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How The Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle Over School Choice
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice.
The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns , teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox.
Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns , teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox.
Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
384 pages, Hardcover
Published September 10, 2019
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November 14, 2020
If nothing else, Pondisco has accomplished the singular feat of allowing me to pen the novel phrase "page-turning book on educational policy."
This is book is galvanizing, well-considered, and thoughtful, a close read of the successes (and excesses) of Success Academy, a controversial NYC charter school. However you feel about so-called "school choice" this is a must-read. While it confirmed many of the prejudices I came in with (Success Academy is ABSOLUTELY "creaming" by winnowing out all but the most engaged, motivated, and organized parents), it raised some questions I cannot get out of my mind. Is school choice only for the affluent? Whose learning do we prioritize? Is it fair to children to let parents determine their educational fates? Is it fair to parents to prevent them from doing so?
I give the book four stars rather than five only because of its rather startling incuriosity re: teachers' lives. Pondisco spends copious time with parents outside of the classroom, but never with teachers, as if they do not exist beyond the walls of the school. In fact, it appears they barely do- all of the Success Academy teachers who appear in this book are in their 20s, work 12 hour days and do not seem to have children. The kind of time and energy outlay Success Academy demands of its teachers is simply not possible for most adults, and that's a point Pondisco slides right by. I wanted to know: How does an environment like this impact its teachers- do they stay in the profession, and for how long? Do they have children? Where do they send their kids to school?
This is book is galvanizing, well-considered, and thoughtful, a close read of the successes (and excesses) of Success Academy, a controversial NYC charter school. However you feel about so-called "school choice" this is a must-read. While it confirmed many of the prejudices I came in with (Success Academy is ABSOLUTELY "creaming" by winnowing out all but the most engaged, motivated, and organized parents), it raised some questions I cannot get out of my mind. Is school choice only for the affluent? Whose learning do we prioritize? Is it fair to children to let parents determine their educational fates? Is it fair to parents to prevent them from doing so?
I give the book four stars rather than five only because of its rather startling incuriosity re: teachers' lives. Pondisco spends copious time with parents outside of the classroom, but never with teachers, as if they do not exist beyond the walls of the school. In fact, it appears they barely do- all of the Success Academy teachers who appear in this book are in their 20s, work 12 hour days and do not seem to have children. The kind of time and energy outlay Success Academy demands of its teachers is simply not possible for most adults, and that's a point Pondisco slides right by. I wanted to know: How does an environment like this impact its teachers- do they stay in the profession, and for how long? Do they have children? Where do they send their kids to school?
February 6, 2021
Below are the highlights. At the end I give my reason for 2/5 stars. The hard truths tackled between the pages were refreshing. But one misleading point throws almost everything out the window.
First, some hard truths and direct quotes from the book:
“'If you’re a teacher who doesn’t like standardized tests, by all means advocate for your position. Petition Congress. Write to universities. Publish op-ed pieces,' she wrote. 'But please don’t tell your students that tests don’t matter because you’re just selling them a bill of goods.'”
“'You know how many tests you took to get your teacher license, or how many tests you took to get into college, right? For a lawyer, for a doctor, to get a real estate license, to be a CPA? In life, you’re going to have to take tests.'"
"When a low-income person graduates from high school, finds full-time employment, gets married, and has a child—in that order—the chance of remaining in poverty as an adult drop to a mere 2 percent. ... Low-income children in communities with the highest rate of family instability are the least likely to hear about it, grow up with it as a social norm, or to have parents and other adults in their communities pressure them to abide by it, Rowe explains."
"'Because they know that I am already dealing with problems at home, they don’t want to give me a heavier load, and in their eyes they’re helping me. But what they don’t realize is that they are crippling me, making me dependent on them. They may or may not be purposely producing lower-class citizens, but this is not OK with me!'"
"'We’re constantly calling you, texting you, like, ‘Hey! Your child didn’t do homework. What’s goin’ on?’ Sometimes things happen. That’s fine. But we expect you as the parent and the adult to reach out to say, ‘Hey. Got a little caught up last night. Something’s going on. We’ll make it up over the weekend,’ Reeder says. “No problem.” Conflicts between parents and Success start when communication fails. “We keep things clear and open,” she says. 'Communication is everything.'”
"Suddenly it all makes sense: The common criticism leveled at Moskowitz and her schools is that they cherry-pick students, attracting bright children and shedding the poorly behaved and hardest to teach. This misses the mark entirely. Success Academy is cherry-picking parents."
Toward the end, Pondiscio gives his take on the biggest criticism of SA. He acknowledges that SA skims the best parents/students from the top who would otherwise go to underperforming public schools. He says that classroom culture changes substantially when one student is behaviorally out of control--let alone three or four in a class. The reason for SA's success is that students who act out are kicked out. They simply do not allow disruptive students to stay. Principals are known to have a “Got to Go” list of students.
"If the counterargument is that encouraging this kind of self-selection concentrates poverty and dysfunction in other schools, the candid answer is to acknowledge the risk, not dismiss it, and to account and plan for it. It is both poor public policy and immoral to demand that low-income families accept their fate as school-culture outliers, limiting their children’s potential in poor-performing schools in the name of 'equity.' It is a burden that affluent families are never asked or expected to bear."
"We already spend more money per pupil to educate our children than nearly all other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations. It is fantasy to think that teacher salaries can ever be generous enough to draw the cognitively elite away from other, more remunerative professions in large numbers. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well and competently by people of average sentience and talent. That is who we have in our classrooms and all we are likely ever to have."
Pondiscio's last quote could not be more misleading. His stat of the US spending more money on education than any other nation comes from statista, which is a credible source made by the Boston Globe.
https://www.statista.com/chart/15404/...
Statista's explaination of why the US spends more in education per child: "This is largely due to income inequality in the United States, which puts a strain on the educational system. In addition to this gap, the United States also significantly underpays its teachers when compared to other OECD countries." In Japan, teachers make as much as engineers. In the US teachers make 60% the average salary of an engineer.
So teachers are not respected or paid well in the US. Does anyone really believe we have the best teacher pool possible? It is silly to say we can't improve the teacher pool if we increase their pay. It's a basic economics principle.
However, it is another point altogether to say it isn't worth it. It's hard to measure the worth of a great teacher toward society. But it's not hard to conceptualize. More Americans graduating from college instead of going to prison. It's clear we are millions short of our full potential--we have more people locked up per capita than any country in the world. Bill Gates loves SA, but if you ever hear him talk about education he will tell you the most important factor is the teacher.
Since 2014 Pondiscio has been a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank.
First, some hard truths and direct quotes from the book:
“'If you’re a teacher who doesn’t like standardized tests, by all means advocate for your position. Petition Congress. Write to universities. Publish op-ed pieces,' she wrote. 'But please don’t tell your students that tests don’t matter because you’re just selling them a bill of goods.'”
“'You know how many tests you took to get your teacher license, or how many tests you took to get into college, right? For a lawyer, for a doctor, to get a real estate license, to be a CPA? In life, you’re going to have to take tests.'"
"When a low-income person graduates from high school, finds full-time employment, gets married, and has a child—in that order—the chance of remaining in poverty as an adult drop to a mere 2 percent. ... Low-income children in communities with the highest rate of family instability are the least likely to hear about it, grow up with it as a social norm, or to have parents and other adults in their communities pressure them to abide by it, Rowe explains."
"'Because they know that I am already dealing with problems at home, they don’t want to give me a heavier load, and in their eyes they’re helping me. But what they don’t realize is that they are crippling me, making me dependent on them. They may or may not be purposely producing lower-class citizens, but this is not OK with me!'"
"'We’re constantly calling you, texting you, like, ‘Hey! Your child didn’t do homework. What’s goin’ on?’ Sometimes things happen. That’s fine. But we expect you as the parent and the adult to reach out to say, ‘Hey. Got a little caught up last night. Something’s going on. We’ll make it up over the weekend,’ Reeder says. “No problem.” Conflicts between parents and Success start when communication fails. “We keep things clear and open,” she says. 'Communication is everything.'”
"Suddenly it all makes sense: The common criticism leveled at Moskowitz and her schools is that they cherry-pick students, attracting bright children and shedding the poorly behaved and hardest to teach. This misses the mark entirely. Success Academy is cherry-picking parents."
Toward the end, Pondiscio gives his take on the biggest criticism of SA. He acknowledges that SA skims the best parents/students from the top who would otherwise go to underperforming public schools. He says that classroom culture changes substantially when one student is behaviorally out of control--let alone three or four in a class. The reason for SA's success is that students who act out are kicked out. They simply do not allow disruptive students to stay. Principals are known to have a “Got to Go” list of students.
"If the counterargument is that encouraging this kind of self-selection concentrates poverty and dysfunction in other schools, the candid answer is to acknowledge the risk, not dismiss it, and to account and plan for it. It is both poor public policy and immoral to demand that low-income families accept their fate as school-culture outliers, limiting their children’s potential in poor-performing schools in the name of 'equity.' It is a burden that affluent families are never asked or expected to bear."
"We already spend more money per pupil to educate our children than nearly all other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations. It is fantasy to think that teacher salaries can ever be generous enough to draw the cognitively elite away from other, more remunerative professions in large numbers. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well and competently by people of average sentience and talent. That is who we have in our classrooms and all we are likely ever to have."
Pondiscio's last quote could not be more misleading. His stat of the US spending more money on education than any other nation comes from statista, which is a credible source made by the Boston Globe.
https://www.statista.com/chart/15404/...
Statista's explaination of why the US spends more in education per child: "This is largely due to income inequality in the United States, which puts a strain on the educational system. In addition to this gap, the United States also significantly underpays its teachers when compared to other OECD countries." In Japan, teachers make as much as engineers. In the US teachers make 60% the average salary of an engineer.
So teachers are not respected or paid well in the US. Does anyone really believe we have the best teacher pool possible? It is silly to say we can't improve the teacher pool if we increase their pay. It's a basic economics principle.
However, it is another point altogether to say it isn't worth it. It's hard to measure the worth of a great teacher toward society. But it's not hard to conceptualize. More Americans graduating from college instead of going to prison. It's clear we are millions short of our full potential--we have more people locked up per capita than any country in the world. Bill Gates loves SA, but if you ever hear him talk about education he will tell you the most important factor is the teacher.
Since 2014 Pondiscio has been a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank.
November 22, 2019
My favorite book of 2019.
Teaching is the easiest job in the world to do badly.
The pressure is on from the first day
Time-ins: visit an old teacher, play hall ball, ... (brilliant)
Adult expectation and consistency is a big deal. A game changer.
A “no-nonsense nurturer” model
Held to high expectations. Students and parents. Reading log through high school. Monitored by parents.
Discipline + effort results in academic excellence
To parents: Read like crazy. That’s going to have them just soar to college.
She hands stickers out to parents. “Sticker them up at home. They work really hard for stickers.” Lol.
She knows whom to call on to surface the points she wants students to learn, not leading the conversation but conducting it.
Moskowitz: It doesn’t always go well. Every kid is a struggle. Every grade is a struggle. Every school is a struggle. It’s hard. It’s really hard.
If you're so inclined you can see a pair of privileged white teachers spending 30 minutes dressing down parents. Many their own age, and all of them low income people of color whose lives they can understand only in the abstract. If you take a dim view of all this you see children reduced to data points and the pitiless transparency of it all: the data walls, the immutable trajectories of five year old lives based on their kindergarten reading level. You see warning and rebuke delivered like the ghost of Christmas future with a wagging finger, the shadow of things to come if parents don't wake the hell up, step up and get with the program. Or you can see Carolyn Suskowski with her giant heart, Pez dispenser grin who calls every student love-bug and spends hours each day on the floor with other people's children, wipes their noses pulls on their coats, sends them home and then worries into the night about their reading and math scores. You can see, if you are so inclined, an unusually gifted and competent teacher with emotional gears you cannot fathom who can issue a consequence to a five year old like a bank examiner rejecting a loan, then an hour later bring herself to tears in front of a hundred strangers when for a single moment she catches herself weighing the cost of not doing so.
They weren’t cherry picking students. They were cherry picking parents.
The mom who is a DOE teacher, member of the teachers union. And who applied to 47 charter schools for her kindergarten son. Success Academy was their first choice and he was admitted off the wait list days before school began. Then the kindergartener who missed “dress rehearsal” day, parents made no effort to communicate with school as to why. When he showed up the first day the school said sorry your seat was given to someone else. The trajectories of those two boys.
Thank you Robert Pondiscio.
Teaching is the easiest job in the world to do badly.
The pressure is on from the first day
Time-ins: visit an old teacher, play hall ball, ... (brilliant)
Adult expectation and consistency is a big deal. A game changer.
A “no-nonsense nurturer” model
Held to high expectations. Students and parents. Reading log through high school. Monitored by parents.
Discipline + effort results in academic excellence
To parents: Read like crazy. That’s going to have them just soar to college.
She hands stickers out to parents. “Sticker them up at home. They work really hard for stickers.” Lol.
She knows whom to call on to surface the points she wants students to learn, not leading the conversation but conducting it.
Moskowitz: It doesn’t always go well. Every kid is a struggle. Every grade is a struggle. Every school is a struggle. It’s hard. It’s really hard.
If you're so inclined you can see a pair of privileged white teachers spending 30 minutes dressing down parents. Many their own age, and all of them low income people of color whose lives they can understand only in the abstract. If you take a dim view of all this you see children reduced to data points and the pitiless transparency of it all: the data walls, the immutable trajectories of five year old lives based on their kindergarten reading level. You see warning and rebuke delivered like the ghost of Christmas future with a wagging finger, the shadow of things to come if parents don't wake the hell up, step up and get with the program. Or you can see Carolyn Suskowski with her giant heart, Pez dispenser grin who calls every student love-bug and spends hours each day on the floor with other people's children, wipes their noses pulls on their coats, sends them home and then worries into the night about their reading and math scores. You can see, if you are so inclined, an unusually gifted and competent teacher with emotional gears you cannot fathom who can issue a consequence to a five year old like a bank examiner rejecting a loan, then an hour later bring herself to tears in front of a hundred strangers when for a single moment she catches herself weighing the cost of not doing so.
They weren’t cherry picking students. They were cherry picking parents.
The mom who is a DOE teacher, member of the teachers union. And who applied to 47 charter schools for her kindergarten son. Success Academy was their first choice and he was admitted off the wait list days before school began. Then the kindergartener who missed “dress rehearsal” day, parents made no effort to communicate with school as to why. When he showed up the first day the school said sorry your seat was given to someone else. The trajectories of those two boys.
Thank you Robert Pondiscio.
November 2, 2019
This is the kind of ground-level analysis that serious, open-minded observers of American education need. The aptly named NYC charter network Success Academy has grown into a flashpoint in the debate over school choice -- rightly touted by charter supporters for its high demand among mostly low-income parents and off-the-charts test scores while criticized by outspoken defenders of traditional public education on multiple fronts.
What better way to discern myth from truth than to spend a year at Success's Bronx 1 witnessing the charter network's methodical, tough-love culture in action? With a writer's keen eye and a teacher's empathetic insights, Pondiscio shares the frustrations and aspirations of minority parents and twentysomething educators alike, the struggles and triumphs of young Success scholars, and even some behind-the-scenes glimpses with network founder Eva Moskowitz. Pondiscio draws lessons from the story's true-life characters -- lessons embedded in the context of larger discussions of how to help more of the nation's students (especially poor ones) learn and achieve.
Readers looking for cookie-cutter solutions will be disappointed. Those ready to chew on the challenging realities posed both by inequitable opportunities between social classes and the different capacities and decisions of individual families? They well may find enough insights to see the promise of American education in a new light.
What better way to discern myth from truth than to spend a year at Success's Bronx 1 witnessing the charter network's methodical, tough-love culture in action? With a writer's keen eye and a teacher's empathetic insights, Pondiscio shares the frustrations and aspirations of minority parents and twentysomething educators alike, the struggles and triumphs of young Success scholars, and even some behind-the-scenes glimpses with network founder Eva Moskowitz. Pondiscio draws lessons from the story's true-life characters -- lessons embedded in the context of larger discussions of how to help more of the nation's students (especially poor ones) learn and achieve.
Readers looking for cookie-cutter solutions will be disappointed. Those ready to chew on the challenging realities posed both by inequitable opportunities between social classes and the different capacities and decisions of individual families? They well may find enough insights to see the promise of American education in a new light.
December 6, 2019
I loved this book. I thought ot did a brilliant job explaining the pro-case for charter schools, even if it also is an illustration of some of the biggest reasons why folks oppose them. Ultimately, I have mixed feelings on charters, and this book helped me put into words why- by happenstance of income and geography, a lot of parents and kids do not have access to good public schools amd charters at least offer different options for those families. Their existence does take funding amd often the most involved families away from the public school system, but in a world where rich folks can have unlimited choices in educational options for their children, is it fair to not give ANY options to poor parents? If our public schools were uniformly performing and funded that would be one thing, but they're not.
Beyond that, the book is immensely readable and interesting as we follow through a school year of Bronx Success Academy. As a former teacher, I was exhausted by the pace of the school and the expectations on the teachers. Also, while I see the points the author tries to make about having a prescribed curriculum, I womdered why he never asked any of the teachers how they felt about that. Sometimes curriculum development is one of the most rewarding parts of teaching and this school doesn't allow teachers that freedom, having their lessons all uniform and preplanned. Overall, a thought provoking and engaging read. Recommended for educators. 4 stars.
Beyond that, the book is immensely readable and interesting as we follow through a school year of Bronx Success Academy. As a former teacher, I was exhausted by the pace of the school and the expectations on the teachers. Also, while I see the points the author tries to make about having a prescribed curriculum, I womdered why he never asked any of the teachers how they felt about that. Sometimes curriculum development is one of the most rewarding parts of teaching and this school doesn't allow teachers that freedom, having their lessons all uniform and preplanned. Overall, a thought provoking and engaging read. Recommended for educators. 4 stars.
August 29, 2025
“Genuine education equity will be achieved only when schools serving low-income children mirror in number, variety, and access the options that affluent parents have come to expect for their children.”
--Robert Pondiscio, How the Other Half Learns
An intensive, ground-level analysis of New York's Success Academy Charter School network, How The Other Half Learns tends to both impress and overwhelm at the same time. Some key takeaways:
—Parental involvement is key: Studies tend to confirm this reality, and no entity is more successful (read: forceful) than Success Academy at ensuring daily parental involvement.
—Employee burnout is real: Success Academy undeniably produces results, but at the cost of nearly 40% educator turnover every year.
—Standardized testing is a partial picture: KIPP and Success Academy have succeeded in helping low SES scholars achieve better reading and math scores than their peers; however, what How The Other Half highlights effectively is the staggering odds of getting each underserved scholar to and through college. Just over 1/3 of KIPP scholar-graduates go on to attend and complete college—both a dramatic increase over the national average and a far cry from the stated goals of their “no excuses” model. In an educational war that pits progressive educators (“learning is natural”) against the more traditionalist methods of Success and KIPP (“children didn’t evolve to attend school”), the most indelible impression created by Pondiscio’s work is the sheer odds facing kids from the other half.
--Robert Pondiscio, How the Other Half Learns
An intensive, ground-level analysis of New York's Success Academy Charter School network, How The Other Half Learns tends to both impress and overwhelm at the same time. Some key takeaways:
—Parental involvement is key: Studies tend to confirm this reality, and no entity is more successful (read: forceful) than Success Academy at ensuring daily parental involvement.
—Employee burnout is real: Success Academy undeniably produces results, but at the cost of nearly 40% educator turnover every year.
—Standardized testing is a partial picture: KIPP and Success Academy have succeeded in helping low SES scholars achieve better reading and math scores than their peers; however, what How The Other Half highlights effectively is the staggering odds of getting each underserved scholar to and through college. Just over 1/3 of KIPP scholar-graduates go on to attend and complete college—both a dramatic increase over the national average and a far cry from the stated goals of their “no excuses” model. In an educational war that pits progressive educators (“learning is natural”) against the more traditionalist methods of Success and KIPP (“children didn’t evolve to attend school”), the most indelible impression created by Pondiscio’s work is the sheer odds facing kids from the other half.
December 19, 2019
Difference of beliefs aside, I went into this book with an open mind. I had a lot of difficulty keeping this open mind, however, when it became crystal clear that Pondiscio doesn’t believe in teacher OR student agency, is unable to empathize with families who were counseled out of Success Academy due to the network’s unwillingness to help all children, and glosses over huge issues that are endemic to the network.
I lost my mind while reading the last chapter of the book, where he states that, “It is fantasy to think that teacher salaries can ever be generous enough to draw the cognitively elite away from other, more remunerative professions in large numbers. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well and competently by people of average sentience and talent. That is who we have in our classrooms and all we are likely to ever have.”
Pondiscio is a teacher-hater and his argument that disadvantaged children of color can only be successful in schools were they are micromanaged into the larger (see: White) culture is problematic at best, racist at worst.
I lost my mind while reading the last chapter of the book, where he states that, “It is fantasy to think that teacher salaries can ever be generous enough to draw the cognitively elite away from other, more remunerative professions in large numbers. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well and competently by people of average sentience and talent. That is who we have in our classrooms and all we are likely to ever have.”
Pondiscio is a teacher-hater and his argument that disadvantaged children of color can only be successful in schools were they are micromanaged into the larger (see: White) culture is problematic at best, racist at worst.
May 2, 2022
Controversial schools, such as Success Academy, have been a major topic of discussion in my graduate school classes. It is no secret that New York's school system (although better than many other states) remains unfair, inequitable, and inconsistent across various districts. Charter schools (mostly) have a mission of 'fixing' these inequities by offering 'better' education, for free, to families that cannot afford to live in districts with good schools or enroll their children in prestigious private schools. I have often thought of these efforts as 'band-aid' solutions, that only treat the surface problems and not the deep-rooted systemic issues.
Conversations with my professors, and colleagues, as well as consideration of other sources such as NYT's 'Nice White Parent's podcast, influenced my opinion of Success Academy -- I was not a huge fan. Robert's close examination of Success Academy schools prompted me to reevaluate this opinion and look at their approach with a different outlook.
Conversations with my professors, and colleagues, as well as consideration of other sources such as NYT's 'Nice White Parent's podcast, influenced my opinion of Success Academy -- I was not a huge fan. Robert's close examination of Success Academy schools prompted me to reevaluate this opinion and look at their approach with a different outlook.
March 21, 2022
For a book by someone who writes for a conservative think tank, Pondiscio's analysis of Success Academy charter schools is fair minded and thoughtful. He tells a good story and captures exactly what instruction and management look like. And he is quick to praise the school for a lot (they do run a tight ship) but does due diligence when addressing controversies like Success's alleged willingness to "counsel out" tougher students.
Success Academy is famous for having a low-income student population but outscoring even wealthy New York high schools on state exams. It's pretty clear that the reasons for this are a) the extremely uniform school culture (discipline is the same! the curriculum is the same! expectations of teachers are the same! test prep is the same!) and b) the self-selection of highly motivated families (Success makes it clear that their schools "aren't for everyone" and has a very involved application / enrollment process. Parents are expected to check their kids' homework and read to them every night, etc etc).
What's missing from this equation, I think, are extensive conversations with teachers about their back breaking workload; it sounds like they are responsible for everything and I don't think I'd last working there too long. Pondiscio does talk to teachers but it's mainly about instruction or discipline during a particular lesson. I didn't read anything about whether the expectations on teachers feel realistic or if teachers ever feel demoralized/pressured. I wonder if that's because the teachers were told not to talk shit or maybe they just all happen to have drunk the Kool-Aid (frankly this seems like another reason Success Academy does well in a way that doesn't seem particularly scalable, I just don't think you can get all the teachers in a large district to be driven by one mission like that). Interestingly they have pretty high teacher turnover but it doesn't seem to impact school test scores, and often teachers move around the charter network or move up to principalship; maybe the work just isn't as bad as I'm imagining.
Because the author works for a conservative think tank, I knew the book would end this way, but the ultimate conclusion he draws is, so what if charter schools like Success tend to self-select for the most engaged, 2-parent household, religious families to receive this world class education? It's their chance to help their kids escape poverty. And my response would be a) ugh education isn't the only way or even a reliable way to alleviate poverty, but also b) I get it, that makes sense. However those schools are just a drop in the bucket and don't solve the big issue of making quality education universal. How are you going to get the kids of less engaged parents to also learn how to read and do math and learn about college/career opportunities? Surely that's also a necessary endeavor.
Success Academy is famous for having a low-income student population but outscoring even wealthy New York high schools on state exams. It's pretty clear that the reasons for this are a) the extremely uniform school culture (discipline is the same! the curriculum is the same! expectations of teachers are the same! test prep is the same!) and b) the self-selection of highly motivated families (Success makes it clear that their schools "aren't for everyone" and has a very involved application / enrollment process. Parents are expected to check their kids' homework and read to them every night, etc etc).
What's missing from this equation, I think, are extensive conversations with teachers about their back breaking workload; it sounds like they are responsible for everything and I don't think I'd last working there too long. Pondiscio does talk to teachers but it's mainly about instruction or discipline during a particular lesson. I didn't read anything about whether the expectations on teachers feel realistic or if teachers ever feel demoralized/pressured. I wonder if that's because the teachers were told not to talk shit or maybe they just all happen to have drunk the Kool-Aid (frankly this seems like another reason Success Academy does well in a way that doesn't seem particularly scalable, I just don't think you can get all the teachers in a large district to be driven by one mission like that). Interestingly they have pretty high teacher turnover but it doesn't seem to impact school test scores, and often teachers move around the charter network or move up to principalship; maybe the work just isn't as bad as I'm imagining.
Because the author works for a conservative think tank, I knew the book would end this way, but the ultimate conclusion he draws is, so what if charter schools like Success tend to self-select for the most engaged, 2-parent household, religious families to receive this world class education? It's their chance to help their kids escape poverty. And my response would be a) ugh education isn't the only way or even a reliable way to alleviate poverty, but also b) I get it, that makes sense. However those schools are just a drop in the bucket and don't solve the big issue of making quality education universal. How are you going to get the kids of less engaged parents to also learn how to read and do math and learn about college/career opportunities? Surely that's also a necessary endeavor.
November 12, 2020
This has been the most surreal read of 2020. It details the miseducation of BIPOC children using tactics thoroughly discredited by research, but just when I think Pondiscio is on the cusp of condemning one heavy-handed practice or another, he instead repeats his rosy description of Moscowitz's white liberal paternalism as a novel and effective educational paradigm. Of course out-of-school suspensions and attempts to enforce "culture goals" will result in a school culture of compliance, and of course you can get good test scores that way, but it will come at the expense of self-expression and social-emotional skills. At times, there are glimmers of awareness; Pondiscio seems troubled by the revelation that Success Academy students often flounder in any school environment that gives students the responsibility of setting their own deadlines and regulating their own impulses, but his unease never develops into a full-on critique.
At other times, Pondiscio's ideas are so far from my frame of reference it's difficult for me to even understand where they come from. He mentions the Moynihan Report in a positive light, for example, before making the bizzaro claim that students should be taught the moral value of marrying and having a kid. I don't even know where to start with that, so I'll just direct you to read some Ta-Nehisi Coates and, uh, anything by any queer scholar.
It's astonishing the extent to which these teachers and administrators think they're doing good. They revel in checking whether each student's socks are black or navy, whether there are scuff marks on the floor, and whether each teacher is implementing the school's behavior incentive plans. Interspersed with Pondiscio's paeans to "benign paternalism," there are some surprisingly candid admissions from Moscowitz and her (mostly white) leadership team: "I don't really believe in developmentally appropriate practice," she claims, a sentiment not out of place with widely circulated horror stories about the "rip and redo", the "got to go" list, and the deprivation of breaks, food, and bathroom privileges for minor behavioral infractions. I know I'm not the intended audience for this book, but wow, I didn't expect to be so pissed by the end of it.
tldr: idk why i finished this book it just made me mad
At other times, Pondiscio's ideas are so far from my frame of reference it's difficult for me to even understand where they come from. He mentions the Moynihan Report in a positive light, for example, before making the bizzaro claim that students should be taught the moral value of marrying and having a kid. I don't even know where to start with that, so I'll just direct you to read some Ta-Nehisi Coates and, uh, anything by any queer scholar.
It's astonishing the extent to which these teachers and administrators think they're doing good. They revel in checking whether each student's socks are black or navy, whether there are scuff marks on the floor, and whether each teacher is implementing the school's behavior incentive plans. Interspersed with Pondiscio's paeans to "benign paternalism," there are some surprisingly candid admissions from Moscowitz and her (mostly white) leadership team: "I don't really believe in developmentally appropriate practice," she claims, a sentiment not out of place with widely circulated horror stories about the "rip and redo", the "got to go" list, and the deprivation of breaks, food, and bathroom privileges for minor behavioral infractions. I know I'm not the intended audience for this book, but wow, I didn't expect to be so pissed by the end of it.
tldr: idk why i finished this book it just made me mad
August 23, 2020
More balanced than I expected, it did make me think. Charter schools give poor families at least a chance at school choice. Middle class and wealthy families take school choice for granted, even when they send their kids to public school. (Don't like your local school? Put your house on the market and buy into a better district.) The author admits that "high performing" (read: high test-scoring) schools recruit the most engaged parents by making them jump through lots of hoops, and opines that the result is a better education for those impoverished kids whose families value it the most and work for it the hardest. Maybe that is appropriate.
He also admits that traditional public schools don't have the same option. I therefore find his casual acceptance of holding traditional public schools and their teachers accountable for students' test scores troubling.
He also admits that traditional public schools don't have the same option. I therefore find his casual acceptance of holding traditional public schools and their teachers accountable for students' test scores troubling.
October 10, 2019
What a surreal experience to relive one of the hardest but most formative years of my life through a neutral party’s eyes.
November 23, 2022
My public library has a 50-item-limit on books you can check out, and I am frequently at or near that limit. I check out a lot of books, some to read, some to skim, some to reference that one thing. Occasionally I stumble across a book that I can't put down, and I end up buying my own copy -- How the Other Half Learns was one of those books.
I first found the book in a reference in Teach Like a Champion, and Doug Lemov is the first blurb on the back of HTOHL. I teach 4th grade in a charter school in South Minneapolis serving 95% Black students and 80% Free/Reduced Lunch. I'm somewhat attuned to the debates surrounding District vs. Charter schools, and I'm open to the debate. I want to hear all the sides of these arguments, because at the end of the day, it's not about any particular model, it's about the kids.
Pondiscio's book is an in depth look at an award winning Charter school network in New York, Success Academy. Headed by Eva Moskowitz, these schools seem to be doing amazing things, at least as evidenced by their test scores. Pondiscio spent a year with them, in Bronx 1, talking to parents, teachers, administrators, and just observing the school to see what makes it work.
As a teacher in a charter school, I found the book riveting, and really helpful. Yes, I generally agree with Pondiscio's perspective on school choice and equity. And while I wouldn't recommend doing everything that SA does, I found their overall approach to be a good model for consideration. What I think was most helpful was just to see how another successful school does things from every angle: classroom management; administration; HR; parent engagement; phonics; curriculum; events; enrollment; uniforms; parent meetings. This book gave me categories for operating as a teacher that I am using this year, it's given me confidence to pursue certain activities, and stand firm on "high expectations" in the face of serious learning-loss challenges.
Most of all, I think it's just given me perspective, much of it I am 100% on board with, some of it not, all of it worth considering.
I first found the book in a reference in Teach Like a Champion, and Doug Lemov is the first blurb on the back of HTOHL. I teach 4th grade in a charter school in South Minneapolis serving 95% Black students and 80% Free/Reduced Lunch. I'm somewhat attuned to the debates surrounding District vs. Charter schools, and I'm open to the debate. I want to hear all the sides of these arguments, because at the end of the day, it's not about any particular model, it's about the kids.
Pondiscio's book is an in depth look at an award winning Charter school network in New York, Success Academy. Headed by Eva Moskowitz, these schools seem to be doing amazing things, at least as evidenced by their test scores. Pondiscio spent a year with them, in Bronx 1, talking to parents, teachers, administrators, and just observing the school to see what makes it work.
As a teacher in a charter school, I found the book riveting, and really helpful. Yes, I generally agree with Pondiscio's perspective on school choice and equity. And while I wouldn't recommend doing everything that SA does, I found their overall approach to be a good model for consideration. What I think was most helpful was just to see how another successful school does things from every angle: classroom management; administration; HR; parent engagement; phonics; curriculum; events; enrollment; uniforms; parent meetings. This book gave me categories for operating as a teacher that I am using this year, it's given me confidence to pursue certain activities, and stand firm on "high expectations" in the face of serious learning-loss challenges.
Most of all, I think it's just given me perspective, much of it I am 100% on board with, some of it not, all of it worth considering.
April 30, 2024
This was interesting and eye-opening. I appreciated learning about the additional challenges in teaching children from underserved, underprivileged communities. Success Academy’s model is the best bet for these kids to have even a chance at the opportunities handed to kids who grow up in rich neighborhoods with good schools or have the resources to go to private school.
November 22, 2021
Excellent, provocative, fair-minded.
June 20, 2020
An incredibly compelling look into the approach of Success Academy, one of the nation's top performing charter schools.
The Success Academy model demonstrates how to better equip teachers to be successful, how class size matters less than you think, and how standardized curriculum better facilitates learning. However, Robert credits school culture as the primary force for a school's academic achievements. This culture is created when parents, teachers and students all have high expectations.
Robert also narrates the heartbreaking reality of the parents that literally depend on winning a lottery to get their kids into these high performing charter schools. These schools give low income parents the options that are readily available to more affluent Americans, who can pick the schools that their kids go to by either moving to a good district or paying for a private school (i.e. these parents can better select the school culture that they want their kids to be a part of). The American education system is a clear-cut example of what people mean when they say systemic racism - unequal access to opportunity that disproportionally affects people of color. You should be mad about it.
With an eyes wide open consideration of both the pros and cons of Success Academy, and a narrative that is quite readable, I can't recommend this book enough. I'll leave you with this quote:
"Consider for a moment how this experience must feel to a low-income child of color: You have been the obsessive focus for months of every adult in your school. You earn a test score that not just your teachers, parents, and friends, but also your state, says equals or exceeds those of children anywhere in the state—an externally validated outcome affirming that you are the equal of any of your peers, rich or poor; black, white, or brown. Even more powerfully, you are part of a school community where nearly all your friends do just as well as you, and all your friends’ parents value education every bit as much as your own do. Very little in the history, experience, or memory of low-income African American or Hispanic families in this country would lead one to expect this level of investment, this consistency of achievement, or this outcome. It’s not possible to overstate the astonishing normalizing power of this school culture or the degree to which it is at odds with the experience of the majority of low-income children of color in the United States of America of a place called a school."
The Success Academy model demonstrates how to better equip teachers to be successful, how class size matters less than you think, and how standardized curriculum better facilitates learning. However, Robert credits school culture as the primary force for a school's academic achievements. This culture is created when parents, teachers and students all have high expectations.
Robert also narrates the heartbreaking reality of the parents that literally depend on winning a lottery to get their kids into these high performing charter schools. These schools give low income parents the options that are readily available to more affluent Americans, who can pick the schools that their kids go to by either moving to a good district or paying for a private school (i.e. these parents can better select the school culture that they want their kids to be a part of). The American education system is a clear-cut example of what people mean when they say systemic racism - unequal access to opportunity that disproportionally affects people of color. You should be mad about it.
With an eyes wide open consideration of both the pros and cons of Success Academy, and a narrative that is quite readable, I can't recommend this book enough. I'll leave you with this quote:
"Consider for a moment how this experience must feel to a low-income child of color: You have been the obsessive focus for months of every adult in your school. You earn a test score that not just your teachers, parents, and friends, but also your state, says equals or exceeds those of children anywhere in the state—an externally validated outcome affirming that you are the equal of any of your peers, rich or poor; black, white, or brown. Even more powerfully, you are part of a school community where nearly all your friends do just as well as you, and all your friends’ parents value education every bit as much as your own do. Very little in the history, experience, or memory of low-income African American or Hispanic families in this country would lead one to expect this level of investment, this consistency of achievement, or this outcome. It’s not possible to overstate the astonishing normalizing power of this school culture or the degree to which it is at odds with the experience of the majority of low-income children of color in the United States of America of a place called a school."
October 25, 2019
Excellent book - well-written, organized, engaging, and a nice balance of direct observation and context. Pondiscio hits the key to the network's success: involved and dedicated parents to the demanding school culture. I think the network's uniform curriculum is smart, and the techniques teachers use to guide discussion, observation and learning! I think the message that all students can achieve is smart, and explicit modeling on what they need to do. Students read widely and they read a lot. This is key to being an excellent reader. All schools need uniformed curriculum, discipline procedures, and strong suggestions for parents. The network seems less capable with students who do not conform to its strict culture. Do students internalize the habits of mind, time management, and academic strategies to translate into being self-directed, creative learners? Time and longitudinal studies will tell!
September 28, 2019
I couldn’t put the book down. I kept wondering would I have joined the culture of Success Academy if I taught in NYC. These kids were the same population I taught in LA and how we struggled to gain momentum from year to year in achievement. These teachers were achieving it. This author embeds in the school for a year and writes a thought provoking and I think fair assessment of the charter school network Success Academy that has received the most criticism from NYT among others. It reads very quickly as the reader comes to know some of the teachers and students of this Bronx charter school. The author then raises the bigger picture about accountability, school choice, equality, testing, culture and values. I really hope this book sparks a discussion among educators.
January 19, 2022
This is a rare book in educational policy that successfully examines the nuances of its chosen issue. While Pondiscio is an education reformist by trade, he doesn't shy away from Success Academy's controversies, directly confirming most well-publicized controversies of the network through direct observations. His commentaries on these events are decidedly pro-charter, but are uncharacteristically thoughtful for either side of the school choice debate. His commentary on the curriculum and educational strategies he observes are all grounded in sound research with provided references. Regardless of your thoughts on school choice, this is a valuable read.
November 21, 2020
If feel like I can put 1 year of working for Success Academy, the amount of time most educators spend working for this organization, on my resume after reading this detailed and thorough account of NYC's top preforming, yet highly controversial charter school network.
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the topic of school choice. If anything, Pondiscio's work highlights that this is a difficult issue to completely support or completely oppose. Pick up this book and watch your biases unpack as you educate yourself on how "the other half learns."
I would recommend this book for anyone interested in the topic of school choice. If anything, Pondiscio's work highlights that this is a difficult issue to completely support or completely oppose. Pick up this book and watch your biases unpack as you educate yourself on how "the other half learns."
June 19, 2024
This author now works at a conservative think tank, and I think that seeps into his work throughout this book, but despite that it’s a really fascinating deep-dive into the inner workings of SA.
I read this while working at a SA-type charter school and found the commonalities completely mind-boggling. I felt like I was reading about my own job. It legitimately helped me understand my personal feelings about these types of militaristic, test-driven schools and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone hoping to learn about the way the school-choice movement is impacting teachers and families.
I read this while working at a SA-type charter school and found the commonalities completely mind-boggling. I felt like I was reading about my own job. It legitimately helped me understand my personal feelings about these types of militaristic, test-driven schools and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone hoping to learn about the way the school-choice movement is impacting teachers and families.
January 25, 2020
Every parent with children about to enter school or in the early years of elementary please read this book.. I would have given the book 5 stars if it were shorter... some of the stories and points could have been shorter... the length of the book was not the issue, but the redundancy of content.. Eva Moskowitz has created something great...
October 11, 2020
I have so many thoughts and opinions on this one.....
November 19, 2021
It’s an okay book about Success Academy in New York. Every chapter feels the same as it keeps hammering home the core principles of Success Academy.
Closes up with couple of critiques about schools like these weeding out undesired students and questioning whether this is right or what is required for the others to succeed.
It really is a tough question. I’ve had classes where a student or two detail everything and everyday and nothing you feel like you can do. You want these kids to do well, but at some point you realize it’s dragging everyone else down.
Book also touches on parent involvement. OMG I wish I could get more parent buy-in in my school.
If your interested in education or these types of schools it could be worth a read.
Closes up with couple of critiques about schools like these weeding out undesired students and questioning whether this is right or what is required for the others to succeed.
It really is a tough question. I’ve had classes where a student or two detail everything and everyday and nothing you feel like you can do. You want these kids to do well, but at some point you realize it’s dragging everyone else down.
Book also touches on parent involvement. OMG I wish I could get more parent buy-in in my school.
If your interested in education or these types of schools it could be worth a read.
June 15, 2024
Teaching is the easiest job in the world to do badly. It’s the hardest job to do well.
I would recommend this book to anyone.
I would recommend this book to anyone.
October 29, 2025
i was q busy the past 2 weeks, and the fact that I managed to finish the book this fast is testament to how much i enjoyed reading this - at first I thought it was going to be a lot more observational, but the author interpersed it with a lot of insights about the performance of charter schools (e.g. reading comprehension actually being more about how much context you have on the passage, university completion rates, its focus on discipline; the last bit about charter schools giving minority families a fighting chance at enrolling their kids into elite schools, just like the opportunity that has been afforded to middle- and upper-class families for a v long time, was particularly riveting)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2019
Mr. P. Don't Play
Robert Pondiscio applies skills from his journalism experience to prove his truths through a year of deep observations. This is no ivory tower think tank analysis of a handful of anecdotes. Mr. Pondiscio puts readers in the Success Academy building daily so they can understand how and why it works. My favorite observations come near the summation, after Mr. Pondiscio has introduced his evidence:
• I love the "GAS factor," particularly because it highlights a simple truth: school is our first introduction to our government. If we felt that school cared about our well-being, we might feel positive about our government and about our role in it. And then we might realize that we are the government. And then we might care about the well-being of our citizens. This is Mr. Pondiscio's long game for his longtime focus on civics. I look forward to a Success generation of non-cynical leaders.
• Efforts to boost education through additional resources for teachers continue to be insufficient, because those efforts perpetuate a “fantasy … that teacher salaries can … draw the cognitively elite away from …more remunerative professions. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well … by people of average sentience and talent.” Yikes! (But nodding my head). The number of young talented energetic teachers that Mr. Pondiscio encounters is remarkable, but so is the burn out.
• It takes more than dedicated teachers. Thus, Mr. Pondiscio concludes, it comes down to a culture that any market analyst can understand: willing buyers and willing sellers. Success Academy insists on 100% buy-in to its system. Guess who else insists? A: The parents, the students, the teachers, and the administrators. Each of those constituencies understands the risks (any one of them could be terminated at any time for a shortfall) and the rewards (a caring community which achieves results that make the constituents believe in the system). It is unsurprising that people of faith comprise a large segment of the Success Academy constituencies.
• So, Mr. Pondiscio’s thesis: People of means/options are willing buyers who select schools from willing sellers, why not the other half?
I deem the thesis proved. I was skeptical about charter schools before reading this book. I thought charter schools drained public resources that could be devoted to raising all ships. But I, like most of our citizenry, was underinformed, through mere passing glances, about a problem that every parent in America considers. Ideally, Success-level engagement of parents, students, teachers, and administrators would occur at every one of our public schools. Maybe that will happen. But until it does, I will be comfortable giving motivated people opportunities to forge a future through like-minded educational systems, regardless of means.
I think that anyone who thinks about public education should read this book
Robert Pondiscio applies skills from his journalism experience to prove his truths through a year of deep observations. This is no ivory tower think tank analysis of a handful of anecdotes. Mr. Pondiscio puts readers in the Success Academy building daily so they can understand how and why it works. My favorite observations come near the summation, after Mr. Pondiscio has introduced his evidence:
• I love the "GAS factor," particularly because it highlights a simple truth: school is our first introduction to our government. If we felt that school cared about our well-being, we might feel positive about our government and about our role in it. And then we might realize that we are the government. And then we might care about the well-being of our citizens. This is Mr. Pondiscio's long game for his longtime focus on civics. I look forward to a Success generation of non-cynical leaders.
• Efforts to boost education through additional resources for teachers continue to be insufficient, because those efforts perpetuate a “fantasy … that teacher salaries can … draw the cognitively elite away from …more remunerative professions. At scale, teaching must be a job that can be done well … by people of average sentience and talent.” Yikes! (But nodding my head). The number of young talented energetic teachers that Mr. Pondiscio encounters is remarkable, but so is the burn out.
• It takes more than dedicated teachers. Thus, Mr. Pondiscio concludes, it comes down to a culture that any market analyst can understand: willing buyers and willing sellers. Success Academy insists on 100% buy-in to its system. Guess who else insists? A: The parents, the students, the teachers, and the administrators. Each of those constituencies understands the risks (any one of them could be terminated at any time for a shortfall) and the rewards (a caring community which achieves results that make the constituents believe in the system). It is unsurprising that people of faith comprise a large segment of the Success Academy constituencies.
• So, Mr. Pondiscio’s thesis: People of means/options are willing buyers who select schools from willing sellers, why not the other half?
I deem the thesis proved. I was skeptical about charter schools before reading this book. I thought charter schools drained public resources that could be devoted to raising all ships. But I, like most of our citizenry, was underinformed, through mere passing glances, about a problem that every parent in America considers. Ideally, Success-level engagement of parents, students, teachers, and administrators would occur at every one of our public schools. Maybe that will happen. But until it does, I will be comfortable giving motivated people opportunities to forge a future through like-minded educational systems, regardless of means.
I think that anyone who thinks about public education should read this book
February 6, 2021
This book is an engaging examination of NYC's famous (infamous, if you've heard of the "Got to Go" list or seen the video of the teacher verbally abusing a first-grader) Success Academy charter schools, written by an experienced former 5th grade teacher who had mostly-unfettered access to one of their schools for a year.
First off, the book is wonderfully written. The reader ends up deeply caring about the students, teachers, and parents Pondiscio introduces us to over the course of the year. The author's love for education is conveyed so well in these pages. It's rare to find a book on educational policy that's so hard to put down!
You can appreciate from the beginning pages what a masterful low-inference note-taker Pondiscio is when he tells us one administrator frequently asks pedagogical questions - but then provides numerous examples of her "questioning" which consist of stating her opinion, rhetorically asking "Right?", then permitting her subordinates to nod along in cowed silence. 😂
Pondiscio, who is a member of a conservative-leaning think tank, makes it clear by the end that he feels positively about the results Success Academy delivers for many of its students, but he's also honest enough to acknowledge important caveats - for instance, the fact that the length and complexity of Success Academy's admission process self-selects for only the most motivated students and parents. Perhaps because the school's impressive state test scores are due largely to students' and families' determination (and a rather cultish indoctrination of students into believing Test Day is the most important day of their school year), it seems to matter little that many of the school's teachers are inexperienced and undertrained. (The author frequently mentions how much turnover there is - he calls teachers who've been there for two or more years "veteran" and eventually says this may be positive. I wish there'd been more examination of what that really meant. Is the problem that experienced teachers aren't pliant enough to comply with Success Academy's top-down directives, already having formed their own philosophies? Or is he implying something deeper about what he thinks "those" kids can handle or deserve?)
5 stars for a page-turner of an educational policy book. I definitely do not agree with all the author's conclusions, but I'd recommend the book to anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of charter schooling in the Bronx.
First off, the book is wonderfully written. The reader ends up deeply caring about the students, teachers, and parents Pondiscio introduces us to over the course of the year. The author's love for education is conveyed so well in these pages. It's rare to find a book on educational policy that's so hard to put down!
You can appreciate from the beginning pages what a masterful low-inference note-taker Pondiscio is when he tells us one administrator frequently asks pedagogical questions - but then provides numerous examples of her "questioning" which consist of stating her opinion, rhetorically asking "Right?", then permitting her subordinates to nod along in cowed silence. 😂
Pondiscio, who is a member of a conservative-leaning think tank, makes it clear by the end that he feels positively about the results Success Academy delivers for many of its students, but he's also honest enough to acknowledge important caveats - for instance, the fact that the length and complexity of Success Academy's admission process self-selects for only the most motivated students and parents. Perhaps because the school's impressive state test scores are due largely to students' and families' determination (and a rather cultish indoctrination of students into believing Test Day is the most important day of their school year), it seems to matter little that many of the school's teachers are inexperienced and undertrained. (The author frequently mentions how much turnover there is - he calls teachers who've been there for two or more years "veteran" and eventually says this may be positive. I wish there'd been more examination of what that really meant. Is the problem that experienced teachers aren't pliant enough to comply with Success Academy's top-down directives, already having formed their own philosophies? Or is he implying something deeper about what he thinks "those" kids can handle or deserve?)
5 stars for a page-turner of an educational policy book. I definitely do not agree with all the author's conclusions, but I'd recommend the book to anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of charter schooling in the Bronx.
September 30, 2019
I have a lot of really complicated thoughts about this book, but mostly I think they are the same ones he articulates. Success has created something that doesn't work for everyone but works really, really well for some children and families who have no other good options. It's frustrating that it all has to be so hard, but maybe what Success is proving is that there is no easier way to do it? I don't know and don't think I'll ever know but I know these kids can't wait for us to figure it out.
May 9, 2023
2.5 for content; 4 for reading enjoyment
I read this book with a skeptical but open mind, and unfortunately it was good and made some convincing arguments in favor of charter schools. Sigh. Certainty is hard to maintain for long. That said, while I'm slightly less certain we should prohibit charters in our current system, I'm not ultimately in favor of expanding them. How the Other Half Learns is a profile of Bronx 1, an elementary school within the Success Academy charter network, written by a former (short-term) teacher who embedded in the school for a year. As a profile of Success Academy, it's great and, to outside eyes, fairly even-handed. Pondiscio admits some of his qualms about charter schools and the discipline regiments, but quite clearly comes down in favor of Success. This book is NOT a broad analysis of charter schools more generally; one of its biggest flaws is that it makes conclusions as though it is. Sure, Success Academy charters achieve high test scores / academic results, but charters writ large don't necessarily. If you conclude from this book that Success Academy is good, that's valid; if you conclude that charter schools as a whole are good, you did not read with enough critical thought.
The crucial omission from this book is the lack of imaginative systems-thinking. Pondiscio makes the compelling point that upper-income families already operate in a model of school choice: they live in (or can move to) neighborhoods with high-performing public schools and have the option of enrolling their children in various forms of private schools that fit their child's needs, whether it's a college prep academy, distant boarding school, arts academy, religious school, etc. Why, Pondiscio argues, should we prohibit highly motivated low-income families from exerting the same amount of choice? He goes on to add that only low-income black and brown students do we impose the burden of "equality" and "fairness" in not removing the high-achieving students and highly-engaged families from their local (failing) public schools. Expecting low-income families to prioritize the "community" over their child is, I agree, unjust. However. This is where Pondiscio reveals some baffling assumptions and demonstrates a shocking lack of imagination. First of all, he claims that we would never tell a rich family to do the same (not put their kid in private school to keep money in public schools, essentially). While that may be true in our current system, I actually /do/ think wealthy students should attend the same public schools as poor students; in general, I don't think we should have private schools. He also openly asserts that low-income public schools can't become good schools because teachers will never be paid well so intellectually capable people won't become teachers. This is a common fallacy perpetuated by conservatives; I'm not giving it any more attention than to say -- we could pay teachers more if we wanted to invest in education.
That assumption of the irredeemability of public schools is where this pro-charter argument collapses. Wealthy students have choice /because/ their public schools are good quality options. Poor students don't have choice because their public schools are not. Having a lottery that a few students are lucky to get into is fine, but it doesn't solve the root issue. IF AND ONLY IF the public "default" is a good quality school can a charter school purport to offer choice. Otherwise it is simply offering a "lucky" few students a "better" education, at the literal expense of other students. Charter schools may have a place within our education system, just like religious schools might, but they cannot be the only quality option for students. Expanding charters is not a substitute for investing in standard public education.
A couple other points worth mentioning:
- There are no interviews with former students and few with current students, so it's not clear how students feel about their schooling. Success Academy has a ridiculously strict, discipline-focused model: how do students feel about that?
- On the point of rigidity, the structure and discipline in this school sounds like a military prep academy. Only for 5-8 year olds. I didn't love most of it, but was glad to see Success Academy is very supportive of recess.
- There's a whole bit about using test scores as an objective measure of student success, and how that can feel empowering to students that they are being deemed successful by the state, in comparison to their wealthy peers, not merely by their parents or a teacher's grading system. I (controversially) see merit in this argument, though it's not as clear-cut as Pondiscio makes it out to be.
- Ah testing. Not getting into that here. But testing and test prep is /big/ at Success Academy.
- Teachers at Success seem to sincerely believe in the model and want what's best for kids. They are also mostly young white women, telling black families how to structure their life for their child. There are problems there worth exploring more (Pondiscio touches on it, but not in much depth), but worth noting that the families who enroll at Success are buying into the model as well.
We don't live in an ideal world and I'm not sure how practical my argument of "invest in education before turning to charters" is. In the meantime, maybe charter schools do serve a positive purpose and/or aren't exclusively bad. I'm not sure. Students -- even, if not especially, low-income students -- deserve a quality education. I'm not sure that Success Academy is a good educational system, but if it's what parents think is best for their child, I'm in no position to insist otherwise or preclude it as an option. This book complicated my feelings toward charter schools, but didn't change them drastically. It's worth a read for anyone who doesn't like charters and wants to learn more about the benefits of them / why so many people do.
I listened to the audiobook (unusual for me!) and thoroughly enjoyed the experience -- I was excited to return to listening, even preferring it over my podcasts. Overall would recommend.
I read this book with a skeptical but open mind, and unfortunately it was good and made some convincing arguments in favor of charter schools. Sigh. Certainty is hard to maintain for long. That said, while I'm slightly less certain we should prohibit charters in our current system, I'm not ultimately in favor of expanding them. How the Other Half Learns is a profile of Bronx 1, an elementary school within the Success Academy charter network, written by a former (short-term) teacher who embedded in the school for a year. As a profile of Success Academy, it's great and, to outside eyes, fairly even-handed. Pondiscio admits some of his qualms about charter schools and the discipline regiments, but quite clearly comes down in favor of Success. This book is NOT a broad analysis of charter schools more generally; one of its biggest flaws is that it makes conclusions as though it is. Sure, Success Academy charters achieve high test scores / academic results, but charters writ large don't necessarily. If you conclude from this book that Success Academy is good, that's valid; if you conclude that charter schools as a whole are good, you did not read with enough critical thought.
The crucial omission from this book is the lack of imaginative systems-thinking. Pondiscio makes the compelling point that upper-income families already operate in a model of school choice: they live in (or can move to) neighborhoods with high-performing public schools and have the option of enrolling their children in various forms of private schools that fit their child's needs, whether it's a college prep academy, distant boarding school, arts academy, religious school, etc. Why, Pondiscio argues, should we prohibit highly motivated low-income families from exerting the same amount of choice? He goes on to add that only low-income black and brown students do we impose the burden of "equality" and "fairness" in not removing the high-achieving students and highly-engaged families from their local (failing) public schools. Expecting low-income families to prioritize the "community" over their child is, I agree, unjust. However. This is where Pondiscio reveals some baffling assumptions and demonstrates a shocking lack of imagination. First of all, he claims that we would never tell a rich family to do the same (not put their kid in private school to keep money in public schools, essentially). While that may be true in our current system, I actually /do/ think wealthy students should attend the same public schools as poor students; in general, I don't think we should have private schools. He also openly asserts that low-income public schools can't become good schools because teachers will never be paid well so intellectually capable people won't become teachers. This is a common fallacy perpetuated by conservatives; I'm not giving it any more attention than to say -- we could pay teachers more if we wanted to invest in education.
That assumption of the irredeemability of public schools is where this pro-charter argument collapses. Wealthy students have choice /because/ their public schools are good quality options. Poor students don't have choice because their public schools are not. Having a lottery that a few students are lucky to get into is fine, but it doesn't solve the root issue. IF AND ONLY IF the public "default" is a good quality school can a charter school purport to offer choice. Otherwise it is simply offering a "lucky" few students a "better" education, at the literal expense of other students. Charter schools may have a place within our education system, just like religious schools might, but they cannot be the only quality option for students. Expanding charters is not a substitute for investing in standard public education.
A couple other points worth mentioning:
- There are no interviews with former students and few with current students, so it's not clear how students feel about their schooling. Success Academy has a ridiculously strict, discipline-focused model: how do students feel about that?
- On the point of rigidity, the structure and discipline in this school sounds like a military prep academy. Only for 5-8 year olds. I didn't love most of it, but was glad to see Success Academy is very supportive of recess.
- There's a whole bit about using test scores as an objective measure of student success, and how that can feel empowering to students that they are being deemed successful by the state, in comparison to their wealthy peers, not merely by their parents or a teacher's grading system. I (controversially) see merit in this argument, though it's not as clear-cut as Pondiscio makes it out to be.
- Ah testing. Not getting into that here. But testing and test prep is /big/ at Success Academy.
- Teachers at Success seem to sincerely believe in the model and want what's best for kids. They are also mostly young white women, telling black families how to structure their life for their child. There are problems there worth exploring more (Pondiscio touches on it, but not in much depth), but worth noting that the families who enroll at Success are buying into the model as well.
We don't live in an ideal world and I'm not sure how practical my argument of "invest in education before turning to charters" is. In the meantime, maybe charter schools do serve a positive purpose and/or aren't exclusively bad. I'm not sure. Students -- even, if not especially, low-income students -- deserve a quality education. I'm not sure that Success Academy is a good educational system, but if it's what parents think is best for their child, I'm in no position to insist otherwise or preclude it as an option. This book complicated my feelings toward charter schools, but didn't change them drastically. It's worth a read for anyone who doesn't like charters and wants to learn more about the benefits of them / why so many people do.
I listened to the audiobook (unusual for me!) and thoroughly enjoyed the experience -- I was excited to return to listening, even preferring it over my podcasts. Overall would recommend.
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