“Got to Go” list at one Success charter school

I'm sure by now everyone has read the NYT front-page article last week about the "Got to Go" list at one Success charter school (At a Success Academy Charter School, Singling Out Pupils Who Have 'Got to Go'). It is terribly unfortunate that this happened, both for the children and parents affected, and also for our movement, as now, every time a charter school posts good test scores, our critics will surely say something like, "Well, I'll bet it's just because they have a 'Got to Go' list…" They'll know it's a lie and a deep insult to the dedicated educators, children and parents in that school – but that's never concerned them.

 

It's also a good cautionary tale for us all. We all want every child to learn at a high level, and for this to be reflected in the tests they take. And these test scores really matter in so many ways: most importantly, they're an important way we can see the overall level of learning going on, and especially which kids need extra help; they're part of how we evaluate ourselves; they impact each school's (and each network's) ability to raise money, etc. So there's a lot of pressure on everyone to put up good scores (this is increasingly true of regular public schools as well), which is mostly good (assuming the pressure isn't too great), but there's also a downside we all need to be acutely aware of: that some adults, under pressure to deliver good numbers, will cheat or otherwise behave disreputably. This isn't just true in charter schools, nor in education generally – it's true in all human behavior. It's certainly true in my industry, investment management, where there's a report of some fraud or cheating nearly every day.

 

In light of this inevitable (and, as I said, mostly healthy) pressure to do well on tests, it's critically important that we: 1) not become overly focused on this one metric of success; 2) have very rigorous oversight and anti-cheating regimens to discourage bad behavior; and 3) severely punish cheating as a deterrent to others.

Success Academy Founder Calls 'Got to Go' List an Anomaly

By KATE TAYLOR

OCT. 30, 2015 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/nyregion/success-academy-founder-calls-got-to-go-list-a-anomaly.html

Photo

Eva S. Moskowitz, the founder of Success Academy, said on Friday that the charter school network quickly disciplined the principal who created the list at its school in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. CreditChristopher Lee for The New York Times

Eva S. Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Academy charter school network, said on Friday that a list singling out children under the heading "Got to Go" was an anomaly and that the network did not have a practice of pushing out students it saw as difficult.

Eva's response

Here's Eva's response:

Yesterday The New York Times ran another story about Success Academy, this time using one incident and the experiences of four parents to suggest a network-wide practice of pushing children out. This theme is not new. Two weeks ago, it was PBS, and there were many instances before that. In these articles, the journalists overlook an important fact that disproves their conspiracy theories: Our student retention data shows definitively that we retain more kids than the district schools. The Times article reports on a "got to go" list of 16 scholars at Fort Greene who were disrupting the school. That list was made a year ago, and it was a serious mistake. Within hours of the list being emailed, many people at Success Academy were horrified. Such a practice/idea goes against our belief system. An investigation was conducted and leaders were reprimanded. SA believes that our mission is to educate all children. We must and do go to extraordinary lengths to make Success Academy schools work for children.  When a child is challenging or a parent is not on board, we don't give up. We have an obligation to try to make the partnership with families work. But we also have an obligation to balance the needs of all the children in a school. We must ensure the safety of all children and staff, and it is sometimes appropriate to suspend a child. The misconceptions around suspensions and special education are grossly unfair and hurtful to the extraordinarily committed and caring leaders, teachers and network staff who work day and night to help children achieve their fullest potential. This afternoon, we organized a press conference at Success Academy Harlem 2. I was very proud to stand with our leaders from across the network to share our philosophy, our practices, and our values, and it is because of you that we have been able to bring those values of joyful rigor and high academic standards to 34 schools across four boroughs of the city. You can see the full press conference by openinghttps://www.periscope.tv/w/1eaKbEAMLknxX (the link may only be live for 24 hours). Thank you for all you have done and are doing to make their work possible. Warmly, Eva Moskowitz Founder and CEO

Below is the NYT article about her press conference:

Eva S. Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Academy charter school network, said on Friday that a list singling out children under the heading "Got to Go" was an anomaly and that the network did not have a practice of pushing out students it saw as difficult.

Ms. Moskowitz said that as soon as the network learned about the list, Success Academy quickly reprimanded the principal who had created it.

The list included the names of 16 students. It was created in December at the direction of Candido Brown, who had just become the principal of Success Academy Fort Greene.

Ms. Moskowitz said the school, which then went through second grade, had severe disciplinary problems. Mr. Brown previously said in an email that he believed he could not turn the school around if the 16 students remained.

Success Academy is New York City's largest charter school network and serves mostly black and Hispanic students, who perform much better on state tests than the citywide averages. The network's critics have long argued that it achieves those results in part by weeding out weak or difficult students, and the list appeared to lend some validity to those accusations.

Ms. Moskowitz, who spoke on Friday at a news conference, said that the list existed for only three days before Mr. Brown was admonished and that he changed course. Nonetheless, nine of the students on the list eventually left the school.

Parents of four of them said that school or network employees told them that the school was not right for their children and that they should withdraw. They described repeated suspensions, multiple daily phone calls and frequent demands to pick their children up from school early, which made their lives difficult and in some cases contributed to their decisions to leave.

Ms. Moskowitz, a former member of the City Council, said the fact that the network chastised Mr. Brown so quickly showed that his actions did not reflect the network's approach.

"A mistake was made here, and I take personal responsibility as the leader of this organization," she said.

"But I take credit for the fact that we acted swiftly to address the mistake, to correct his understanding and the school community's understanding," she added.

What’s really “Got to Go” in our schools:

Here's a great article on what's really "Got to Go" in our schools:

We're parents of young kids, so you can imagine our initial outrage when we read about the Success Academy principal who kept a "Got to Go" list of difficult students. But now that we've heard the full story, what infuriates us even more than a temporarily rogue principal trying to push a small number of students out of a good school is a rogue system that pushes a huge number of students into bad schools for years.

The discipline model at the core of many high-performing charter schools is not for everyone, and it makes sense that some students and parents choose to leave. That, in itself, is not tragic — it's choice. What's truly heartbreaking, however, is what usually happens next for low-income parents: They are forced into their zoned district school based on where they live.

And because income and racial patterns in our city's school zones correlate so strongly with school quality, only true and ubiquitous school choice will help lead to a system of diverse models of quality schools.

We've been lucky. Our kids have had great school choices. Now we're working hard to ensure other kids get the same opportunities. Together, we've been fighting for quality school seats for over a decade. In doing so, we've come up with our own alternative "Got to Go" list:

Our 'Got to Go' list: Two parents take aim at the New York City public school system's pervasive inequities

BY Princess Lyles, Dan Clark

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 12:28 PM

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/lyles-clark-list-article-1.2423229

Online charter school students are lagging

No surprise that a new study shows that online charter schools are a total disaster for kids – this is 100% consistent with my report from two years ago on the largest online charter operator, K12 (see www.tilsonfunds.com/K12.pdf):

Students in the nation's virtual K-12 charter schools — who take all of their classes via computer from home — learn significantly less on average than students at traditional public schools, a new study has found.

The online charter students lost an average of about 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math during the course of a 180-day school year, the study found. In other words, when it comes to math, it's as if the students did not attend school at all.

"There's still some possibility that there's positive learning, but it's so statistically significantly different from the average, it is literally as if the kid did not go to school for an entire year," said Margaret E. Raymond, project director at the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, or CREDO, at Stanford University.

It was the first national study of its kind to examine the academic impact of online public charter schools, which receive tax dollars but operate privately, often under the leadership of for-profit companies.

The study is available at: http://credo.stanford.edu/research-reports.html

Stanford study shows that online charter school students are lagging

The first national analysis of its kind has found that K-12 students enrolled in online public charter schools — where they take all courses online — seriously lag their counterparts in traditional public schools in math and reading achievement. (David Paul Morris/BLOOMBERG)

By Lyndsey Layton October 27

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/stanford-study-shows-that-online-charter-school-students-are-lagging/2015/10/27/c42dc502-7cce-11e5-afce-2afd1d3eb896_story.html

iMentor

I attended the annual gala for iMentor, the best mentorship program in the country that I'm aware of (through it, I've been a mentor to a KIPP (now college) student), and was moved by this video shown at the gala about one mentor-mentee pair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_CAh07Lx4&feature=youtu.be (5:12). iMentor recently expanded from NYC to Chicago and is about to open in the Bay Area. For more info, seewww.imentor.org and/or contact the Executive Director, Mike O'Brien, atmike@imentor.org.

Stanford study shows that online charter school students are lagging

 A very interesting article re. the discussion/debate about how US kids are doing vs. those in other countries, especially when adjusted for various disadvantages:

Here's the good news: American schools may not be as bad as we have been led to believe.

Ah, but here's the bad news: The rest of American society is failing its disadvantaged citizens even more than we realize. The question is, Should educators be responsible for fixing this?

…The lackluster performance has reinforced a belief that American public education — the principals and teachers, the methods and procedures — is just not up to scratch. There must be something wrong when the system in the United States falls short where many others succeed.

But is the criticism fair? Are American schools failing because they are not good at their job? Perhaps their job is simply tougher.

In a report released last week, Martin Carnoy from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, Emma García from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and Tatiana Khavenson from the Institute of Education at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, suggest that socioeconomic deficits impose a particularly heavy burden on American schools.

"Once we adjust for social status, we are doing much better than we think," Professor Carnoy told me. "We underrate our progress."

…This line of thought may let American schools off the hook too easily. Equalizing opportunity is, in fact, one of the core purposes of education. And schools in countries poorer than the United States seem to do a better job.

"There is no way you can blame socioeconomic status for the performance of the United States," said Andreas Schleicher, the O.E.C.D.'s top educational expert, who runs the organization's PISA tests. "When you look at all dimensions of social background, the United States does not suffer a particular disadvantage."

Mr. Schleicher criticized the analysis of the PISA data by Professor Carnoy and his colleagues for using a single indicator: books at home. And he pointed me to a statistic that underscores how the role of socioeconomic status can be overplayed.

…In a country like the United States, with its lopsided distribution of opportunity and reward, social disadvantage will always pose a challenge. What's frustrating, Mr. Schleicher said, is "the inability of the school system to moderate the disadvantage."

Stanford study shows that online charter school students are lagging

The first national analysis of its kind has found that K-12 students enrolled in online public charter schools — where they take all courses online — seriously lag their counterparts in traditional public schools in math and reading achievement. (David Paul Morris/BLOOMBERG)

By Lyndsey Layton October 27

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/stanford-study-shows-that-online-charter-school-students-are-lagging/2015/10/27/c42dc502-7cce-11e5-afce-2afd1d3eb896_story.html

How US kids are doing vs. those in other countries

A very interesting article re. the discussion/debate about how US kids are doing vs. those in other countries, especially when adjusted for various disadvantages:

Here's the good news: American schools may not be as bad as we have been led to believe.

Ah, but here's the bad news: The rest of American society is failing its disadvantaged citizens even more than we realize. The question is, Should educators be responsible for fixing this?

…The lackluster performance has reinforced a belief that American public education — the principals and teachers, the methods and procedures — is just not up to scratch. There must be something wrong when the system in the United States falls short where many others succeed.

But is the criticism fair? Are American schools failing because they are not good at their job? Perhaps their job is simply tougher.

In a report released last week, Martin Carnoy from the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, Emma García from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington and Tatiana Khavenson from the Institute of Education at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, suggest that socioeconomic deficits impose a particularly heavy burden on American schools.

"Once we adjust for social status, we are doing much better than we think," Professor Carnoy told me. "We underrate our progress."

…This line of thought may let American schools off the hook too easily. Equalizing opportunity is, in fact, one of the core purposes of education. And schools in countries poorer than the United States seem to do a better job.

"There is no way you can blame socioeconomic status for the performance of the United States," said Andreas Schleicher, the O.E.C.D.'s top educational expert, who runs the organization's PISA tests. "When you look at all dimensions of social background, the United States does not suffer a particular disadvantage."

Mr. Schleicher criticized the analysis of the PISA data by Professor Carnoy and his colleagues for using a single indicator: books at home. And he pointed me to a statistic that underscores how the role of socioeconomic status can be overplayed.

…In a country like the United States, with its lopsided distribution of opportunity and reward, social disadvantage will always pose a challenge. What's frustrating, Mr. Schleicher said, is "the inability of the school system to moderate the disadvantage."

School vs. Society in America's Failing Students

•  

·  ·  A mural outside Intermediate School 292 in East New York, Brooklyn. One study found that a gap in student performance between the United States and other countries narrowed when social status was considered.

Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

November 3, 2015

Eduardo Porter

ECONOMIC SCENE

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/business/economy/school-vs-society-in-americas-failing-students.html

Here's the good news: American schools may not be as bad as we have been led to believe.

Ah, but here's the bad news: The rest of American society is failing its disadvantaged citizens even more than we realize. The question is, Should educators be responsible for fixing this?

An important report by Ed Trust:

Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California

Oct 26, 2015 by Ed Trust – West

https://west.edtrust.org/resource/black-minds-matter-supporting-the-educational-success-of-black-children-in-california/

"Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California," examines how the nearly 1 million Black youth in California are faring from preschool through college and reveals the distressing disparities that newly released state and national data show persist at all levels of their educational journey. The report also highlights the groundbreaking efforts underway to reverse these trends in California and close achievement and opportunity gaps for African American students.

The report calls on policymakers, education leaders, and all Californians to prioritize the equity-based changes that California's Black students deserve and have been waiting far too long for. If we believe California is a land of opportunity, we must acknowledge that the current rate of progress we see is unacceptable.

We intend for Black Minds Matter to be a kicking off point for important dialogue and action around the state. Please see the series of links below for opportunities to learn, share, engage, and discuss.

 

Download the Report

 

Download the Policy Timeline

 

See the Recommendations

 

Visit the Web Directory of Promising Practices

 

Download the 1 page overview

 

Download the Press Release

 

Stay informed by joining our email list

Here's what's holding black students back, from preschool through college

Marcus Davis, 21, and other high school graduates and seniors attend a College Bridge class in 2014.

(Cheryl A. Guerrero / Los Angeles Times)

Sonali Kohli Contact Reporter

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/community/la-me-edu-black-students-in-california-20151027-story.html

 

Class action lawsuit,Cruz v. State of California.

From StudentsMatter – great to see!

 

Friend,

 

I'm excited to share with you a just-announced settlement of the class action lawsuit,Cruz v. State of California. As you may remember, Cruz was filed by Public Counsel and the ACLU of Southern California on behalf of students who lost valuable learning time because they were placed in fake, contentless classes that lacked any instructional value.

 

Please click here to help us share this exciting news on Twitter.

 

Under this today's historic settlement, the California Department of Education and State Board will provide immediate assistance to six schools in Compton, Los Angeles and Oakland to ensure they comply with AB 1012, a new state law that limits the scheduling and course assignment practices that led to students losing valuable learning time.

 

Please join us in celebrating this important victory for students across the State of California.   

 

Thank you,

 

Hillary Moglen

Whitney's run at the NYC Marathon

 I've posted my marathon tale at:www.tilsonfunds.com/TilsonNYCMarathon.pdf. Here's the intro:

 

As I woke up last Thursday morning, three days before my 49^th birthday, I was having a dream about running the NYC Marathon on my birthday. It seemed very real, so I checked my calendar and, having nothing going on, thought, "Why not?" A few emails later (plus a $2,620 donation to the NY Road Runners' charity), I was registered!

 

A few more emails later with my great friend, David Saltzman, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Robin Hood Foundation, one of my favorite charities, and I was signed up for the 100+ person team raising money for Robin Hood.

 

Then I had three days to: 1) raise as much money as I could for Robin Hood; and 2) contemplate the fact that I had done no training and, in fact, having never run more than six miles in my life! If I failed at this, I was going to cost Robin Hood a lot of money – and it would be a very public embarrassment.

 

Fortunately, my legs held up and I'm pleased to say that I completed the marathon in 4:03:10 – and, much more importantly, raised more than $76,000 for Robin Hood! 

 

The whole experience – before, during and after the race – was an epic adventure (and one that was so emotionally, physically and mentally draining that I was in tears right after I finished)! 

 

Below are the emails and pictures that I sent to my friends and family before and after the race. Enjoy!

 

Best,

 

Whitney

 

PS—It's not too late to donate to Robin Hood – here's the link:https://www.crowdrise.com/whitneytilson. And join me next year on the Robin Hood team!

 

Here's my favorite part:

 

The conversation I had with my legs went something like this:

 

Me (the first seven miles of the race), speaking to my legs: "Hey you guys are doing great! We're averaging 8:34 miles, which would have us finished in 3:44."

 

My legs: "Thanks boss. We're feeling great. This isn't any worse than one of your long Spartan or Tough Mudder races."

 

Me (the next six miles of the race, up to the halfway point): "Hey guys, what are these nine-minute miles?"

 

Them: "We're trying!"

 

Me (miles 14-22): "OK, now I'm getting pissed – you slackers are down to 9:30 miles and, at this pace, I'm at risk of not breaking four hours!"

 

Them: "Hey, shut the f**k up! We've already carried your sorry ass 3x as far as we ever have – and the pounding we're taking from this pavement sucks! Let's go back to the grass, dirt and mud at the Spartan and Tough Mudder races!"

 

Me (miles 23-26.2): "OK, boys, now we're in the home stretch – let's break four hours!"

 

Them: "F**k you! We're toast – you're lucky we don't quit on your altogether!"

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