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[Piecake]

Success Academy, the high-performing charter school network in New York City, has long been dogged by accusations that its remarkable accomplishments are due, in part, to a practice of weeding out weak or difficult students. The network has always denied it. But documents obtained by The New York Times and interviews with 10 current and former Success employees at five schools suggest that some administrators in the network have singled out children they would like to see leave.

At Success Academy Fort Greene, the same day that Ms. Ogundiran heard from the principal, her daughter’s name was one of 16 placed on a list drawn up at his direction and shared by school leaders.

The heading on the list was “Got to Go.”

Nine of the students on the list later withdrew from the school. Some of their parents said in interviews that while their children attended Success, their lives were upended by repeated suspensions and frequent demands that they pick up their children early or meet with school or network staff members. Four of the parents said that school or network employees told them explicitly that the school, whose oldest students are now in the third grade, was not right for their children and that they should go elsewhere.

The current and former employees said they had observed similar practices at other Success schools. According to those employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs or their relationships with people still at the network, school leaders and network staff members explicitly talked about suspending students or calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.

Success Academy is the city’s largest charter school network. It has 34 schools, and plans to grow to 70 in five or six years.

The network serves mostly black and Hispanic students and is known for exacting behavior rules. Even the youngest pupils are expected to sit with their backs straight, their hands clasped and their eyes on the teacher, a posture that the network believes helps children pay attention. Ms. Moskowitz has said she believes children learn better with structure and consistency in the classroom. Good behavior and effort are rewarded with candy and prizes, while infractions and shoddy work are penalized with reprimands, loss of recess time, extra assignments and, in some cases, suspensions as early as kindergarten.

Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded and admit children by lottery. Similar to a traditional public school, a charter school must provide a seat to a child who has enrolled unless the student withdraws, is expelled, turns 21 or moves out of the state. Charter schools must follow strict guidelines before formally expelling any student, and Success has done so only once since its first school opened in 2006. But Success’s critics accuse it of pushing children out by making their parents’ lives so difficult that they withdraw.

Ms. Powell said that Success schools did not push children out, and that what might look like an effort to nudge students out the door was actually an attempt to help parents find the right environment for their children. Some on the list required special education settings that Success could not offer them, she said.

Nicey Givens, the mother of another student on the list, said her son, also a kindergartner last year, was suspended many times, in some cases, the school told her, for fighting. Ms. Fleischman said in an email that a special education committee of the school district recommended that the boy be placed in a type of special education class the school did not offer in his grade. Ms. Givens recalled that Ms. Fleischman told her the school did not have the resources to serve her son and offered to help find him a placement in a regular public school. Her son now attends P.S. 287.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/n...l-singling-out-pupils-who-have-got-to-go.html

So. the school keeps its good marks by making the lives of challenging students and their parents so miserable that they feel compelled to go to a public school, and kick out students who need special education because they do not have the 'proper' resources?

And this is the largest charter school in NYC, and they want to expand dramatically? Yea...

 

[Ivan A Nguyen]

As someone looking at paying through the nose for a private school, I have no issue with this. This isn't the public day care system. If the student is disruptive to class then they should be weeded out.

 

[reckless]

As someone looking at paying through the nose for a private school, I have no issue with this. This isn't the public day care system. If the student is disruptive to class then they should be weeded out.

Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded and admit children by lottery.

I though this type of behavior from charter schools was pretty well known.

When a school can be selective, of course they are going to try and push out students that would cost extra money and/or time to help.

 

[botty]

Wish I could have gone to a school like this.

 

[Piecake]

As someone looking at paying through the nose for a private school, I have no issue with this. This isn't the public day care system. If the student is disruptive to class then they should be weeded out.

Charter schools are publicaly funded schools. Public schools, just like charter schools, can't weed challenging and under-performing students, and can't weed out special education students. Every child deserves an education. Public schools can't dump their most challenging students onto someone else just so the schools numbers look better than they should be and give a false impression that they are doing fantastic, when all they are doing is kicking out the worst students.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Wish I could have gone to a school like this.

Same. Must be nice.