Just when you thought that the latest controversy involving Success Academy was about to die down, it fans even more flames with its latest effort to blame the media. But in the process of arguing the New York Times fails to cover incidents of teachers engaging in educational and physical abuse of children in their care, the charter school operator (along with today’s report in the Times on how Success addressed the incident) once again reminds us of how it has failed to adequately address the abuses of Charlotte Dial, the teacher whose actions were revealed by the paper two weeks ago.
Since the revelation by the Times of Dial snatching and ripping the class work of the then-six year old daughter of Nadya Miranda for not answering a question to her satisfaction, then ranting that “there’s nothing that infuriates me more than when you don’t do what’s on your paper”, Success and its founder, Eva Moskowitz, have worked overtime with its allies among school reformers to argue that the newspaper has some kind of vendetta against it. On Tuesday, Success upped the ante by issuing an 11-page letter to the paper’s editor in charge of Big Apple education news coverage, Amy Virshup, complaining that the Times has focused undue attention on the operator while ignoring criminal and educational abuse of children by teachers working within New York City’s traditional district.
In the letter, Moskowitz argues that the Timeshas done little more than provide “feel-good” stories on district schools while ignoring incidents such as the arrest of Mark Valentinetti, a teacher who worked at P.S. 83 in the Bronx, for slapping of his students, as well as the return of teacher Richard Parlini to the classrooms of another district school in spite of being previously removed for spanking his students. Declares Moskowitz: “the so-called “paper of record” has to date devoted none of its considerable resources to cover these stories, let alone investigate this systemic pattern of abuses.”
Let’s give Moskowitz and her public relations staff some credit: It didn’t violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, as her previous effort last year against PBS NewsHour. Just as importantly, the letter is another reminder of the need to overhaul teacher dismissal rules and end near-lifetime employment laws that protect laggard and criminally-abusive teachers. Oddly enough, this is an issue on which the Times, along with the Daily News and the New York Post, has covered for the past few years. There are far too many criminally-abusive teachers like those cited in the letter working in classrooms and they shouldn’t be there. [If Success Academy was setting a good example on its own, its commentary on educational malpractice would come off as anything but hypocritical.]
Yet Moskowitz hasn’t proven her argument that the Times is somehow biased against the schools Success operates. For one, the paper has shed plenty of light on educational abuses throughout the district. One simple search on the paper’s own Web site reveals stories on the city’s test-cheating scandal, which has led to the firing of now-former John Dewey High School Principal Kathleen Elvin as well as the suicide of another principal, Jeanene Worrell-Breeden, who ran Teachers College Community School. The Times also covered the arrest of a school leader, John DiFiore, on charges of criminally-abusing a 14-year-old student in his care. The Times also took aim at the district’s continuing failure to do well by children trapped in its special education ghettos, as well as its failure to disclose a third of violent incidents that happened in its school buildings.
Then there’s the Times‘s two year-long coverage of the crimes of Sean Shaynak, a former teacher at the prestigious Brooklyn Tech, who pled guilty in December to abducting and showing nude photos of himself to one of the students in his care. In 2014 alone, the Old Gray Lady wrote two extensive profiles on how Shaynak managed to get hired by the district spite of a record that included having been charged (though not convicted) of beating up the son of one of his neighbors. [Both profiles, by the way, were cowritten by Kate Taylor, the reporter who is the source of Moskowitz’s ire.]
Moskowitz cites none of these stories in her letter decrying the Times‘ coverage. In fact, she seems to go out of her way not to do so. Apparently the school operator complaining about fairness doesn’t believe in extending such courtesy itself. Lucky for Success that it is a school operator, not a media outlet that subjects itself to the traditional rules of objective journalism.
One can argue that the Times could spend more time covering every incident of abuse by teachers. I wouldn’t disagree one bit. But media outlets, as entities that have deal with limited space (and even smaller budgets), have to make choices on coverage. Let’s also keep in mind that the Times is also covering other issues that also affect children beyond classroom walls. This includes reports on abuse and killing of inmates at Riker’s Island and Clinton Correctional, two major prisons that house many parents of children who attend traditional district and public charter schools. Again, Moskowitz’s argument about the Times‘ coverage has no merit.
But while Moskowitz cites examples of educational and criminal abuse of children by teachers in traditional districts, she downplays Dial’s own abuse as well as the school operator’s refusal to deal with it properly by kicking her out of its classrooms. As far as Moskowitz is concerned, firing Dial would have been nothing more than the pursuit of “better PR” at the expense of what Success considers to be a model teacher “dedicated to teaching and improving”.
But in simply suspending Dial and returning her to the classroom, Moskowitz has done little more than tolerate the kind of educational malpractice that happens far too often in traditional districts. In fact, one can argue it is even worse because Success isn’t governed by collective bargaining agreements or by state laws governing tenure and dismissal, and therefore, can more-easily rid its schools of laggard and abusive teachers. Moskowitz has actually behaved worse in this situation than your average district superintendent.
What Success has done instead is engage in a crisis management strategy geared toward protecting Dial and its own practices from scrutiny. This becomes clear from the Times‘ latest story on the teacher’s malpractice, which features an interview with Nadya Miranda, the mother of the harmed girl. As the Times reports, after Success finally showed the video to Miranda, she was asked by Success staffers to sign on to an e-mail it drafted telling the paper that she didn’t want the video released to the public. When Miranda confronted Moskowitz during a meeting about the video a week later, Miranda said the school leader told her curtly that “you had enough to say”. Miranda, along with several other parents, walked out of the meeting, then pulled her daughter from the school. The fact that Miranda and her children are homeless, and thus, struggling with other issues, makes Dial’s malpractice even more unacceptable.
Anyone who has paid attention to Success’ crisis management tactics over the past few months shouldn’t be surprised — nor should anyone else. Through actions such as Moskowitz’s unauthorized release of school discipline data on the son of Faida Geidi, Success has proven more interested in defending the outfit than in doing right by the children and families it serves. That its board members, including CNN anchor-turned-reform advocate Campbell Brown have used their own media outlets to defend Success from criticism makes clear that the organization will not address its issues even when a media outlet shines light on them.
These issues are deeply-ingrained. As former Success teachers and school leaders such as Jessica Reid Sliwerski have noted in the Times first story on Dial’s misdeed, the practice of ripping papers and embarrassing children for their learning struggles has been common practice within the operator for some time, and has been taught in professional development courses it has held. Moskowitz, in particular, is unwilling to consider that Dial’s “model” is damaging children in the operator’s care, an issue pointed out by Miranda in her interview. Add in Success’ long-documented overuse of out-of-school suspensions and other forms of harsh school discipline, and it becomes clear that the operator approaches teaching poor and minority children from a Poverty Myth thinking similar to that of far too many traditionalists.
Firing Dial would have been a tacit admission by Success that all isn’t well within it. Such humility isn’t possible, either for the institution, its founder, and its allies. For traditionalists looking to halt the expansion of school choice in both New York City and the rest of the nation, Success’ unwillingness to address the damage its educational malpractice does to futures of children gives them the ammunition they need to continue their own.