On October 12, 2015, the PBS NewsHour aired a report from veteran education reporter John Merrow, based on nearly a year of reporting, about suspension policies of young children and one successful charter school network in New York City. The NewsHour stands by the report. However, the CEO of Success Academy, Eva Moskowitz, has sinceraised objections to two specific issues in Mr. Merrow’s report. She protests that she was not given the opportunity to respond to one family’s comments in the story and she asserts that Mr. Merrow’s reporting about attrition rates is incorrect.
Mr. Merrow’s report was not about any particular child but about suspension policy. The reporting included conversations with nearly a dozen families about their young children’s suspensions from Success Academy, as well as other sources, including one within Success Academy. Most of these sources were unwilling to go on camera. In their interview Mr. Merrow asked Ms. Moskowitz for her response to the information he had gathered from these sources, and she was given ample time to respond.
Only one family was willing to talk on camera, but the mother was not willing to allow Success Academy to release her son’s school records. Ms. Moskowitz should have been given a chance to respond to this family’s comments. The NewsHour regrets that decision.
Ms. Moskowitz also disputes Mr. Merrow’s reporting on Success Academy’s attrition rate. This is a complicated area because charter schools, including Success Academy Charter Schools, calculate attrition differently. Mr. Merrow addressed these disparities by comparing similar time frames and methods for calculating attrition. He used both public numbers and internal documents to calculate a comparison of attrition rates. One of the charter schools in the report calculates attrition by the names of individual children over a 365-day calendar year, from the beginning of one school year to the beginning of the next school year. Success Academy’s data is based on the number of children over the school year, not the calendar year. Mr. Merrow reconciled those numbers fairly and thoroughly.
The fundamental point of Mr. Merrow’s report is about the policy of suspensions of young children. It accurately documents that Success Academy suspends students as young as five- and six-year olds at a greater rate than many other schools, which Ms. Moskowitz does not dispute. Mr. Merrow’s report also explains that Success Academy Charter Schools are achieving superior academic results and are popular among New York area families. While the NewsHour regrets the decision to include that particular mother and child without providing Ms. Moskowitz with an opportunity to respond, the NewsHour stands by the report.
PBS NewsHour Clarification | Press | PBS NewsHour