Dive Brief:
- At Success Academy Fort Greene in Brooklyn, a principal created a “Got to Go” list of 16 students he wanted to purge from the school due to its "severe" disciplinary problems.
- The charter network's founder, Eva Moskowitz, is claiming that such practices aren’t normal, though the New York Times reports that critics have long claimed that Success pushes out low-performing students and those with behavioral challenges.
- The principal in question, Candido Brown, publicly apologized and will retain his position.
Dive Insight:
During the public apology for the "Got to Go" list, delivered during a press conference, Brown mentioned that he wouldn’t send his own kids to the very school he presides over. Students in the Success Academy charter network gain admission via lottery, and the student body is largely black and Hispanic. The chain of charters adheres to extremely strict policies over behavior, including posture, how students sit, and how they hold their hands. Success students score better on statewide tests than peers who attend traditional public schools, and the schools attribute this achievement, in part, to the network's behavioral policies.
According to the Times, such practices aren’t "anomalies" as founder Moskowitz now is claiming, as the network suspends students of all ages at a higher rate than the city's traditional public schools. A number of parents, staffers, and former staff told the newspaper that the network tried to purge troublesome and low-performing students via repeat suspensions and by “calling parents into frequent meetings as ways to force parents to fall in line or prompt them to withdraw their children.”
Success Academy runs 34 schools already and has plans to double in size over the next five years.