The startling way NYC’s largest charter network handles student discipline
The Success Academy Charter School network is the largest in New York City, with 34 schools. Its founder and chief executive officer is Eva Moskowitz, a former City Council member for the Upper East Side who has the financial backing of Wall Street financiers. Just this past July, a new $8.5 million donation to her academy was made by hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson so that she can open new middle schools. The network, which trumpets its high standardized test scores, was the star of a 2010 film called “The Lottery,” which portrayed the schools as places where miracles happen, and Moskowitz considered running for mayor of New York City in the next election until recently announcing she would not do so.
Moskowitz and her network have strong critics who oppose her “no excuses” philosophy of schooling and who say that part of the network’s success comes from a practice of counseling out students who struggle academically and who have disciplinary issues.
This post looks at the available data on suspensions at Success Academy charter schools. Author Leo Casey finds that Success schools suspend students at about seven times the rate of New York City public schools, and that the network has has misrepresented its suspension rates to the U.S. Department of Education.
Casey is the executive director of the nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based Shanker Institute, which was established in 1998 to honor the legacy of Albert Shanker, the late president of the American Federation of Teachers. The full version of this appeared on the institute’s blog.
I asked the Success Academy for a response to this post. An academy spokesman said the network would have no response.
By Leo Casey
At a recent press conference, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz addressed the issue of student discipline. “It is horrifying,” she told reporters, that critics of her charter schools’ high suspension rates don’t realize “that 5-year-olds do some pretty violent things.” Moskowitz then pivoted to her displeasure with student discipline in New York City public schools, asserting that disorder and disrespect have become rampant.
This is not the first time Moskowitz has taken aim at the city’s student discipline policies. Last spring, she used the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to criticize the efforts of Mayor Bill De Blasio and the New York City Department of Education to reform the student code of conduct and schools’ disciplinary procedures. Indeed, caustic commentary on student behavior and The startling way NYC’s largest charter network handles student discipline - The Washington Post:
