It may have been raining in New York City last Thursday, but educational activists at 32 Old Slip in lower Manhattan were determined to shine anyway.
Members of Alliance for Quality Education, ColorOfChange.org, Justice League NYC and others went to the offices of the U.S. Department of Education to deliver a signed petition to Education Secretary Arne Duncan. They’re calling for an investigation in to Success Academy Charter Network for what they feel are overly harsh disciplinary practices with some of their students.
The petition, which includes signatures from 35,000 people from across the nation, also demands that the federal government stop funding Success Academies.
Marchers took to the front desk of 32 Old Slip, where security advised them to first clear the walkway for people going to work and then advised them to leave the building and go outside, but not before promising to call the cops if they didn’t comply. Chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight! Education is a right!” echoed through the building lobby. Protestors held up signs, some of which read “#DeliverUsFromEva” while others were plastered with quotes of what Success Academy officials allegedly said to parents of students.
Fatima Geidi is the parent who sparked the petition in the first place. Geidi told the AmNews that her and her son Matthew were excited when they won the lottery to attend Harlem Success Academy in 2008. Geidi said that then-New York Gov. David Paterson attended the lottery and families who won took a picture with him.
“There was 200 openings and about 5,000 parents there,” said Geidi. “Mostly families of color.”
But according to Geidi, Matthew didn’t even get to the honeymoon stage of his relationship with Harlem Success Academy.
“Within his first day, he was held in detention,” said Geidi. “At 5 years old, they said he was unfocused, he was disruptive, and if his behavior didn’t improve over the next couple of days, they would suspend him.”
Geidi said that she eventually took Matthew out of the school “because of the harm it was causing my son.”
Geidi’s son wasn’t alone, according to activists. They accused a principal in one Success Academy school of having a “Got to Go” list of students that they deemed too hard to educate whom they would suspend until their parents got the message to remove them from their school. Activists also said that one Success Academy schools handed out 44 suspensions to 203 kindergartners and first-graders. Justice League NYC’s Executive Carmen Perez noted how this could be a child’s first introduction to the school-to-prison pipeline.
“The punitive disciplining of students being advocated for by Eva Moskowitz at Success Academies is not only dangerous and abusive, it is a direct entry point into the much-discussed ‘school-to-prison-pipeline,’” stated Perez. “No child should be harshly disciplined in the classroom, but the overt racism exposed by the overwhelming disproportionality of children of color receiving such discipline over their white counterparts is especially disconcerting.”
There were other voices who, even though they weren’t present last Thursday, provided statements showing support for the cause. Some of those voices included Bertha Lewis of the Black Institute and Hazel Dukes of the NAACP New York State Conference.
“The so-called ‘success’ of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academies is all smoke and mirrors,” said Lewis in a statement. “Her ’Got to Go’ list is more proof that she picks and chooses which students count towards her high test scores and that she gets rid of the ones that will hurt her numbers. Her ease with suspending 5 and 6 year olds at such ridiculously high rates shows that she doesn’t really care about the futures of our Black and Brown children.”
Dukes chimed in with a public statement of her own, saying, “The charter school sector has attempted to capitalize on Black and Brown lives’ need for a quality education for years. Success Academy in particular has been one of the biggest proponents of this, so it is especially disturbing to know that, at the same time, they are perpetuating the school-to-prison pipeline.”
When the AmNews reached out to Moskowtiz and Success Charter’s representatives, they were quick to send a response from earlier that week when they first heard about AQE’s actions.
“Instead of addressing the city’s massive educational failure perpetuated by union-run schools, AQE is spending resources on a bogus petition that aims to deny children of color access to some of the best schools in New York,” said Moskowtiz in a brief statement sent to the AmNews.
Success Academy continued to fire back at AQE and other groups when a principal from one of their institutions called out Lewis and Dukes.
“Where were Hazel Dukes and Bertha Lewis when the UFT charter school failed to educate Black and Brown children for a full decade?” asked Khari Shabazz, principal of Success Academy Harlem West Middle School. “This is a miserable failure of Black leadership and an affront to all those who struggled for decades to secure rights for people of color in this country. Where are all the Black and Brown politicians? Where is the outrage? Success Academy serves 11,000 scholars across your communities. These schools are the only ones in your neighborhoods that are among the highest performing schools in the state of New York.
“How can you be silent when you have visited Success Academy schools and know firsthand that the mischaracterization of our schools as a pipeline to prison is a grotesque injustice purposely aimed at achieving political revenge?” said Shabazz.