CURMUDGUCATION: Success Academy Lost $2.4 Million Judgment

CURMUDGUCATION: Success Academy Lost $2.4 Million Judgment

Success Academy Lost $2.4 Million Judgment

You might have caught this story, but I don't want you to miss it. 

Success Academy has long been one of the stars of the charter school world. But in 2015, Kate Taylor at the New York Times reported on a secret "got to go" list that targeted students that SA administrators wanted to push out, part of a general pattern of deliberately making life difficult for students that the schools simply didn't want. It was not a good look for Eva Moskowitz and her charter crew. Moskowitz pushed back and defended the principal who was caught (but then shortly thereafter reassigned Candido Brown to an elementary classroom teaching job). And as the smoke cleared, Moskowitz went back to business as usual.

But five families sued. Their children were on that list, and they had all been pushed out of SA.

They sued Success Academy for targeting families--particularly families of students with special needs-- to try to get them to withdraw. Said one of the lawyers handling the case, “Success Academy’s harsh, inflexible, one-size-fits-all approach to discipline is at odds with its obligation to reasonably accommodate students’ disabilities. These children and their families were forced to withdraw from the Success Academy network not only because their educational needs were not being met, but also because they were explicitly not welcome there."

She's not kidding. It was ugly.

The litigation centered on five children, then a mere 4 to 5 years old, with diagnosed or perceived CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Success Academy Lost $2.4 Million Judgment

Arthur Schwartz, the Lawyer Who Beat Success Academy Charter Chain in Court | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arthur Schwartz, the Lawyer Who Beat Success Academy Charter Chain in Court | Diane Ravitch's blog

Arthur Schwartz, the Lawyer Who Beat Success Academy Charter Chain in Court

Civil rights attorney Arthur Schwartz is running for City Council in District 3, Manhattan, which includes SoHo-Hudson Square, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, the Theater District, and Hell’s Kitchen. Arthur has spent his career as a warrior for justice. He was the lead attorney in the successful lawsuit on behalf of parents against the powerful Success Academy charter chain. I donated to his campaign. I hope you will too.

Arthur Schwartz & His Legal Team Win Multimillion Lawsuit Against Success Academy’s Unethical “Got To Go” Policy Singling Out Students With Learning Disabilities

On March 10, 2021 District 3 City Council candidate Arthur Schwartz was part of a team of attorneys representing parents who sued and won a $2.3 million settlement against the Fort Greene Success Academy. In the long awaited decision for a 2017 filed Discriminatory Harassment suit, Judge Fredric Block approved $1.1 million in damages to the 5 families of plaintiffs.https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/nyregion/at-a-success-academy-charter-school-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.htmlThis victory highlights an ethical standard for academic administration at the highest levels of education across America and helps to protect families and students from learning disability-related discrimination and prejudice. In this case it involved 5-year olds.

The source of the suit was the internally code-named “Got to Go” list. The lawsuit accused the Fort Greene Academy principal and its parent Success Academy of creating lists of 5 year old students with possible learning disabilities that they wanted to push out because they were ‘not right’ for the school. These children, most in kindergarten, got suspended 20 times or more per year. One parent was CONTINUE READING: Arthur Schwartz, the Lawyer Who Beat Success Academy Charter Chain in Court | Diane Ravitch's blog

Success Academy Charter Chain Ordered to Pay $2.4 Million to SPED Families | Diane Ravitch's blog

Success Academy Charter Chain Ordered to Pay $2.4 Million to SPED Families | Diane Ravitch's blog

Success Academy Charter Chain Ordered to Pay $2.4 Million to SPED Families

Success Academy charter network was directed by a federal district court judge to pay $2.4 million to families whose children with disabilities were pushed out.

Charter school network Success Academy, which touts its commitment to children “from all backgrounds,” has been ordered to pay over $2.4 million on a Judgment in a case brought by families of five young Black students with learning and other disabilities who sued after the children were pushed out of a Success Academy school in Brooklyn. Success Academy’s efforts to oust the children even included the creation of a “Got to Go” list, as reported by the New York Times in October 2015, which singled out the students they wanted to push out, including the five child plaintiffs.

The lawsuit, brought by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Advocates for Justice, and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, concluded on March 10, 2021 with Senior United States District Judge Frederic Block’s ruling, which included a precedent-setting determination that federal CONTINUE READING: Success Academy Charter Chain Ordered to Pay $2.4 Million to SPED Families | Diane Ravitch's blog

NYC Public School Parents: Hearings tomorrow for Success Academy charter revisions & comments from District 2 CEC members demanding more transparency

NYC Public School Parents: Hearings tomorrow for Success Academy charter revisions & comments from District 2 CEC members demanding more transparency

Hearings tomorrow for Success Academy charter revisions & comments from District 2 CEC members demanding more transparency

Hearings on revisions to the Success Academy charter will be held by the SUNY charter committee tomorrow Tuesday Oct 6, 2020.  The meeting will start at 9 AM and will be webcast here.  The agenda is here and the proposed Success Academy revisions are included in a document entitled SUNY Charter Schools Institute Update.   

For more on these revisions, which include evidence of high attrition rates including elimination of all three originally planned Brooklyn HS , see the analysis by Brooke Parker here.  

Below is testimony submitted by six members of CEC2.

Testimony for the SUNY Charter Institute on 

Charter School Revision Application by Success Academies in 

Community School Districts 2, 3, 14 and 15

September 30, 2020

Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony.  We submit the below testimony as individual members of the Community Education Council District 2 (CECD2). Due to the timing of the charter revision notice, which was released after the September monthly meeting, the CECD2 is unable to issue an official statement. Thus while the majority of members signed this testimony it does not represent the official position of the CECD2.  

We are against the proposals for charter school revisions submitted by Success Academies Harlem 1, Bed-Stuy 2, Cobble Hill and Wiliamsbsurg.

1. Our comments from 2019 are still relevant

In a comment letter submitted by Shino Tanikawa and Ushma Neil on October 3rd, 2019, appended to this comment letter, we listed three reasons for opposing the revision proposal submitted by SA Union Square, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem I & III and Upper West.  We understand the group of schools included in the current revision proposals are not the same but the substance of the 2019 comments remains very much relevant. 

1.a. Academic year and proposal timeline

Nowhere on the 2-page notice sent by the NYC Department of Education is there indication of the academic year for which the proposal is submitted.  We can only hope that this is for the academic year 2021-2022, since the current year is already underway, even if SA has announced 100% remote learning for all its students. 

Please ensure all future notices clearly state the timeline of the proposal and the academic year for which the proposal is submitted. 

1.b. Organizational & building capacity data

Below is the Enrollment, Capacity and Utilization Report data from December 2019, with grade spans served in each building added (we are making assumptions since grade CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Hearings tomorrow for Success Academy charter revisions & comments from District 2 CEC members demanding more transparency

NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

The following post is by Brooke Parker of NYC Kids PAC.  Public hearings will take place next week, Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 on Success Academy's request to revise their charter by eliminating three previously planned Brooklyn high schools.  In this post, Brooke speculates about the real reasons for this charter revision below.  The images are screenshots taken from the Instagram account @survivors_of_successacademy.  and include comments of current and former Success students and staff.

While most New Yorkers may not know what goes on behind the blue doors of  Success Academy charter schools (more on that later), their relentless demand for more space and expansion definitely rings familiar, including many well-publicized events when Success Academy closed all of its schools to have their students and parents lobby in Albany for expansion and more space in public schools.

Any public school advocate will tell you that Success Academy almost always wins their fights for space. Eva Moskowitz, the firebrand CEO of Success Academies has Governor Cuomo’s ear, and the organization has access to boat loads of money. [Note from LH: not in this one case where DOE tried to give them the entire school building of PS 25 in Bed-Stuy without going through the legal process – assuming their attempt to close PS 25 would go through – but a judge blocked them.]

In 2014, Success Academy held multiple press conferences and sued the city, demanding public school space for three of its schools while granting space for five other of its schools. Mayor de Blasio explained that these three would mean displacing disabled D75 students.  The city ended up renting and paying for private space for these schools at great expense.  In 2017, they launched a $5M television ad campaign for more middle school space.

Success Academy’s argument has always been that they just don’t have enough space for the huge wait lists of families clamoring to be in their schools. We must open more! We must give them more space! [And yet studies show that half of the students accepted at the school never enroll.]

Yet Success Academy has quietly requested revisions to their charter authorizer, SUNY, with announced hearings on Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 , to cancel the opening of all three planned high schools in Brooklyn: Success Academy Williamsburg, Success Academy Cobble Hill, and Success Academy Bed Stuy 2.  [You can sign up to speak or attend these online hearings here.]

Last June, they requested that their total planned high school enrollment from these schools be eliminated, and instead 118 additional students be added to Success Academy Harlem 1, located in the Norman Thomas building on E. 33 St. in District 2 this fall.  Success Academy’s reason for the closing of the three planned high schools in Brooklyn is “due to facility constraints.” Yet as far as we can tell, they never requested more space from DOE, so this excuse seems questionable. 

Moreover, because of a state law passed in 2014, the city is required to help pay the rent for private space of any new or expanding charter school in private space if they are not provided with space in a public school.  As detailed in this report issued last year by Class Size Matters, DOE spent $2.9 million in FY 2019 alone, leasing nine buildings for Success charters.  In addition, they spent $2.2 million that same year for two Success Academy charter schools to rent space in the Hudson Yards complex on the west side of Manhattan, even though the Success Academy charter management organization owns the space. Not to mention that Success CMO enjoyed a huge surplus in 2018 of more than $60 million according to the IRS data  and $12 million for the charter schools themselves.  In 2019, they received an additional $9.8 million to expand and open new schools, including  a new high school. 

Revising their charters and moving students around  isn’t new to Success Academy. In recent years, they’ve changed planned enrollments at their middle schools  and shuffled students from one area to another. What is notable about this hearing is there will be NO Success Academy high school in Brooklyn in spite of having five Success Academy middle schools in the borough.

Given what we know about Success Academy, and their promises to families that they will continue to offer high school seats to all graduating 8^th graders, combined with their relentless push for space in public school buildings regardless of community opposition, we were curious why Success Academy didn’t fight for space for their high schools in Brooklyn.

Success Academy opened in 2006 with just one school and 83 Kindergartners. They now boast 47 schools serving 18,000 students. Success Academy doesn’t admit students from outside their system after 4th grade, so middle schools and high school entry is exclusive to students who have been enrolled in their elementary schools. 

Gary Rubinstein has written about Success Academy’s attrition, calculating the rate per year at 17% after 4th grade when there is no more back-filling of students. Rubinstein analyzed the graduating class of 2020 and found: 

“…there was a combined 353 students in the cohort [2nd grade].  By 6th grade, they were down to 263 students and by 9th grade it was 191.  In 10th grade they were 161 students and in 11th grade, 146.  And now, according to the New York Post article based on a Success Academy press release, they have 114 seniors.  So only 32% of the students who were there in second grade made it through their program.  And even more startling is that of the 191 9th graders that had been at Success Academy for 10 years, only 59% of them are on track to graduate three years later.”

Still, given the network’s rapid expansion, one would anticipate enough rising 8th graders for a Brooklyn high school. That is, unless you look at Bed Stuy 1, where the 2019- CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Student discontent and high attrition at Success Academy; hearings next week about their intent to ditch three planned high schools in Brooklyn

No Way To Treat A Scholar | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

 No Way To Treat A Scholar | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

No Way To Treat A Scholar

Success Academy is the largest and most controversial charter network in New York City. With over 15,000 students, Success Academy is known for their high state test scores.

Though Success Academy has been in existence for about 14 years already, it has only been the last few years that people have begun to question whether the strategies that Success Academy uses to achieve these test results are immoral if not illegal.

Public data shows that very few students who begin at Success Academy actually graduate from Success Academy. The class of 2018 started with 72 students and only 16 graduated. The class of 2019 started with 80 students and only 27 graduated. The class of 2020 started with 350 students and only 98 graduated. Success Academy argues that this is normal attrition over 12 years, but one of the most jarring statistics I have ever seen about Success Academy is the attrition rate from students who are in the school at the beginning of their senior year but who do not graduate with their class 10 months later.

For the recent class of 2020 there were 114 seniors in the school in November 2019. But by graduation time in June there were only 98 graduating seniors.

In June I blogged about an interview I saw with Eva Moskowitz where she explained that some students need five years to graduate high school for various reasons. Success CONTINUE READING:  No Way To Treat A Scholar | Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Schools Matter: Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains

Schools Matter: Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains

Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains

Fabiola St Hilaire is among a growing number of teachers from the "no excuses" cultural sterilization charter schools who are calling out the racist child abuse by charter chains like Success Academy. 

Working for this organization has truly showed me that as long as I stand with the inaction and blatant disregard for child morality and healthy development it in turn will make me complicit, which I will never be. --From former Success Academy teacher Fabiola St Hilaire's resignation letter

  

From a story by Michael Elsen-Rooney for New York Daily News:

. . . . For [some] educators and parents, however, Success’s approach feels heavy-handed and inflexible at a time when many families need the opposite.

“It’s inhumane,” said Fabiola St Hilaire, who resigned as a first-grade teacher at the network’s Flatbush, Brooklyn elementary school — lasting just one week under the new remote rules.

 “Just seeing how difficult it was for the kids to stay focused and still as they want them to be, it was like wow,” she said. “You see the fidgety bodies, you see the blank stares.”

Under the plan, kids as young as 5 have to log on by 8:50 a.m. wearing their checkered orange and blue uniforms, pictured here, and sit still with their hands clasped for nearly CONTINUE READING: Schools Matter: Awakening to Racist Child Abuse of Charter Chains