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Charter School Leader, Standing Next To Crying Teacher, Blames Damning Video On "Gotcha Tactics"
By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 13, 2016
Modified Feb 13, 2016
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Emma Whitford / Gothamist
By
Emma Whitford
Published Feb 13, 2016
Modified Feb 13, 2016
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Success Academy head Eva Moskowitz held a press conference yesterday afternoon to denounce the New York Times for publishing a video that showed one of her teachers excoriating a first grader and ripping up the student's paperwork.
"I can't stand by as the New York Times uses selective and 'gotcha' tactics," she told a group of reporters and 170 hand-picked parents and teachers inside the schools' headquarters on Wall Street. "It is really beyond disappointing that we can't seem to get a fair shake from the paper of record."
Standing next to Moskowitz, occasionally breaking down into tears, was Success Academy Cobble Hill first grade teacher Charlotte Dial. Dial was caught on video in October 2014 yelling at a first grader for stumbling over a math problem. In the video, she rips up the child's worksheet before banishing her to a "calm down chair." She did not speak for herself on Friday.
This was the second press conference Moskowitz hosted that featured one of her crying subordinates. The first was in November, after the Times revealed a Success school's "Got-to-Go" list.
"I don't believe that we have systemic problems," Moskowitz said yesterday. "I am very, very confident that we have a culture of respecting children and nurturing children."
Success Academy administrators argued on Friday that the video stood out as an anomaly —both in Dial's teaching career, and in the network as a whole. "If the New York Times wanted to tell the true story, they would't be focusing on a 60 second video that happened 15 months ago," said Success Academy Cobble Hill Principal Kerry Nichols.
While some parents and politicians have praised Success Academy for its academic rigor, its focus on students, and high test scores, others say that the scores come at the expense of struggling students, some of whom have allegedly been disciplined to the point of expulsion.
According to five current and former teachers interviewed by the NY Times, ripping up papers is common practice at Success Academies (one teacher said the tactic was encouraged as a way to "demonstrate urgency" and get a child's attention). According to one, the practice even had a name—a "rip and redo."
Dial was suspended for a week and a half when the video was shown to school administrators, and underwent a week of specialized teacher training. "Charlotte Dial made a mistake," Moskowitz told reporters. "A big mistake. I don't condone what is in the video...But we're all human."
Moskowitz went on to compare the role of a teacher to that of a parent, suggesting that the same heated emotions are acceptable for both. "If someone had videotaped me as a parent during any moment of my 16 hour day with my children, I might not have come off so great," she said. "Frustration is a human emotion, and particularly when you care so much for your children... it can be frustrating."
Asked about the so-called "rip and redo" method, Moskowitz spoke defensively of her school's high academic standards. "It is not our policy to rip up student work," she said. "It is our policy to insist that children re-do. We make no apologies for the need to re-do work when it's not done."
Moskowitz also demanded that the Times publish reporter Kate Taylor's interviews with the parents of Dial's current first graders (some of which are excerpted in the original piece). When Taylor herself asked Moskowitz to confirm whether the girl singled out in the video still attends Success Academy Cobble Hill, the charter head declined to provide the information for the crowd.
"We're going to get you that information, we just want to make sure it's accurate," she said. When Taylor pressed for more information, Moskowitz replied, "Could you not be snarky?"
Parents selected to speak at today's conference had nothing but praise for Success. "I have never seen anything that's made me feel uncomfortable there," said Natasha Shannon, a parent in the system for ten years. "People who don't like it, they don't have to send their children there. I stand here as a tax payer and as a parent, and I can tell you—you don't have to go there."
Outside the press conference several parents of special needs children who formerly attended Success schools chanted, "Eva! Eva! You can't hide!" Some of those parents had spoken to the press about Success Academy Fort Greene's controversial "Got To Go" list of 16 students, all of whom were allegedly targeted for forced expulsion.
Fatima Geidi's son Jamir was suspended from Upper West Success Academy numerous times, as detailed in a PBS feature last fall (PBS latter issued an apology for failing to offer Moskowitz a chance to comment on Jamir's case in particular).
"It's not just the child that this happened to," said Geidi, referring to the Dial video. "What does this say to the other children in the classroom, who might have special needs? It's not just a one-time thing. It's an atmosphere, and it's scary to me."
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Rip and Redo
success academy
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Emma Whitford
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