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Eva Moskowitz Charter School's "Got To Go" List Is An "Anomaly"
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 31, 2015
Modified Oct 31, 2015
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By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 31, 2015
Modified Oct 31, 2015
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Eva Moskowitz, head of the Success Academy charter school network, has denied that it's network policy to dump struggling students, following a report in the Times chronicling a "got to go" list at one of the network's schools in Fort Greene. She will not, however, fire the principal responsible for creating that list.
Friday's Times story reported that the principal of Success Academy in Fort Greene, Candido Brown, compiled a list of 16 struggling and special needs students labeled "Got to Go." Nine of those students eventually left, and per the Times report, it appeared the school made an effort to suspend and single out students whose performance might bring down the school's overall success rate.
At a press conference yesterday, Moskowitz described the Fort Greene list as anomalous, and argued that the Success Academy network does not target struggling students. "We believe that order and respect of the learning environment is foundational to high academic results,” she said. “However, our goal in suspending children or issuing any consequences is not to get rid of children or to have them leave our school. It is to have them have high standards of conduct.”
Still, though Moskowitz chastised Brown, she says she will not discipline him further or fire him. "At Success, we simply don't believe in throwing people on the trash heap for the sake of public relations," she said at the conference.
Charter school opponents have long since argued that networks like Moskowitz's purposefully target, suspend, and exclude students who have trouble performing well to keep their own performance levels high. These include students with learning disabilities and students who misbehave.
Though the Fort Greene school's "Got to Go" list is the most visible example, the Times report noted that Success Academy employees had seen other instances in which struggling students were targeted and repeatedly suspended, suggesting the "Got to Go" list was not, in fact, anomalous.
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charter schools
Eva Moskowitz
success academy
Rebecca Fishbein
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