Panelist’s charter school link is criticized at ‘Miseducation’ event

internal criticism

September 28, 2011

Panelist’s charter school link is criticized at ‘Miseducation’ event

by Geoff Decker, at 3:40 pm

Pedro Noguera and Karen Sprowal talk after the "Miseducation Nation" panel ended.

Panel members at an event critiquing current school reform policies last night criticized testing, large classes, and charter schools — and also a university professor sharing the stage with them.

More than 100 people filled a school auditorium in Manhattan to attend the four-member “Miseducation Nation” panel, which was convened in response to – and got its mocking namesake from – NBC’s “Education Nation” summit, a two-day event that wrapped up earlier that day at Rockefeller Center.

Pedro Noguera, an NYU professor who studies urban education, was invited to speak on the panel and for most of the evening, he was on the same page as his fellow panelists, historian Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, and teacher Brian Jones of the Grassroots Education Movement. They all criticized policymakers for adopting reform ideas that they said were not working – and ignoring alternative ones, such as smaller class sizes and culturally-relevant curriculum, that they said would improve schools.

The panel also criticized the media coverage, which they characterized as biased toward current reform policies. The event was hosted by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, a national media advocacy group. ”We feel beleaguered and we feel there is only one story told repeatedly in the mainstream media,” Haimson said.

More than 100 people, many of which were teachers and parents, packed into the auditorium at P.S. 66 School of the Future.

When moderator Laura Flanders opened up questioning to the audience, criticism quickly turned on Noguera, a board member of the SUNY Charter School Institute, which oversees many of New York City’s most prominent charter schools.

Veteran teacher Michael Fiorillo first brought up the subject when he asked Noguera to explain how he could support opening charter schools, while at the same time being such a vocal opponent of closing the ones that they replace.

Then, Karen Sprowal spoke up. Sprowal is a former Harlem Success Academy parent who has become a vocal critic of charter schools since the story of her child being counseled out was reported in a New York Times column. “What will you do to hold Eva Moskowitz accountable?” Sprowal asked Noguera.

Noguera defended SUNY charter schools as ”the best-performing charter schools in the country” and said his role as a board member actually allowed him to ensure that they followed the rules or else face closure.

But he was not apologetic about his support for high-performing charter schools.

“I think we need ways to change and improve our schools and if charters become one means to do that, I support it,” he said.

Noguera’s responses were not popular with the audience, which jeered him. They also weren’t well-received by Haimson either, who called his answer “pathetic.”

Noguera, who along with Ravitch also appeared as a panelist at the NBC event, said neither one was productive.

“All of these issues are very complex,” Noguera said. “And I think that it’s hard to create a public forum where we can address the complexity of them and I don’t think we did that tonight. I don’t think the education summit did any better either.”

I noticed that…

Noguera, please stop talking out of both sides of your mouth!

It is a known fact that public schools outperform all charter schools. If public schools were to counsel out students the way charters schools have a practice of doing, then the public schools would be spectacular. However, the public schools embrace every child, with all their challenges, and prepare them for the future. Noguera knows this but will only use a few, exceptional charter schools and calls them “the best”.

He should apologize to the public for being a hypocrite.
TeacherFred

Leonie Haimson is a sad and hateful woman. Poor thing.
Ellen

I thought that Ravitch had NOT been invited to the NBC event?????
http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

It’s disappointing, particularly to those of us who are constantly lectured about standards, that Gotham Schools sees fit to leave ad hominem nonsense in its comment section. Leonie Haimson is a hero, fearless, standing up to the billionaires who want to dabble with the rabble, and ought not to be subjected to juvenile name-calling in this space.
ggw

I’m curious: how is Ms. Sprowal’s son doing in his new school? Better?
WaitingforSUNY

Section 3 lines 49-11 of house bill 11310 explain that charter schools must have comparable enrollments of students with disabilities and students with Limited English Proficiency as the districts in which they are located. Charter schools must also have comparable student retention.

Two schools come to mind here.

The first is is Harlem Success Academy which has 10% fewer LEP students than the local district and 13% fewer students with disabilities (they don’t have any students with disabilities.)

The second school is Harlem Village Academy which has had a student attrition rate of over a third of its students between grades 5-8 since it has opened.

Dr. Noguera upset the audience by saying that his role as a trustee would allow him to ask difficult questions to these schools when their charter comes up for review every 5 years.

Noguera doesn’t have to wait 5 years to ask those questions. He just voted to authorize 2 new Village Academies and 3 new Success Academies. SUNY trustees like Noguera must refuse to authorize new charter schools for networks that are in CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE LAW.

DR. NOGUERA WHEN WILL YOU START ENFORCING THE LAW?
Flipflopper

Here is my favorite set of Pedro quotes. See if you can figure out his stance on LIFO.

1) “…the LIFO system for layoffs does need reform because it contributes to high turnover in the most disadvantaged schools.”

2) “Raging debates over LIFO… do little to improve schools and much to distract
from the real challenges.”

He panders to both sides at the same time!
I noticed that…

Listen TeacherFred. Leonie is advocate for small class size. She’s a tireless fighter for more funding to all the schools. She’s a stronger believer of allowing teachers to teach based on a curriculum, and not on test prep mania. How dare you speak about a person who’s an avenger for the public school system. Fred your comments are unfounded and stupid!
I noticed that…

Thank you GS so much for removing that inappropriate comment.
il flerpolo

For the differences between a bill and a law, see Schoolhouse Rock.
http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

I second that.
jandh

she told Dr. Noguera that after a couple tough years he’s now in a great public school and doing well.
jandh

she told Dr. Noguera that after a couple tough years he’s now in a great public school and doing well.
jandh

Your comment reveals both a startling sense of the correctness of your own opinions and a (perhaps related) inability to accurately understand someone else’s position. In your first sentence you make 2 claims (“known fact” and “outperform all charter”). Both are wrong and include no evidence. Your second claim is arguable, and again includes no evidence. Your third claim “public schools embrace every child” is clearly wrong (I could give plenty of evidence from schools I’ve worked with and so could most other teachers) and ignores Dr. Noguera’s arguments and evidence to the contrary.

He should apologize to the public? Please see my comment below.
jandh

Your comment reveals both a startling sense of the correctness of your own opinions and a (perhaps related) inability to accurately understand someone else’s position. In your first sentence you make 2 claims (“known fact” and “outperform all charter”). Both are wrong and include no evidence. Your second claim is arguable, and again includes no evidence. Your third claim “public schools embrace every child” is clearly wrong (I could give plenty of evidence from schools I’ve worked with and so could most other teachers) and ignores Dr. Noguera’s arguments and evidence to the contrary.

He should apologize to the public? Please see my comment below.
jandh

Dr. Noguera’s immense labors on behalf of good schooling, equality, and democracy should be cause for inspiration and celebration. Questions regarding his responsibility for the approval of discriminatory charter schools reflect a meaningful give and take in the public policy process.

Dr. Noguera’s position – that strong charter schools can empower parent choice, innovative practice, and new voices – should be respected, even if disagreed with, as the position of a person who has spent decades intensely studying, working with, advocating, and writing in the interests of the common good. Speaking to and about him as an enemy to be shamed reflects the cartoony and scape-goating culture we live in, individuals’ lack of ability to deal with complexity, and a misunderstanding of the nature of social movement strategy.

I felt impressed with his response to the lack of civility from some members of the audience and his continued respectful engagement with people after the panel. I didn’t hear any panelist describe his response as “pathetic”.

A lot of insights were shared during the event – we shouldn’t let the dramatic propensity of the left to form firing squads as a circle obscure the important common ground demonstrated.
Anonymous

To be clear, what I said to Geoffrey I thought was “pathetic” was Noguera’s specific response to Karen, which for some reason he failed to report and thus quoted my remark entirely out of context.

When Karen asked Noguera how he as an authorizer of this specific charter school would hold the school accountable for pushing out her son in Kindergarten, as well as many other children whose parents she has heard from, Noguera said “We authorize charters every 5 yrs and then we can look at the attrition rates.”

This is unacceptable to me as a parent and should be to others. Noguera, who by the way is head of the SUNY authorizing committee, not merely a board member as written above, has the responsibility to take a close look at this issue and hold Success Academy charters accountable NOW, not in five years or whenever the charter comes up for reauthorization. This is especially true, given the fact that his committee continues to authorize many more Success Academy charters every year. Indeed, it is the fastest growing charter chain in the city, with very aggressive space-grabbing and unneighborly practices as well, which is yet another very problematic aspect of their behavior not mentioned above.

SUNY has the clear legal authority to tell Eva Moskowitz that she should stop pushing out kids, AND screening them as her charters do as well, or else they will close down her schools. This they have the legal authority to do at any time. Or they could ask her for detailed attrition figures. Or they could ask her to explain what happened to Karen’s son and the other little boys who were pushed out during their first few weeks of Kindergarten. But as far as I can tell, they intend to do none of this. Waiting five years just doesn’t cut it.

There are other things that Noguera said that I disagreed with last night; including his claim that district pub schools push out as many kids as charters. It does happen far too much in district schools, but mostly in HS, not in elementary schools; and I have never heard of it happening in Kindergarten. In any case, I think this is really not a good excuse even if it were true; as an authorizer should he condone this behavior even if DOE did it as well?

But it was his immediate response to Karen about waiting five years that I told Geoff I thought was pathetic, and I explained to him why, all of which he left out. I didn’t really expect him to quote this remark, and I should have been more diplomatic in my comments, but in any case I am very disappointed that he omitted the context in which they were clearly made.
Anonymous

I would have loved to come to this but didn’t know about it – organizers, how did you advertise and where can I find out about future panels?
Michael Fiorillo

Jandh,

It the flagrant contradiction between Mr. Noguera’s rhetoric and his actions actions that was questioned last night, not his “positions.” Like anyone else, he is free to have “positions,” but when his actions grossly and disproportionally contradict them, it is proper to ask him how he reconciles that contradiction. That is precisely what I asked. That his answers were so unsatisfactory and disingenuous, especially to Karen Sprowal, were what led to people in the audience to further challenge him. And rightfully so.

As a chief authorizer of charter schools that are among the most aggressive in their appropriation of public facilities, and open and behind-the-scenes attacks on local public schools, his actions have negative consequences far out proportion to the number of students he claims to be helping.

What he and you call “complexity” is more accurately described by other commenters here as speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I’ve lived long enough in New York City, and taught long enough with the DOE, to know that behavior is the most honest form of communication. Watch what people do, not what they say. That includes academics playing both sides of an issue.
Guest

Agree with the sentiment. The blame needs to be shifted off of individuals (clearly everyone on the panel was dedicated to improving outcomes in NYC) and onto the system. Does anyone know if the last meeting of the Charter authorization committee was video taped? I can’t find the link in SUNY’s video archive.

http://www.suny.edu/Board_of_Trustees/meetingNotices.cfm?navLevel=2&archivedPage=Y#b

Charter Networks are taking public money and need to publicly justify why they aren’t meeting enrollment or retention targets.
ASTRAKA

“Your comment reveals both a startling sense of the correctness of your
own opinions and a (perhaps related) inability to accurately understand
someone else’s position”

I am not sure if you realize that this statement applies to your responses perfectly. Just step back, and read it again.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

One of the most important points made by Leonie yesterday (the full hour and a half video is up at the GEM Vimeo site – vimeo.com29735658) was about how gentrifying schools in certain neighborhoods are amongst the most integrated in the city yet their use of space to install enrichment programs that keep this balance intact goes challenged by the DOE and they are declared underutilized, followed by a co-location of another public school or in most cases a charter which undermines the schools and results in making it less integrated because the programs that attract parents get destroyed. Many of us think that is the intention – to actually undermine successful schools – call me a conspiracy nut but it happens too often.

Now Noguera who is a champion of these type of schools – in theory – in essence help assist the DOE by authorizing the very charters that end up undermining these public schools. I’ve actually heard him – I believe I have it on tape from another event – sort of throw up his hands and say, “We don’t know where they will be placed when we authorize them,” one of the most disingenuous comments I’ve heard him make – the classic “who me?”
Bored in Brooklyn

Wow. I knew about this event for a while, but was really surprised to read that it was sponsored by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. This was just as biased as any Mona Davids dog & pony. Does Fairness get funding from the UFT? Just another event that promotes the polarity & bandies rhetoric instead of actual delving into the complexities Noguera speaks of. As a parent at a successful, progressive charter school some media seems pretty darn biased from my perspective as well. These dialogues with unbalanced panels sponsored by entities with specific reform agendas are counter-productive.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

A shameless plug – See- if you read ed notes every day you will know everything about every event. But you can go there now and link to the full video.
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

Ahhh, that old UFT bugaboo. GEM also sponsored the event – the UFT just loves us. I also meant to tell you that FAIR gets funding from Ed Notes – I sent in my $25 bucks. Why don’t you watch the video and come back with some useful criticism. But you just can’t handle The Truth.
I noticed that…

Dear Bored,

The UFT does not fund this or any other organizations. It is imperative that you get accurate information about the various, independent organizations that are formed to fight the status quo “deformers”.

Go on the various links, such as ednotes, GEM, labornotes, Bridging Differences with Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch, NYC Public School Parents, etc., where they detail accurate information about the destruction of the public school system, the co-location of charter schools where squeezing out the public school children from their schools is a Darwinian approach, the hidden agenda of TFA, which I call the drive-by-teaching force, the counseling out of the most neediest children out of charter schools.

Please don’t make comments without the facts to back your statement. Read and you shall learn. Open your eyes to the truth. When you see what’s actually happening, come and join the rest of us in the fight against injustices.
il flerpolo

The UFT gives hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to “various independent organizations.” As does the NEA. These are in the LM-2 disclosures.
jandh

I thought your question was fair, hard, and needed to be asked.

We apparently disagree regarding the proper treatment of fellow life-long activists for social justice.

I feel surprised that you claim to have an accurate account of his benefit/harm ratio (“his actions have…”). I guess the ability to supernaturally document moral accounts could justify the sense of punitive righteousness that you endorse from certain members of the audience.

A number of statements and implications made by the panel should have been questioned, contextualized, challenged, and nuanced. For instance, Dr. Ravitch at one point seemed to claim that public schools had been relatively successful before standardized testing. I would have wanted to challenge her perspective with information about literacy rates among African-American students where I taught when the first required standardized tests documented a proficiency rate of below 5% among that population. But I would consider it insanity to interrupt her, prevent her from speaking, or otherwise seek to shame & intimidate her, given her (varied) history and present practice of working on behalf of the common good.
il flerpolo

As I’m sure you’re aware, this is not the place for careful analysis and reasoned argumentation. Here, you don’t begin from a position of ignorance and see where the evidence leads. You begin with your convictions and work backwards. This is a pep rally. Better grab a megaphone.
bee

Is the Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School, the subject of an article in today’s New York Daily News, an example of one of Mr. Noguera’s “best performing” SUNY charter schools in the country? If so, it’s not a wonder people jeered him. I think it’s irresponsible to continue authorizing charter schools at all, until the alarmingly vast numbers of issues pertaining to charters is resolved. Who is policing the charter operators/operators?
Ksprowal

There has been a lot of controversy raised about my question to Prof. Pedro Noguera and his response at the MisEducation Nation forum on Tuesday night. I would like to clarify the issues as I see them son, Matthew, was kicked out of Kindergarten in the fall of 2008 at the Harlem Success Charter school. It took a while for me and Matthew to get over this experience, to feel comfortable talking about it, but our story was recently documented in an article in the NY Times.
Eva Moskowitz has confirmed to the Times that my son was indeed asked to leave, as her school couldn’t “serve” him properly. He was kicked out along with 4? other little boys the first few weeks of school. After the article about Matthew appeared in the Times, I have heard from many other parents whose children have suffered a similar fate at her schools. I have since learned that this particular charter, along with most all the other ones in the Success charter chain, were authorized and are supposed to be overseen by the SUNY charter committee, which is headed by Prof. Noguera. I also learned that Prof. Noguera has made many comments about the need to hold charter schools accountable for just this sort of behavior. For example, in an article that appeared in the West Side Spirit last year, about the controversy over putting a new Success charter school into the Brandeis building, questions were raised about whether these charters pushed out kids, and Prof. Noguera said that he didn’t believe that this practice had occurred: http://bit.ly/gE6JSZ

Success’ critics almost invariably make the claim that the schools force or encourage children with learning disabilities or academic problems to leave the school in an effort to pump up the test scores—but there does not appear to be much evidence to support the accusation…. Even Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University, who received the stamp of approval for this article from Moskowitz’s most powerful foe, the UFT, said the accusation looks to be bogus.” I think it’s true of some charters, but I don’t think it’s true of hers,” said Noguera… Noguera, who thinks it may be a good thing if other schools feel competition from the new charter, said the Harlem academies do a great job helping students with individual needs and “are the best charters in the city.” Then in May, in another article, Prof. Noguera said that if charter schools pushed out kids, they should be held accountable:

http://gothamschools.org/2011/05/23/in-washington-heights-a-basic-education-on-charter-schools/
“Noguera said some charter schools are illegally screening students, …“It really concerns me when I see that there’s some evidence that some of the charters are screening kids and have adopted measures to either screen or to push out students that are more challenging to serve,” Noguera said. “Because it’s creating this very unequal playing field between the charters and the public schools. So I think that the authorizers and the state need to be more vigilant in holding those schools accountable.” (to be cont. on 2nd post)

For example, in an article that appeared in the West Side Spirit last year, about the controversy over putting a new Success charter school into the Brandeis building, questions were raised about whether these charters pushed out kids, and Prof. Noguera said that he didn’t believe that this practice had occurred: http://bit.ly/gE6JSZ

Success’ critics almost invariably make the claim that the schools force or encourage children with learning disabilities or academic problems to leave the school in an effort to pump up the test scores—but there does not appear to be much evidence to support the accusation…. Even Pedro Noguera, an education professor at New York University, who received the stamp of approval for this article from Moskowitz’s most powerful foe, the UFT, said the accusation looks to be bogus.” I think it’s true of some charters, but I don’t think it’s true of hers,” said Noguera… Noguera, who thinks it may be a good thing if other schools feel competition from the new charter, said the Harlem academies do a great job helping students with individual needs and “are the best charters in the city.” Then in May, in another article, Prof. Noguera said that if charter schools pushed out kids, they should be held accountable:

http://gothamschools.org/2011/05/23/in-washington-heights-a-basic-education-on-charter-schools/
“Noguera said some charter schools are illegally screening students, …“It really concerns me when I see that there’s some evidence that some of the charters are screening kids and have adopted measures to either screen or to push out students that are more challenging to serve,” Noguera said. “Because it’s creating this very unequal playing field between the charters and the public schools. So I think that the authorizers and the state need to be more vigilant in holding those schools accountable.” (to be cont. on 2nd post)
Ksprowal

(cont.)
So at the forum, I asked Prof. Noguera that if he thought that authorizers needed to be more “vigilant in holding those schools accountable,” as head of the committee that authorized the school that pushed out my child and many others, what he would do about it. That’s when he responded that every five years, when the charter comes up for re-authorization, they look at the attrition data. First of all, it is very hard to track attrition, because the school doesn’t accurately report how many kids leave and enter the school each year. But more importantly, I don’t think this reflects a properly “vigilant” attitude on his part. He and the other authorizers shouldn’t sit back and wait five years, when kids are being hurt every day. His other comments were no more reassuring. He said DOE schools push out kids just as much as charters, which is not the experience I have had with Matthew’s new school. To the contrary, they have been patient and wonderfully supportive, and given him extra help he needed to thrive, despite his ADHD. Also, Prof. Noguera’s claims that he authorizes “ high performing” charters is not relevant either, if they are “high performing” as a result of screening out and pushing out children like my son. At the beginning of the forum, Prof. Noguera had also said that he cares about promoting more integration in our schools, and I agree. But it is well-known that charters lead to more segregation – the opposite direction that we should be moving towards, as a city.When I spoke to him after the event, he smiled and nodded his head, but I didn’t get the sense that he was taking my concerns seriously. I went into more detail about how after winning the lottery for Harlem Success Academy, Matthew was screened, deemed defective and kicked out of the school, all of this happening within his first month of school. Did he have any idea what this does emotionally to an at-risk 5-year-old black boy in this society? Prof. Noguera didn’t seem to care or want to hear from me about this, even though I have saved a meticulous paper trail, revealing solid evidence of the practices used by this charter chain to “cherry pick.” I shared with him that Eva Moskowitz had personally emailed to me to say that “HSA will not be good fit for my son,” but when I refused to leave and requested a non-punitive educational plan for my son, we were put out in a manner that was reprehensible and illegal. Prof. Noguera graciously smiled, briefly listened and brushed me off again! Even though I found a great public school for my son after he was pushed out, I think more of us need to be angry about how many children like my son Matthew are being marginalized and victimized by the charter school movement. When your actions and policies hurt children, especially those most at risk – it feels extremely personal!There are now nine Success Academies, all co-located in NYC public school buildings, with three more, all authorized by SUNY, opening in 2012. As the chief authorizer for the Success Academy charters, I wanted to know whether Prof. Noguera would hold Eva Moskowitz accountable. It was a fair question that deserved a direct answer. And in his way, he gave it, and the answer was NO… As a black single parent, living in poverty, with a special needs son, I am offended!
At the beginning of the forum, Prof. Noguera had also said that he cares about promoting more integration in our schools, and I agree. But it is well-known that charters lead to more segregation – the opposite direction that we should be moving towards, as a city.

When I spoke to him after the event, he smiled and nodded his head, but I didn’t get the sense that he was taking my concerns seriously. I went into more detail about how after winning the lottery for Harlem Success Academy, Matthew was screened, deemed defective and kicked out of the school, all of this happening within his first month of school. Did he have any idea what this does emotionally to an at-risk 5-year-old black boy in this society? Prof. Noguera didn’t seem to care or want to hear from me about this, even though I have saved a meticulous paper trail, revealing solid evidence of the practices used by this charter chain to “cherry pick.”

I shared with him that Eva Moskowitz had personally emailed to me to say that “HSA will not be good fit for my son,” but when I refused to leave and requested a non-punitive educational plan for my son, we were put out in a manner that was reprehensible and illegal. Prof. Noguera graciously smiled, briefly listened and brushed me off again!

Even though I found a great public school for my son after he was pushed out, I think more of us need to be angry about how many children like my son Matthew are being marginalized and victimized by the charter school movement. When your actions and policies hurt children, especially those most at risk – it feels extremely personal!

There are now nine Success Academies, all co-located in NYC public school buildings, with three more, all authorized by SUNY, opening in 2012. As the chief authorizer for the Success Academy charters, I wanted to know whether Prof. Noguera would hold Eva Moskowitz accountable. It was a fair question that deserved a direct answer. And in his way, he gave it, and the answer was NO… As a black single parent, living in poverty, with a special needs son, I am offended!

His other comments were no more reassuring. He said DOE schools push out kids just as much as charters, which is not the experience I have had with Matthew’s new school. To the contrary, they have been patient and wonderfully supportive, and given him extra help he needed to thrive, despite his ADHD. Also, Prof. Noguera’s claims that he authorizes “ high performing” charters is not relevant either, if they are “high performing” as a result of screening out and pushing out children like my son. At the beginning of the forum, Prof. Noguera had also said that he cares about promoting more integration in our schools, and I agree. But it is well-known that charters lead to more segregation – the opposite direction that we should be moving towards, as a city.When I spoke to him after the event, he smiled and nodded his head, but I didn’t get the sense that he was taking my concerns seriously. I went into more detail about how after winning the lottery for Harlem Success Academy, Matthew was screened, deemed defective and kicked out of the school, all of this happening within his first month of school. Did he have any idea what this does emotionally to an at-risk 5-year-old black boy in this society? Prof. Noguera didn’t seem to care or want to hear from me about this, even though I have saved a meticulous paper trail, revealing solid evidence of the practices used by this charter chain to “cherry pick.” I shared with him that Eva Moskowitz had personally emailed to me to say that “HSA will not be good fit for my son,” but when I refused to leave and requested a non-punitive educational plan for my son, we were put out in a manner that was reprehensible and illegal. Prof. Noguera graciously smiled, briefly listened and brushed me off again! Even though I found a great public school for my son after he was pushed out, I think more of us need to be angry about how many children like my son Matthew are being marginalized and victimized by the charter school movement. When your actions and policies hurt children, especially those most at risk – it feels extremely personal!There are now nine Success Academies, all co-located in NYC public school buildings, with three more, all authorized by SUNY, opening in 2012. As the chief authorizer for the Success Academy charters, I wanted to know whether Prof. Noguera would hold Eva Moskowitz accountable. It was a fair question that deserved a direct answer. And in his way, he gave it, and the answer was NO… As a black single parent, living in poverty, with a special needs son, I am offended!
At the beginning of the forum, Prof. Noguera had also said that he cares about promoting more integration in our schools, and I agree. But it is well-known that charters lead to more segregation – the opposite direction that we should be moving towards, as a city.

When I spoke to him after the event, he smiled and nodded his head, but I didn’t get the sense that he was taking my concerns seriously. I went into more detail about how after winning the lottery for Harlem Success Academy, Matthew was screened, deemed defective and kicked out of the school, all of this happening within his first month of school. Did he have any idea what this does emotionally to an at-risk 5-year-old black boy in this society? Prof. Noguera didn’t seem to care or want to hear from me about this, even though I have saved a meticulous paper trail, revealing solid evidence of the practices used by this charter chain to “cherry pick.”

I shared with him that Eva Moskowitz had personally emailed to me to say that “HSA will not be good fit for my son,” but when I refused to leave and requested a non-punitive educational plan for my son, we were put out in a manner that was reprehensible and illegal. Prof. Noguera graciously smiled, briefly listened and brushed me off again!

Even though I found a great public school for my son after he was pushed out, I think more of us need to be angry about how many children like my son Matthew are being marginalized and victimized by the charter school movement. When your actions and policies hurt children, especially those most at risk – it feels extremely personal!

There are now nine Success Academies, all co-located in NYC public school buildings, with three more, all authorized by SUNY, opening in 2012. As the chief authorizer for the Success Academy charters, I wanted to know whether Prof. Noguera would hold Eva Moskowitz accountable. It was a fair question that deserved a direct answer. And in his way, he gave it, and the answer was NO… As a black single parent, living in poverty, with a special needs son, I am offended!
I noticed that…

Ms. Sprowal, I admire your courage for detailing the unfortunate situation that Success put you and your son through when he was with that charter school. I want to thank you for bringing attention to everyone about the unfair practices in charter schools. If it happened to you, most likely, it also happened to other parents.
I noticed that…

Ms. Sprowal states that Noguera told her that public schools also push students out. He needs to back up those words with facts. I know that the only students discharged from schools are the over 21 years who have not gotten their diploma. Schools are allowed to discharge them; this is a state ed law. Another case may be a special needs child placed in a public school but this child needs extensive services and only district 75 can provided that service. Again, this is legal. So Prof. Noguera please detail that point about public schools counseling out needy students.
Anonymous

Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School, mentioned below and under investigation by the state for scrimping on staffing & supplies while paying huge amounts to a for-profit management company is indeed authorized by SUNY. More on the school is here: http://tinyurl.com/3o3qrkx
I noticed that…

Dear Ms. Sprowal,
Please know that the public school teachers will embrace your child and will help him to grow emotionally and academically. It is a disgrace and shameful what Eva Moscowitz is doing to the children. Her greed for power, fame and money has priority over the education of a child.
bee

And there was another SUNY authorized school in the news recently, Achievement First Bushwick, something to do with an unacceptable ELL program I believe.

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GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

internal criticism

September 28, 2011

Panelist’s charter school link is criticized at ‘Miseducation’ event

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