plans To Double Success Academies Network In Size In The Next Few Years

From the NY Times:

The network, the Success Academy, said that it was submitting applications to the state to open schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens. The move comes just two months after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state lawmakers granted charter schools in New York City some of the most generous protections in the country, requiring that the city find space for them or help pay their rent.

The provision was passed after Mayor Bill de Blasio denied space to three Success Academy schools, a decision he later reversed, and said he would charge rent to Success and some other charter networks, a shift from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s policy of granting free space to charter schools in public school buildings.

...

Should the applications be approved, the network, run by a former city councilwoman, Eva Moskowitz, would grow to 46 schools, serving more than 15,000 students, making it larger than many school districts. A spokeswoman for the network, Kerri Lyon, said there was “considerable demand” from families in the districts where Success Academy wants to grow and in places with large racial and ethnic achievement gaps. She said that the new proposals did not include precise addresses, but included four new schools that would open in 2015 in Districts 2, 3, 9 and 27, and 10 in 2016 in Districts 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 28 and 30.

According to another NY Times article, Moskowitz has never been turned down by SUNY:

A charter school network’s plan to double in size over the next few years could reignite a war over classroom space in New York City, only this time with the ground rules already tilted against the mayor.

A new state law passed in April gives the city just two options to meet the demands of the Success Academy network: It can hand over free space in public or private buildings, or give the schools money to find their own space.

If the SUNY Charter Schools Institute approves her applications — it has never turned her down — the focus would shift to the city. The new law — Section 2853 of New York’s education law — gives the city the option to offer a charter school space within the school system, or other public or private space, at the city’s expense.

The only good news in all of this?

The more schools Eva pushes through, the closer they get to the charter cap:

Now there are 183 charters schools in the city, serving about 70,000 students, and another 27 are approved to open by 2015.

State law caps the number of charter schools in New York City at 256, which leaves only 46 more to be authorized, said James Merriman, chief executive of the New York City Charter School Center.

“We’ve seen in the past that when the number gets below 50, there is a definite rise in anxiety among would-be charter operators about when the state will run out of charters to give,” Mr. Merriman said. “As long as there is demand from parents, and as long as the charters that are being created are of high quality, I consider it a very healthy phenomenon.”

If Eva gets her 14 new schools from SUNY, that leaves 32 slots left for charters.

Now I'm sure Eva and her minions just tell the other charter entrepreneurs and operators that they shouldn't worry about getting close to the cap, they'll just get the cap raised in another year or so.

And that's probably true, especially with charter school lobbyist Andrew M. Cuomo as governor.

But at some point, the rest of the charter operators, many of whom already dislike Eva and her Success juggernaut, are going to see her as a bigger enemy than anything else and take aim at her.

Moskowitz is growing too big too fast with too much money and power in her hands for there not to be a backlash against her - some of which comes from her own charter "allies."

Looking Forward To Daily News Investigation Of In-House Grading Of Regents Exams At Charter Schools

There was a Daily News story this morning that alleged grade inflation on ELA Regents exams, reporting that scores "plummeted" in 2013 when the exams were no longer graded by teachers in-house but were instead sent to centralized locations where they were graded by other teachers.

I posted about that story this morning in a piece entitled Daily News Misses A Big Part Of ELA Regents Score Plummet Story, raising two points that were ignored in the News story:

1. The Regents/SED changed the grading charts from 2012 to 2013, raising the number of correct responses required on the multiple choice component as well as the scores needed on the writing components in order for students to pass the exam. The difficulty of the reading passages and vocabulary used in the multiple choice questions were also increased. These changes to the test contributed in part to the drop in scores.

2. Regents exams are still graded in-house at charter schools. If there was grade inflation at traditional public schools as the DN reported, it behooves them to now take a look at charters where they are still grading their own exams.

There was undoubtedly grade inflation at some schools, including the ones named in the DN article like the School For Excellence where scores fell 50 percentage points when exams went from being graded in-house to a centralized location. 

That's an outrageous drop and is pretty clearly a sign of a massaging of stats - something that is not isolated to schools, btw, as crime stats, emergency response times, fire stats and jobs programs numbers were also manipulated during the Bloomberg Era as City Hall put a lot of pressure on those below to consistently get "better" stats.

Nonetheless it's wrong, it shouldn't have been done and kudos to the Daily News for pointing it out and naming some names of schools with big drops in scores.

I now look forward to the Daily News doing a big expose on charter schools where the Regents exams are still graded in-house.

Considering the emphasis the charter industry puts on test scores and making comparisons via those scores to traditional public schools, they might want to take a look to see how many charter schools are massaging their statistics during in-house grading sessions.

You can bet there's some.

I won't hold my breath waiting for that charter school/Regents exam grade inflation story however.

Because the Daily News has an agenda when it comes to education issues and that agenda is almost always pro-charter/anti-traditional public school.

And you can see that in just how this grade inflation story was framed, both by what they put into it and what they left out.

A fair story would have noted that charters still grade Regents exam in-house and reported on the changes to the grading chart by SED.

The DN story didn't do either and that's why it feels like another hammer job in a long line of DN hammer jobs on traditional public schools and traditional public school teachers.

All The Good Walmart Does

Former Bloomberg DOE minion of school closings in NYC, Marc Sternberg, is featured prominently in this morning's NY Times piece on the Walton philanthropy-industrial complex and charter schools:

In 2013, the Walton foundation spent more than $164 million across the country. According to Marc Sternberg, who was appointed director of K-12 education reform at the Walton Family Foundation last September, Walton has given grants to one in every four charter start-ups in the country, for a total of $335 million.

“The Walton Family Foundation has been deeply committed to a theory of change, which is that we have a moral obligation to provide families with high quality choices,” said Mr. Sternberg. “We believe that in providing choices we are also compelling the other schools in an ecosystem to raise their game.”

...

Walton’s Mr. Sternberg, who started his career in Teach for America and founded the Bronx Lab School, a public school in New York City, does not apologize for Walton’s commitment to charter schools and vouchers. “What’s the argument there?” he said during an interview. “Don’t help anybody until you can help everybody?”

He said the foundation was focused not on ideology but on results, a word he repeated many times.

Let's focus on the "results" that Walmart, the company, gets so that the Walton Foundation can use some of that money they make to hire Marc Sternberg and other edu-entrepreneurs and reformers and push their pro-charter/pro-voucher agenda.

Sternberg claims the Walton money has clearly made DC a better place:

“D.C. is a better place today than it was 10 years ago because of the reforms that have played out here,” said Mr. Sternberg, who was an official in the New York City Department of Education under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He pointed to recent increases in scores on national tests by both public and charter school students, saying that neighborhood schools had responded to competition from charters. “And maybe in very small part, because of Walton’s role,” he added.

Let's see all the good Walmart has done in DC:

Mayor Vincent C. Gray vetoed legislation Thursday that would force the District’s largest retailers to pay their workers significantly more, choosing the potential for jobs and development at home over joining a national fight against low-wage work.

Gray’s quandary is playing out in many U.S. cities, where local leaders who generally sympathize with worker causes are also eager to lure jobs and commerce for their constituents. Retailers, most notably Wal-Mart, have placed an increasing focus on urban expansion, while unions and advocates for workers have pushed measures like the District’s “living wage” bill as a valuable hedge against the proliferation of low-paying jobs.

 The veto, which is unlikely to be overridden by the D.C. Council, clears the way for Wal-Mart to continue its entry into the District — plans years in the making that were thrown into question after lawmakers embraced the wage proposal this year.

...

The bill, known as the Large Retailer Accountability Act, would require retailers with corporate sales of $1 billion or more and operating District stores of at least 75,000 square feet to pay their employees a “living wage” — no less than $12.50 an hour in combined wages and benefits. The proposal includes an exception for employers who collectively bargain with their workers. Existing employers would have four years to come into compliance.

The city’s minimum wage is $8.25 an hour. The bill would raise the annual earnings of a full-time employee making the lowest legal wage from about $17,000 to $26,000.

While the bill’s supporters repeatedly said it was not targeted at Wal-Mart, the debate was inextricably tied to the retail giant’s plans, announced in late 2010, to open as many as six stores in the city in the coming months and years.

The union exemption and square-footage requirement rankled Wal-Mart officials, who said those provisions created an uneven playing field — particularly with the unionized grocery chains they plan to compete with in the city.

A day ahead of the bill’s final passage in July, Wal-Mart told council members and the public that it would not pursue three of the six planned stores and would explore options for withdrawing from the others should legislators proceed. The ultimatum changed no votes on the council.

Wal-Mart spokesman Steven Restivo called the veto “good news for D.C. residents,” saying Gray chose “jobs, economic development and common sense over special interests.”

Restivo said the company will move forward with its stores in the District: “We look forward to finishing the work we started in the city almost three years ago.”

While the ultimatum from Walmart may have changed no votes on the council, it did ensure Gray's veto.

In the end, Walmart got exactly what it wanted - a dead living wage bill.

Oh, yeah - just feel all the goodness Walmart and Walton money have brought to DC.

So much goodness that you, well, can't actually pay your bills with it.

UCLA Civil Rights Project Cites New York For Most Segregated Schools In The Nation

Hey - we're number #1!:

NEW YORK -- New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles looks at enrollment trends from 1989 to 2010.

In New York City, the largest school system in the U.S. with 1.1 million pupils, the study notes that many of the charter schools created over the last dozen years are among the least diverse of all, with less than 1 percent white enrollment at 73 percent of charter schools.

"To create a whole new system that's even worse than what you've got really takes some effort," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report.

It does take effort, but with former mayor Michael Bloomberg and his DOE minions having worked very hard to close as many public schools as possible and replace them with charter schools (which are the most segregated schools in the city) and fire as many teachers of color as possible and replace them with young white TFA's and the like, that effort has seemed to pay dividends.

Bloomberg and ed deform are not the only contributor to segregation.

The report also blames housing trends in the city, where neighborhoods have become more racially homogenized over the last two and a half decades (although Bloomberg accelerated the gentrification trends with his vast rezoning of much of the city, so even there he is culpable.)

I'd say these are unbelievable results, except if you've been paying attention to the ed deform wars over the last 15 years or so, you'd know that the report's findings are completely believable:

Pedro Noguera, a New York University education professor, said it's disturbing that policy makers have focused so little on racial integration in recent years.

"We've been talking about reforming schools in New York and elsewhere. This issue was never addressed," Noguera said.

He added, "When you concentrate the neediest kids together in under-resourced schools they tend not to do very well."

New York City can now say that we have re-enacted the Jim Crow south here in 2014 New York City, with the school system more racially segregated than anywhere else in America, except that of course in the Jim Crow segregated schools, black children were taught by black teachers while often here in NYC they are taught by young white teachers.

All I can say about this is, what a disgrace!

It would be nice if the Michael Bloomberg's and Eva Moskowitz's who contributed to this disgrace would get some of the blame for it, but alas, that's probably asking too much.

It also would be nice if our governor would do something about this, but since he supports charter schools and only charter schools, that's probably asking too much too.

At any rate, here's hoping Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina will look to do something about this disgrace in NYC.

The report has some suggestions for what to do:

The UCLA report recommends that state and local education agencies develop policies aimed at reducing racial isolation and promoting diverse schools.

The report suggests voluntary desegregation programs in upstate cities like Rochester, where low-income populations are surrounded by more affluent communities.

In New York City, Orfield said, a system of unscreened "choice" schools would foster more diversity than the current New York City high school choice system, which sees entrance tests at top schools excluding most black and Latino students.

One final suggestion: Call Cuomo and tell him to convene a panel over this state disgrace right away.

I mean, Common Core got a panel.

Why shouldn't this school segregation disgrace?

De Blasio's Vision For Public Schools - Fairness And Opportunity For All

Leonie Haimson has posted about the Riverside Church speech Mayor de Blasio gave today, articulating his vision for the public school system.

Here is an excerpt in which he addresses the charter co-location controversy:

“The answer is not to save a few of our children only.  The answer is not to find an escape route that some can follow and others can’t. The answer is to fix the entire system.  (sustained applause)… so we have to approach systemic change. …Poverty, hunger, the lack of affordable housing…  But even within the education system itself we aren’t approaching root causes and the systemic changes we need to.  We have to work from the assumption that we will save every child, that we will reach every child, that no system is working unless every child has opportunity. And we need to be able to say that despite the good efforts of many the school system is still broken in many ways…We need to work on solutions for the whole and the original notion of the charter movement was to innovate, to create laboratories …to bring to the entire school system. …The idea is not to create separation, the kind of competition that works for some and leaves some out…For 6% of our children in the charters, they are our children; we need them to succeed.  For 94% of the children in the traditional public schools they are our children, we need them to succeed. 

 

The notion that some children may be “lucky” enough to escape from the traditional public schools in their neighborhood speaks volumes, because so many parents feel that right now…I want that parent to know that we will not accept the neighborhood  school that fails them …Our mission is to create a city in which regardless of zip code, your neighborhood public school is a great option for your child.  (sustained applause.)

 

There has been failure, we should not sweep it under the rug….It’s all of us in public life that haven’t measured up… well I say to you today that in my mayoralty… It is my responsible to fix the problem, and I won’t choose between the children of this city any more that any parent would choose between the children in their family.  I will reach out to all the children in the city, in traditional public schools, in charters schools, in religious schools… they all deserve a solution.   

We made some decisions in the last weeks striving for fairness, but …I didn’t measure up in explaining this to the people of this city.  We want want children to have good options, but not displacing or harming other children in the schools to which they may go.  We will make sure that 194 children [in Success Academy] have a good home this year, but we will not do this at the expense of our special education children.  That is a false choice has been set up as part of a broken system and a broken dialogue; and it's time to ending that kind of dysfunction … So we’ll protect the children who need our help while not pitting one against another."

Extraordinary words in defense of a system that seeks to work for all.

I wish he and Chancellor Farina had been ready to go with this when they announced the charter co-location changes.

Alas, they weren't and the public relations damage to de Blasio, Farina and traditional public schools has been heavy. 

$4 million in pro-charter, anti-de Blasio ads does that sort of thing.

Still, better late than never to articulate this vision of a system that works for all.

It won't assuage the clowns on the Morning Joe Clown Show or the charter lobbyist in the governor's mansion, but it may touch some in this city who are unsettled by those ads on the TV and wonder just how it is a charter network that can't afford rent can somehow afford to spend over a $1 million a week on propaganda on every network plus cable.

And in the end, these are words that matter:

"We’ll protect the children who need our help while not pitting one against another...I won’t choose between the children of this city any more than any parent would choose between the children in their family."

That's a much different vision than the one articulated by the charter school lobbyist in Albany who says only charter school children matter.

Why Isn't Eva Moskowitz Under Attack For The Harm Her "No Tolerance!" Policies Do To Children Of Color?

From the Daily News:

WASHINGTON — Black students — even tiny preschoolers — are more likely than white students to be suspended from public school, a study disclosed Friday.

It has been well-documented that black children in elementary, middle and high school are more likely than white kids to be disciplined.

But for the first time, the U.S. Education Department examined suspensions in preschool. It found that out of 1 million kids in public preschool in the 2011-2012 school year, 5,000 were suspended.

While black children represented 18% of the enrollment, they make up almost half of the preschoolers suspended at least once.

Advocates have complained that get-tough suspension and arrest policies by school administrators contribute to a "school-to-prison'' pipeline that snags minority students.

The report suggest that the pattern begins with kids as young as four years old.

The data doesn't explain why the racial disparities exist or why the students were suspended, but officials called the findings troubling.

There are a variety of stories out there on the Internets looking at suspension rates in charter schools around the country and pointing out how they harm children of color in cities like Washington D.C., New Haven and  New York City.

And of course Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies is one of the leading suspenders of children in the country, championing a "no excuses!" code that sees children getting suspended for, well, pretty much anything as this Juan Gonzalez piece from August 2013 shows:

Success Academy, the charter school chain that boasts sky-high student scores on annual state tests, has for years used a “zero tolerance” disciplinary policy to suspend, push out, discharge or demote the very pupils who might lower those scores — children with special needs or behavior problems.

State records and interviews with two dozen parents of Success elementary school pupils indicate the fast-growing network has failed at times to adhere to federal and state laws in disciplining special-education students.

At Harlem Success 1, the oldest school in the network, 22% of pupils got suspended at least once during the 2010-11 school year, state records show. That’s far above the 3% average for regular elementary schools in its school district.

Four other Success schools — the only others in the network to report figures for 2010-11 — had an average 14% suspension rate.

Success Academy chief Eva Moskowitz recently defended her network’s “higher than average” suspension rates compared with public schools as a way to promote “order and civility in the classroom.” And this week, the Eli Broad Foundation announced a $5 million grant to Moskowitz to help expand her network from 20 to more than 100 schools.

Those schools outperform city schools on state tests: This year, 82% of the network’s students met standards in math and 58% met standards in English, compared with just less than 30% who were proficient in math and 26% in English citywide.

But The News found a disturbing number of suspension cases where the network’s administrators removed special-education pupils from normal classrooms for weeks and even months, while at the same time pressuring their parents to transfer them to regular public schools.

Take, for example, Idiatou Diallo of Tremont, the Bronx, and her three children.

Her boy, Alhassana, and two girls, Houssainatou and Hassanatou, triplets who are now 8, were born premature, suffer from chronic illness and need speech and physical therapy. All three were admitted to Bronx Success 1 last August for first grade — having commuted to Bedford-Stuyvesant Success 1 for all of kindergarten after Success officials told their mother there were no available seats in their home borough.

“Right away, the school started calling me, telling me my children were having a tough time and misbehaving,” Diallo said. “They threatened they’d kick them out of school if I didn’t transfer them.”

Alhassana and Houssainatou were repeatedly slapped with suspensions for violating school rules, despite having detailed individual education plans that instructed teachers on managing their anger outbursts.

On Nov. 27, Alhassana got a two-day suspension for “purposely walking with his eyes closed and hurting another scholar.”

In March, he got a 15-day suspension for “stomping on a teacher’s hand” and “throwing the teacher’s cell phone to the ground.”

His sister Houssainatou was only permitted to attend school for half a day for more than two months because of her behavior problems, her mother said.

“That was an illegal act of exclusion without any due process,” said Nelson Mar, an attorney from Bronx Legal Services, who filed formal complaints to the school on behalf of the children.

Federal law requires schools that suspend a special-education pupil for more than 10 days to seek an impartial hearing on whether the child’s behavior is related to his disability.

Success officials deny improper treatment of any pupils.

“We have no such policies and have no practice of ‘counseling out,’ ” network spokeswoman Jenny Sedlis said last month.

After Mar secured an impartial hearing this spring with the Department of Education, individual paraprofessionals were assigned to both Alhassana and Houssainatou during the school day. Their suspensions dropped dramatically and their academic performance has improved.

But Patrice Joseph, another parent of a special-education child, was not so successful. She withdrew her son Keith and daughter Naomi last week from Harlem Success 4.

“I’m tired of all the fighting,” Joseph said this week.

Keith, 10, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, started first grade at Success 4 in August 2008.

“They were constantly calling me because he wasn’t sitting up straight or because he was throwing a tantrum, and they wanted me to transfer him out,” Joseph said.

In mid-2010, Joseph challenged the school’s failure to provide her son needed services. She won a settlement that required that a paraprofessional be regularly assigned to him. That November, both Keith and Naomi, a kindergartner, were suddenly discharged from the school.

“They never even gave me written notice they were no longer enrolled,” Joseph said.

She got lawyer Mar involved, and the school quickly reinstated the children. That spring, Joseph was told Keith would have to repeat the second grade. Then, this past May, as he was finishing fourth grade, she was told he would have to repeat that grade, too.

“My son doesn’t want to go there anymore,” Joseph said.

Similar harrowing accounts have come from parents at a half dozen different Success schools, including claims that suspended children are not provided state-required alternative instruction.

“We abide by all federal and state law requirements that pertain to alternative instruction,” Sedlis said.

But in a review issued this spring on the progress of Harlem Success 2, 3 and 4, prior to granting those schools a five-year renewal of their charters, the State University of New York’s Charter Institute noted failings in student suspension policies.

“It was unclear that live instruction was consistently provided in accordance with New York’s compulsory education law,” the review said.

Juan Gonzalez reported in another column from August 2013 how parents had secretly taped officials at Success Academies trying to push students out of the school:

Call them the charter school tapes.

The parent of a special education kindergarten pupil at the Upper West Side Success Academy charter school secretly tape recorded meetings in which school administrators pressed her to transfer her son back into the public school system.

The tapes, a copy of which the mother supplied the Daily News, poke a hole in claims by the fast-growing Success Academy chain founded by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz that it doesn’t try to push out students with special needs or behavior problems.

Nancy Zapata said she resorted to the secret tapes last December and again in March after school officials used their “zero tolerance” discipline policy to repeatedly suspend her son, Yael, kept telephoning her at work to pick him up from school in the middle of the day and urged her to transfer him.

The News reported earlier this week that the Success network, which boasts some of the highest test scores in the city, also has far higher suspension rates than other elementary schools and that more than two dozen parents were claiming efforts to push their children out.

“There was a point when I was getting a call every day for every minor thing,” Zapata said. “They would say he was crying excessively, or not looking straight forward, or throwing a tantrum, or not walking up the stairs fast enough, or had pushed another kid.”

What school officials did not do, Zapata said, was provide the kind of special education services that her son’s individual educational plan, or IEP, requires.

That plan calls for daily speech therapy and occupational therapy for Yael. It also requires him to be placed in a smaller class, one staffed by both a regular teacher and a special education teacher.
At one point in the tapes, a Success official can be heard telling Zapata:

“We’re technically out of compliance because we aren’t able to meet what his IEP recommends for him.”

Asked about those remarks, a Success official would only say both the School District’s Special Education Committee and Success Academy now believe Yael should be transferred to a District 75 special education school.

In the tapes, however, another Success administrator is heard acknowledging that Yael’s tantrums are related to his speech disability.

“He is getting really frustrated when people can’t understand what he’s communicating, and you can’t blame him for that,” the administrator tells Zapata.

In a second meeting, the mother asks why Success admitted her son through a lottery but is not providing him all the services he needs.

“If they have those special education needs, you’re absolutely right that they need to be fulfilled,” an official replies, but then quickly adds that the network doesn’t offer smaller special ed classes in kindergarten.

“We will help them find the [appropriate] DOE placement,” the official says.

In other words, lottery or not, kindergarten kids like Yael who need smaller classes should find a public school that has one.

But Zapata has resisted the pressure to transfer her son.

When she accompanied him to the first day of school at Upper West Side Success last week, she was informed Yael will have to repeat kindergarten — the same grade that doesn’t have the special education class he needs.

“They’re trying to frustrate me enough to take him out,” Zapata said, “but I’m going to fight it.”

The Obama administration is attacking public schools for higher rates of suspensions for students of color, particularly black children, even as they champion charter schools like Success Academies that have much higher rates of suspensions and pushouts than district schools.

That's called hypocrisy, something we see from education reform advocates often, and something we see always when it comes to Eva Moskowitz.

Let me know when the clowns on the Morning Joe Clown Show hit Moskowitz over her insane suspension and pushout rates, will you?

And let me know when the concern trolls at the Obama DOE do the same, okay?

Because higher suspension rates for children of color, particularly for black children, are a big problem and something should be done about that problem.

We can start by doing an independent audit into charter schools around the country over their suspension and pushout rates - with a special focus on Eva Moskowitz and her Suspension, er, Success Academies here in New York City - and then putting a stop to what these charters are doing.

Poor Eva

Love the frame from the NY Post on this story - De Blasio starts his war on charter schools:

The de Blasio administration is blocking the opening or expansion of three Success Academy charter schools run by Eva Moskowitz.

The charter schools received approval last year from former Mayor Mike Bloomberg to operate rent-free in existing city buildings starting in the fall.

But at de Blasio’s behest, the Department of Education conducted a review and rolled back the “co-locations” in buildings that also house traditional public schools.

The actions block a new Success Academy elementary charter from opening at the August Martin HS complex in Jamiaca, Queens.

It was to open there with 200 kindergarten and first graders in the fall and eventually serve 500 students grades K to 4.

The administration’s decision also prevents another Success charter K-4 elementary school from opening at Murry Bergtraum HS near City Hall.

Also, fifth and sixth grade Success Academy students will no longer be able to attend middle school classes at the PS 149/Sojourner Truth building on West 118th Street.

The students were expected to come from two other schools, Success Academy 4 elementary school and Harlem Central Middle School.

The de Blasio administration also told a fourth charter school, American Dream Charter School, that it would be getting less space inside The Bronx’s PS 30, which could force it to reduce enrollment by 25 percent.

Three Success Academies canceled, others given the go-ahead.

Some war on charters.

If de Blasio were really waging war against charters, he would have canceled all 10 Eva schools.

But he didn't do that - he simply canceled the most egregious co-locations:

The chancellor’s office provided alternative sites — “better matches” for three of the six affected public schools.

After bumping the Success Academy elementary charter from the Murry Bergtraum site, the administration set aside the space for two new high schools.

“We do not believe new elementary schools should be opened on high school campuses,” Department of Education spokesman Devon Pugia said in explaining some of the rollbacks, including two of the Success Academy charter schools.

DOE officials defended the decisions, saying they followed a painstaking, objective and thoughtful process.

Eva isn't used to be told "No," so she's upset about this news and has got a whole bunch of Success parents out there on the news tonight giving statements about how they feel betrayed by de Blasio.

But quite frankly, de Blasio is simply following through on his campaign promises and in the end, Eva still gets to open a lot of new charter schools next year.

Not exactly a war on charters, no matter how the Post or Eva want to frame it like it is.

Will Governor Cuomo Help His Charter School Allies?

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY:

Operators of charter schools in New York City are looking to Albany for support after failing to gain traction on a series of core issues with local elected officials or the de Blasio administration.

...

Charter groups are beginning to plan Capitol-based actions for the next few weeks and looking to assemblymembers from city districts to push for state funding to help co-located charters.

"With the environment around ed reform changing, we're asking for fairness for charter schools," Brett Peiser, C.E.O. of the Uncommon Schools network, which has schools in the city and upstate, told Capital in a statement. "We're pursuing every possible angle for support, including the State Legislature and Governor Cuomo."

What are the chances of getting help from the Legislature?

David Bloomfield, a professor of education at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, said going to the Capitol for funding assistance is a "predictable and potentially successful strategy in that it doesn't implicate New York City public school buildings."

"It's still a heavy lift," he added. "If the Legislature wanted to [help fund charters] in the first place they would have."

I wouldn't be surprised to see Governor Cuomo come in with lots of money for his charter allies, since they have come with lots of campaign money for him.