That Brutal Charter School Video Shows That Rich People Love No-Excuses Discipline ... for Other People’s Kids
oday, the New York Times published undercover video taken at a Success Academy elementary school in Brooklyn that’s part of the controversial charter network known for “no excuses” discipline. It shows a first grade teacher berating and humiliating a girl who stumbles when solving a math problem. The teacher, Charlotte Dial, rips up the student’s paper and barks, “Go to the calm-down chair and sit!,” though by all indications, the girl was already sitting calmly. “You’re confusing everybody,” the teacher says, her voice seething. “I’m very upset and very disappointed.” I found the video shocking and disturbing; other parents I know said they couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing.
According to reporter Kate Taylor, an assistant teacher who was concerned by Dial’s “daily harsh treatment of the children” filmed the scene surreptitiously. Success Academy’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, as well as some of the parents whose children attend the school insisted that Dial’s behavior was anomalous. “But interviews with 20 current and former Success teachers suggest that while Ms. Dial’s behavior might be extreme, much of it is not uncommon within the network,” Taylor writes. She quotes a former Success Academy assistant principal: “It’s this culture of, ‘If you’ve made them cry, you’ve succeeded in getting your point across.’”
As it happens, the Success Academy where the video was filmed is a few blocks from my apartment in the hyper-gentrifying neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Cobble Hill has been affluent for a while, but in recent years, there’s been an influx of the really rich; early this year, a nearby townhouse sold for $15.5 million. Last year, a friend whose son started kindergarten at our local public elementary school, P.S. 29, was shocked when she realized his class was entirely white. By contrast, if you watch the Success Academy video, you’ll notice that the students, whose faces are blurredSuccess Academy undercover video shows no-excuses discipline at its ugliest.:
