Latest news with #SuccessAcademy
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
NY charter school leader compares teachers union, lawmakers to segregationists ‘barricading' kids: ‘Super politically threatening'
The leader of New York's largest charter school network compared teachers' union activists and lawmakers to segregationists 'barricading' children from quality schools. Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the 57-school Success Academy, blasted labor leaders and lawmakers and said they are taking a page out of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's playbook and standing in schoolhouse doors because they're 'super politically threatened' by charter schools putting the brakes on their gravy train. 'There is a deep connection in New York between the union and local elected officials for everything from trying to shut the schools down to barricading, not allowing children into the school building,' Moskowitz said during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Education on May 14. She then referenced the landmark Supreme Court 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that declared 'separate but equal' racially segregated schools unconstitutional. 'I am experiencing sort of the opposite, where union operatives have not allowed children to get into the building. It's a pretty venomous debate, which is really, really unfortunate,' Moskowitz told committee members. Moskowitz later told The Post she was referring to United Federation of Teachers protests in 2009 outside the Harlem Success Academy 2, which co-located in a school building with PS 123 in Harlem. She mentioned the ugly episode in her book, 'The Education of Eva Moskowitz.' Her testimony evoked Wallace, who infamously stood at the front of the admissions office at the University of Alabama in 1963 in an unsuccessful bid to block two black students from enrolling in classes in the previously segregated school. Moskowitz said dealing with the Democratic-controlled government in deeply blue New York 'has its challenges.' Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Ca.), chairman of the panel and a charter school booster, asked Moskowitz if she had the support of Albany lawmakers given the high performance of her students in math and readings after hearing Success Academy students ranked first in New York State in math and third in reading, according to standardized test score results. On the contrary, she called the efforts to co-locate her charter schools in city buildings with unionized traditional public schools a '19-year battle' because 'the teachers union has made life very, very difficult' including by filing lawsuits to try to block access to school buildings. The union has unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to block co-location of Success Academy charter schools as recently as 2023 in Brooklyn and Queens. Charter schools have become a polarizing political issue in recent years, with Republicans generally in support of school choice while many Democrats have lined up with the politically powerful teachers' union. Moskowitz said the teachers' union and lawmakers find it 'super politically threatening' upon hearing proof that poor and mostly minority students are excelling in her schools. 'There is a problem with a system of delivering [results],' she said. But the ranking Democrat on the education panel, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), cited flaws as well as benefits of charter schools. 'At their best, they offer potential for innovation, flexibility and responsiveness to community needs,' Bonamici said. 'But at their worst, and too often in practice, they operate without adequate oversight, without sufficient safeguards for civil rights, and without the transparency required of traditional public schools,' she added. Moskowitz told the panel that 100% of Success Academy high school graduates went on to to four-year colleges the past eight years — and 95% of students have taken and passed at least one Advanced Placement course. 'Providing a structured, joyful, focused learning environment with an exceptional teacher training and education training program is really our secret sauce,' Moskowitz said. She put in a plug for the High Quality Charter School Act, co-sponsored by Kiley, that would provide a new tax credit for charitable contributions to nonprofit charter school organizations. The House GOP did not include the tax break to publicly funded charter schools in its tax bill as it did for private schools, but Kiley vowed to include the provision in the final legislation. Upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House Republican chairwoman, said NY kids need school choice. 'NY elected Democrats near universal opposition to school choice has left our students trapped in a failing system. Despite spending more than any state in the nation per student —New York's schools continue to underperform with rampant absenteeism and failing outcomes,' Stefanik said. 'It's time to give every child the chance to reach their full potential.' Michael Mulgrew, UTF union president, painted the charter schools as exclusionary. 'Talk to the parents of the thousands of children Eva Moskowitz pushed out of her schools,' Mulgrew said in a statement. 'Traditional public schools enroll, cherish, and teach all children. Moskowitz's charter schools do not and never have.' Additional reporting by Joshua Christenson
New York Post
18-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
NY charter school leader compares teachers union, lawmakers to segregationists ‘barricading' kids: ‘Super politically threatening'
The leader of New York's largest charter school network compared teachers' union activists and lawmakers to segregationists 'barricading' children from quality schools. Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the 57-school Success Academy, blasted labor leaders and lawmakers and said they are taking a page out of former Alabama Gov. George Wallace's playbook and standing in schoolhouse doors because they're 'super politically threatened' by charter schools putting the brakes on their gravy train. 'There is a deep connection in New York between the union and local elected officials for everything from trying to shut the schools down to barricading, not allowing children into the school building,' Moskowitz said during testimony before the House Subcommittee on Education on May 14. Advertisement 5 Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz testifying before the House Committee on Education & Workforce on May 13, 2025. House Committee on Education & Workforce She then referenced the landmark Supreme Court 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that declared 'separate but equal' racially segregated schools unconstitutional. 'I am experiencing sort of the opposite, where union operatives have not allowed children to get into the building. It's a pretty venomous debate, which is really, really unfortunate,' Moskowitz told committee members. Advertisement Moskowitz later told The Post she was referring to United Federation of Teachers protests in 2009 outside the Harlem Success Academy 2, which co-located in a school building with PS 123 in Harlem. She mentioned the ugly episode in her book, 'The Education of Eva Moskowitz.' Her testimony evoked Wallace, who infamously stood at the front of the admissions office at the University of Alabama in 1963 in an unsuccessful bid to block two black students from enrolling in classes in the previously segregated school. Moskowitz said dealing with the Democratic-controlled government in deeply blue New York 'has its challenges.' 5 Moskowitz compared teacher union leaders and lawmakers to segregationists for preventing children from joining charter schools. AP Advertisement 5 Moskowitz evoked former Alabama Gov. George Wallace in her testimony to Congress. AP Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Ca.), chairman of the panel and a charter school booster, asked Moskowitz if she had the support of Albany lawmakers given the high performance of her students in math and readings after hearing Success Academy students ranked first in New York State in math and third in reading, according to standardized test score results. On the contrary, she called the efforts to co-locate her charter schools in city buildings with unionized traditional public schools a '19-year battle' because 'the teachers union has made life very, very difficult' including by filing lawsuits to try to block access to school buildings. The union has unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to block co-location of Success Academy charter schools as recently as 2023 in Brooklyn and Queens. Advertisement Charter schools have become a polarizing political issue in recent years, with Republicans generally in support of school choice while many Democrats have lined up with the politically powerful teachers' union. 5 Moskowitz told Rep. Kevin Kiley that Success Academy hasn't been supported by many Albany lawmakers despite students achieving high marks in math and reading. House Committee on Education & Workforce Moskowitz said the teachers' union and lawmakers find it 'super politically threatening' upon hearing proof that poor and mostly minority students are excelling in her schools. 'There is a problem with a system of delivering [results],' she said. But the ranking Democrat on the education panel, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon), cited flaws as well as benefits of charter schools. 'At their best, they offer potential for innovation, flexibility and responsiveness to community needs,' Bonamici said. 'But at their worst, and too often in practice, they operate without adequate oversight, without sufficient safeguards for civil rights, and without the transparency required of traditional public schools,' she added. 5 Moskowitz testified that 'the teachers union has made life very, very difficult' for Success Academy. House Committee on Education & Workforce Advertisement Moskowitz told the panel that 100% of Success Academy high school graduates went on to to four-year colleges the past eight years — and 95% of students have taken and passed at least one Advanced Placement course. 'Providing a structured, joyful, focused learning environment with an exceptional teacher training and education training program is really our secret sauce,' Moskowitz said. She put in a plug for the High Quality Charter School Act, co-sponsored by Kiley, that would provide a new tax credit for charitable contributions to nonprofit charter school organizations. The House GOP did not include the tax break to publicly funded charter schools in its tax bill as it did for private schools, but Kiley vowed to include the provision in the final legislation. Advertisement Upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik, the House Republican chairwoman, said NY kids need school choice. 'NY elected Democrats near universal opposition to school choice has left our students trapped in a failing system. Despite spending more than any state in the nation per student —New York's schools continue to underperform with rampant absenteeism and failing outcomes,' Stefanik said. 'It's time to give every child the chance to reach their full potential.' Advertisement The United Federation of Teachers had no immediate comment. Additional reporting by Joshua Christenson
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion: ‘Sold a Story': 6 Takeaways from Deep Dive into Literacy in Steubenville, Ohio
A version of this essay originally appeared on Robert Pondiscio's Substack. I've made no secret of my admiration for Emily Hanford, who has done more to build demand for scientifically sound reading instruction than nearly anyone in the last decade — not just in journalism but in education at large. Her original 'Sold a Story' series was a seismic shift, grabbing public attention and spurring state legislation mandating curriculum and instruction rooted in the science of reading. Now, she's back with three fresh installments, as potent as ever. These tell the story of Steubenville, Ohio — a gritty steel town-turned-reading powerhouse thanks to a 25-year commitment to Success for All, a research-backed, whole-school reform model Nancy Madden and Bob Slavin began developing as reading researchers at Johns Hopkins in the 1970s. Like all of Hanford's work, the new episodes are deeply reported, well-informed, engaging and must-hear podcasts. I binge-listened to them twice on a long drive this week. Here are my takeaways: Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter In education, especially for schools serving disadvantaged kids, curriculum changes as often as losing baseball teams swap managers — new year, new playbook, same old slump. Not so in Steubenville, where sticking with Success for All for 25 years has been a game-changer. In fact, they haven't changed the game in a quarter-century. Minimal churn — low teacher turnover, a decade-long superintendent and 48% of staff are local grads — breeds a stability other schools and districts can only envy. Hanford gets baffled looks when she asks Steubenville teachers if they'd ever heard of Lucy Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell or even balanced literacy. 'Steubenville had no need to pursue the latest trend, to even know what the latest trend was,' she reports, 'because what they were doing was working. It's been working. For 25 years.' Related SFA is a standout, backed by a mountain of research that Hanford highlights. It's not just a reading curriculum, it's a whole-school overhaul — curriculum and instruction, professional development, leadership training, etc. — that's lifted Steubenville's poorest kids to nationally recognized heights, pushing reading scores two grade levels above peers'. Hanford cites research that shows eighth graders staying ahead in reading, with fewer held back or in special ed, cutting costs over time. Interestingly, SFA also shaped Success Academy's early days, as I chronicled in my book How the Other Half Learns. A New York hedge fund manager, John Petry, wrote a charter school application after he and his partner Joel Greenblatt persuaded and paid for a Queens, New York, public school to implement SFA to great effect. They hired Eva Moskowitz to lead it. About the same time, Steubenville was looking for a new reading program. 'Most people familiar with the reading research seemed to agree at the time that there were probably only two reading programs that had been tested and proven with scientific research,' Hanford reports: Success for All and Direct Instruction. SFA and Direct Instruction both face a big — and, for some, insurmountable — hurdle: Both are scripted, and some teachers hate that. Teachers tend to valorize freedom over recipes, and that resistance keeps SFA and Direct Instruction niche, even with Steubenville's success and DI's decades of data. Could 'Sold a Story' change that misperception? We'll see. What has made Hanford's work so impactful is that she demonstrates how teachers have been misled about what is and is not effective practice; her work casts teachers not as sinners, but as sinned against by schools of education, publishing companies and instructional gurus. The same is true about instructional design and 'scripts.' In 'How to Be the Next Emily Hanford,' a piece I wrote for Education Next with my colleague Riley Fletcher last year, we encouraged education journalists to follow Hanford's lead and cast their gaze on classroom practice — teaching and learning — rather than the policy and politics that tend to dominate education reporting. If these new episodes bolster SFA and DI's reputations and discredit detractors, spotlighting evidence over perceptions of rigidity, it will be a big service. Related SFA isn't just a program — it's a pact, insisting that teachers vote to adopt it before it takes root. Steubenville conducted a secret ballot in which 100% of the staff agreed to adopt it — proof that the buy-in was real. That's no small thing. I've often rankled my fellow curriculum advocates by saying I'd rather my daughter's teacher be a Kool-Aid-swilling acolyte of a curriculum and pedagogy I dislike than have my preferred curriculum imposed on her and implemented begrudgingly. In How the Other Half Learns, I expected to write about curriculum and instruction at Success Academy but surprised myself by writing more about school culture: The X factor that makes those schools soar is every adult in a kid's life singing from the same hymnal. SFA gets that: Without teachers on board, even the best program flops. Steubenville's success hinges on that buy-in, a lesson too many reform efforts — and too many top-down technocratic reformers — miss or elide. Winning hearts and minds matters. EdReports looms large in Hanford's latest episodes, a flawed gatekeeper in the science of reading push. In her Steubenville saga, it's a shadow player — SFA's evidence shines and Steubenville was implementing it long before EdReports emerged on the scene. But not long ago Ohio's initial 'approved' list of reading curriculum snubbed SFA because EdReports hadn't reviewed it, while green-lighting programs with weaker bona fides. How is that possible? EdReports was created to aid and abet Common Core implementation, not as a science of reading arbiter, yet states like Ohio leaned on it to approve curricula. That led to picks that often flunked the evidence test. Hanford shows EdReports' clout — 40 publishers tweaked products for its ratings, and nearly 2,000 districts followed suit — but also its flaws: It gave high marks to programs employing discredited techniques like 'three-cueing,' while SFA, as a 'whole-school' model, was beyond its scope. That disconnect nearly cost Steubenville its proven program. I've long put EdReports in the category of 'things I choose to love.' If you believe, as I do, that high-quality instructional materials are critical to student success, EdReports helped pushed curriculum to the center of reform conversations. But Hanford's reporting echoes a worry I've harbored: Standards alignment isn't enough. Built for Common Core, EdReports encourages a view of reading that is neutral to agnostic on quality. A 'standards-based' view of reading means you can teach Dickens or dreck. EdReports' ratings don't tell me if a program's texts are worth the time. Related I've written favorably about state efforts to center curriculum in reform, like Louisiana's push to 'make the best choice the easy choice' by curating top-tier options. But Hanford shows critical pitfalls: Ohio banned three-cueing and built 'science of reading' lists — bravo! — yet nearly axed SFA because EdReports didn't review it. Steubenville dodged a bullet, but the misstep echoes Reading First's chaos: good intent, shaky execution. Lists can guide, but when they lean on flawed tools over hard evidence, they're more clutter than clarity. Steubenville proves schools can defy the odds with evidence, continuity and teacher buy-in — not just phonics. SFA and DI shine — I've been hyping DI this month and before — yet state lists and EdReports risk sidelining them for flashier flops. Education is cursed with too much innovation, not enough execution. These episodes scream it louder. Hanford's work remains a wake-up call, and these episodes raise the stakes: We've got the evidence, so why aren't we using it?
CBS News
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Brooklyn students celebrate their teacher's Grammy nomination
NEW YORK — It's going to be a big weekend for a Brooklyn music teacher who was part of an ensemble nominated for a Grammy. Mark Edwards was a guitarist for an album by Fontina Naumenko and composer Jonathan Newman called "Bespoke Songs." His ensemble is facing steep competition in the "Best Classical Solo Vocal Album" category. It's the first nomination for the accomplished musician. "We very much knew when we were recording it that like, 'oh, my goodness, this is amazing.' But you would never expect to receive accolades necessarily. But it turns out that we weren't the only ones who thought that it was great," Edwards told CBS News New York reporter Hannah Kliger. But when he's not recording professional albums, he's with his favorite guitarists, his music students at Success Academy in Prospect Heights. "We're lucky to have him" Nearly a dozen elementary and middle school students play a sweet melody as part of their guitar ensemble. Under the flowing music, though, is an underlying buzz of anticipation. "I can just tell my friends, my teacher's been nominated and stuff makes me feel excited. Makes me feel like, you know, my teacher has a bigger purpose," said sixth grader Ashley Preval. "It's much more about getting kids hearing music and experiencing music so that they build up the vocabulary to be able to, if they want, to eventually read music and continue to perform it," Edwards said, explaining his teaching style. "He pushes us harder and, like, give us gives us challenges and make sure we get the piece perfect before we go to the performance," added fifth grader Ethan Bhimulo. Many, like Bhimulo, are also inspired to achieve their own successes in music. "I want to be famous and be a musician when I grow up," he said. Success Academy Prospect Heights Principal Alex Perry says Edwards' successes are not surprising. "It seems like he's, this is nothing new for him. It's another note on the long list of accomplishments. So we're lucky to have him," he said. "He's actually built this music program from the ground up." As for Edwards' plans for the big night, he plans to watch the awards from home. "This weekend, I will certainly be planted on the couch with the bowl of popcorn and watching along with everyone else," he said, laughing. Win or lose, his students and colleagues will have a reason to celebrate. The Grammys air live this Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS New York and streaming on Paramount+.
