According to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), teachers and administrators are fleeing from the Success Academy Charter School Network’s Manhattan High School of the Liberal Arts. Of the 67 teachers and administrators who started the the school in Fall 2017, only 20 are returning for the new school year. At least twenty-five just quit and another nine were dismissed. Others remain in the employ of Success Network but have been reassigned. Six former teachers willing to discuss their experiences there accused the network of harsh disciplinary policies that include inappropriately forcing fifteen high school students to repeat a grade. They also charge the network disregards and disrespects staff input.
Lynn Strong, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of writing at Columbia University, was reassigned mid-year when it was determined by network administrators she was not focusing enough on high-stakes standardized tests. She accuses Success of running a “test-prep factory.” Natasha Venner, an all-star history teacher who is leaving Success to teach in a public school, told the WSJ that “What really makes me sad is the number of first-year teachers who quit and decided never to teach again.” Venner is one of the teachers featured on the Success Academy webpage. In 2017, Success sent her to a Gilder Lehrman summer teaching seminar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. I suspect the network plans to update its website now that her criticisms of its program are public. The WSJ interviewed a parent who said her daughter, who will be a senior in September, was having “panic attacks” because the teachers she and other students were closest to are leaving the school.
Success Academy Charter School Network CEO, Charter School Queen Eva Moskowitz dismissed the WSJ article claiming that the network’s “well trained teachers often get poached” by other schools. She conceded that some of the exodus might be because teachers were unhappy that a popular principal had resigned.
There needs to be a full public investigation of the Success Academy Charter School Network. It is also well past time that pro-charter New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo be held accountable for his support for Success. In June I reported on a student rebellion at Success Academy High School against an unfair disciplinary code and onerous summer homework assignments. On July 12, I posted on Success Academy’s self-proclaimed “great”literacy program that is a a close copy of Common Core and New York Next Generation standards with scripted, timed lessons lacking content and context, designed to prepare students for high-stakes assessments, and supplemented by what appear to be “plagiarized” lesson material.
I remain puzzled why the online education journal Chalkbeat New York does not cover what is going on at the Success Academy Network. Maybe it is because charter schools are paying to post jobs on the Chalkbeat website or because the magazine’s sponsors include pro-charter foundations? I want to thank Mercedes Schneider and her blog deutsch29 for bringing the WSJ report to my attention.
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