Jersey Jazzman: Moskowitz, Petrilli, and the Hard Truth About America's Schools

Jersey Jazzman: Moskowitz, Petrilli, and the Hard Truth About America's Schools:

Moskowitz, Petrilli, and the Hard Truth About America's Schools

I'd be lying if I denied I haven't taken some measure of satisfaction in watching the perpetually self-impressed Eva Moskowitz implode this week. Now that we know for certain that her charter schools do, in fact, counsel out "disruptive" students, we can drop any pretense that she is some sort of a pedagogical genius.

The truth is her descriptions of how she has changed water into cartons of milk never held up to even the mildest of scrutinies. Earlier this year, she gave an interview on local public television where she bragged on how much "fun" learning is at Success Academies:

(1:48) But imagine if schools acted as if children had the freedom to choose whether or not to go to school. In fact, they had the freedom to walk out of the classroom at any moment -- now, they don't at our schools (interviewer chuckles), but imagine if they did. I would venture to argue that at most schools in America, they wouldn't come and if they came they would leave, because boredom, unfortunately, is one of the most common experiences of children. 

And what we do is, we engage children with rich, wonderful literature, with discovery-oriented science five days a week, with chess and debate and coding and art and music and sports, so that kids love being at school.

Uh-huh. Let's go back to this week's NY Times article, the one that caused all the fuss:

Some of the parents whose children were on the “Got to Go” list acknowledged that they did not agree with how the school managed behavior. But several also

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