NY teacher blogger calls out NBC4 News for charter school propaganda.

Eva Moskowitz heads the Success Academy Charter schools. Under Bloomberg this group moved freely into public school buildings, taking over space and pushing the public school students and teachers aside.

Apparently NBC4 News simply spouted out the PR favorable to her academy and did no research at all.

To Whom It May Concern

I just watched what appeared to be a commercial for Eva Moskowitz charter schools, introduced by your anchor as a "war on charters." I saw no mention that de Blasio had closed fewer than one quarter of the colocations Bloomberg pushed through. I saw no mention of the charters, including the Moskowitz charters, that were not closed. Nor was there any mention of attrition at Moskowitz charters, or the fact that they do not take a representative selection of city kids.

Those who rely on your newscast for information are most certainly not getting the full story.

I teach ESL students. My school takes just about every ESL student that walks through our doors, regardless of level. And if they know very little, they end up in my beginning class. How many beginning level ESL students do you suppose attend the Success Academies? Has it even occurred to you to ask? We also take kids with all sorts of special needs, including alternate assessment kids who we do not expect to graduate with Regents diplomas. How many of those kids attend the charters you filmed with such reverence?

When Eva Moskowitz accepts the same kids we do, when they stay for their entire scholastic careers, when she opens her books to the same audits we're subject to, then we'll have something to discuss.

Here's a little bit about what happens when Eva and her academies move into a school. They simply take over. Rent free.

Eva Moskowitz moves charter school into another public school's space, boots them from classrooms.

The "Eva" Empire has expanded to the Bronx, bringing a Harlem turf war for school space into the borough. Eva Moskowitz, the City Council member-turned-charter school CEO, has opened two new academies from her charter school franchise, Success Charter Network, inside Public School 30 in Mott Haven, and PS 146 in Morrisania. And Bronx Success Academies 1 and 2 are already ruffling feathers with district school staffers.

..."Staffers at the district schools say their new neighbors have booted them from classrooms and stairwells, while sharing the libraries, cafeterias and playgrounds.

...."Staffers at PS 30 say Bronx Success 1 sealed off the third floor to its staff and students - even taking over a stairwell - so Success students don't mingle with their district school neighbors.

"We are not allowed there," said one PS 30 teacher, noting the classrooms taken over by Success were formerly used for tutoring children with special needs. Now we have to do therapy sessions in the hallway."

And Eva is not exactly fond of students who are not totally in step with their goals. They have ways of "counseling out" those students who don't conform.

One of their principals had this to say about special education students.

At Harlem Success, disability is a dirty word. “I’m not a big believer in special ed,” Fucaloro says. For many children who arrive with individualized education programs, or IEPs, he goes on, the real issues are “maturity and undoing what the parents allow the kids to do in the house—usually mama—and I reverse that right away.” When remediation falls short, according to sources in and around the network, families are counseled out. “Eva told us that the school is not a social-service agency,” says the Harlem Success teacher. “That was an actual quote.”

That same principal said their goal was to make all the students little "test-taking machines".

Quoting an extra paragraph because it is from a former post of mine, and I give permission to use it. The passages are from different articles.

“We have a gap to close, so I want the kids on edge, constantly,” Fucaloro adds. “By the time test day came, they were like little test-taking machines.”

That is their goal? Turning kids into test-taking machines?

Good for teacher Arthur Goldstein for speaking out about this propaganda.