It's school choice week.
But what does school choice
mean?
How do we spell the sun
that's outside?
S-U-N.
It might mean
schools where kids
like learning.
Learning is work.
It don't matter.
These kids, or rather their parents
chose a different kind of school,
a charter school.
That's a public school,
but one outside the
normal government bureaucracy.
Kids at these Success Academy charters
do remarkably well.
We are number one
in student achievement
in the state of New York.
We're outperforming
all of the wealthy suburbs.
Success Academy teaches mostly
poor kids,
but 95 percent
passed the state math test,
84 percent the English test.
Government-run schools
have a much lower pass rate.
How does Success
do it?
You keep them in school longer.
Our instructional day starts at 7:45,
middle schoolers go till 4:30.
Open up your book,
you should be sitting up straight.
This is too hard on the kids,
it's stressful.
China and India are not
worrying about
the length of the school day.
We have to toughen up a little bit.
Reading is work
but it's rockin' awesome.
I think I've read each year
I've read 100 books.
Our level of rigor is
much higher than in most district schools.
Just more rigor works?
It does.
Kids rise to your level of
expectation.
Good morning kindergarten scholars.
Good morning Miss Neptune.
And even though the kids work hard,
somehow
they like the work.
School
is boring.
No it's not.
They told me,
learning is fun.
How is it fun to learn?
They just teach us in a fun way.
I was surprised that the kids seemed
happy.
How could kids
like
work?
It's hard.
It's hard,
but actually
kids like
succeeding at things.
So you guys look forward
to going to school in the morning?
Yes.
Yet Eva Moskowitz is hated.
When she goes to public meetings
to propose opening a new school,
people scream at her.
Y'all are not welcome here.
We will not welcome you here.
We will fight.
I will fight until my dying day.
They just hate you.
They do,
they do.
The charter school will not be inside
of P.S. 194.
They hate her,
she says
because
what we prove
is that there's nothing wrong with the children,
there is something wrong with the system,
a monopolistic system that is
not allowing
kids
to succeed.
Time for Eva Moskowitz
to stop having the run of the place.
Defenders of the government monopoly
are everywhere.
One is commentator Nomiki Konst.
Reality is, charter schools are better funded
by these hedge funders
and they're performing worse than the underfunded
schools.
The results are in.
It's a scam.
She's just wrong.
Wrong about the results,
but what about the funding?
You have more money.
You've got billionaires donating.
Less money.
So New York spends about
almost $20,000 dollars per student.
Yeah and I only get $14,500
and I'm getting vastly better results.
You do well because you're a test prep factory.
You just drill them.
We do not run schools
for tests.
We really believe in games.
In kindergarten we play Blokus and backgammon,
second grade we do Monopoly.
We have math teams, robotics teams, debate teams.
You cherry-pick the kids.
Simply not true.
We admit by random lottery.
Many charters do.
You see the pages up here,
it's a random selection.
You all have your numbers, right?
Finally, critics say
yes, Eva takes kids by lottery
but then she kicks
problem kids out.
You say,
maybe this school isn't for you.
Well why would our student
retention rates be so much higher
than the district?
Are they?
They are.
Significantly.
We lose about 10 percent of our families
every year and the districts lose about 20 percent.
All reasons parents line up
hoping to give their kids
a chance
to escape government-run schools.
This line
goes on
and on.
Kids whose names are not drawn
cry.
Oh it's heartbreaking.
If you win our lottery,
you are guaranteed
as a young child
to learn how to read.
Of course not every charter is good.
Some turn out to be worse than schools they replace.
But the beauty of choice,
a market,
is that bad schools
gradually disappear
The good schools grow.
KIPP
started a knowledge is power program school
just 20 years ago.
Now the chain has 209 schools.
IDEA has several
of the top-ranked high schools in the country.
With 61 schools,
it's now the fastest-growing charter chain.
And Eva Moskowitz
now runs
46 schools.
There's work to do on behalf of children
and I'm going to continue to do that work.
Eva's the Democrat
who once believed
that government-run schools
were fine.
She explains that
in her new book.
What do you mean
The education of Eva?
Were you dumb before?
Well no, I was not dumb,
but I was
blinded I think
by
a belief
that big government was a good thing.
What do you mean by
they need freedom?
Now Eva's been educated,
and her students
have discussions like this.
Everybody has a different life
so they could do
whatever they want.
you