Talk:Success Academy Charter Schools/Archive 1

edits mostly of April 25, 2011
I've edited the article as edited on April 25, 2011, and before and after; most of the edits relate to that date. A comparison of the article as it stood just before the April 25th edits and after them is available.

Quotations must be accurate. If a paraphrase was intended, it may not be placed in quotation marks and attributed to a source if the original does not correspond.

Statements, even if not quoted, may not be attributed to sources which do not support them. If information is to be added without a source, it has to be separated so that readers are not misled about sourcing. In general, statements that are likely to be challenged should be sourced.

Exaggeration that is misleading is not accepted. For example, 125 emails can hardly be quantified as "hundreds". Juan Gonzalez reported on emails, but did not expose them, since he did not publish their texts or link to them, but summarized highlights of the collection. Not having a union is not union busting, since, if it were, almost all private sector employers in the U.S. would have to be criticized on the same ground. HSA, to my knowledge, never had a union, so none was busted. That no union contract is offered was already stated.

I corrected a percentage from zero to positive numbers. It appears that an editor read the wrong page of the source and misunderstood to what the zero percentage applied. The correction includes more detail.

Original research is not generally permitted. Even if a statement is true, it should be attributed to a source. In several places, I added a Citation Needed template. Citations should be added at those points. Where that is not done, the unsupported content may be removed. I also tagged one sentence in the Admissions section as original research (a sentence I think I wrote in the first place, so it's my fault); it's followed by a sentence that needs a citation (and which is tagged to that effect); if the latter does not get a citation, both sentences may soon be deleted as original research.

The criticism that the school's application is monolingual, if correct when added, was not correct when I checked, since applications were available in both English and Spanish, so I moved information about bilingualism to the section on admissions and out of the section on criticisms. If the school group has been criticized for lacking application forms in a third language, that criticism should be attributed to a source stating the criticism. The fact that an institution is monolingual or bilingual is not ordinarily a subject of criticism, because it is true of almost every institution in almost every nation. New York City alone is home to native speakers of, I think, over a hundred languages, but most schools do not offer applications or admissions materials in most of those languages. If the prospective students for these schools include a significant number who are not able to apply in either language, that could be a legitimate criticism that could be added to this article, provided that critique has been published somewhere reliable. For example, if HSA is required to contact prospects through a third language but is not doing so, that might be a valid critique, but then the requirement has to be identified and the failure reported in a source.

On a controversy about collocation, I restored, with a citation and with editing, about an education quality comparison, as that is part of the controversy.

Where statistics differed between the State's and Ms. Moskowitz's, I restored her statement, as both sets are reportable and her statement includes more information that the state data does not include.

The paragraph on HSA's marketing campaign (about the $1,100 per student) went beyond the source in including public relations, which is not in the source, and in comparing to other charters, which the source did not discuss except to contradict it in the title. If either of those points should be re-included, it should be sourced.

A link to a Wikipedia article section had previously been correct; it was edited to a nonexistent section; I edited it back. I corrected another link, too.

On Gideon Stein, in the Management section, I restored the sentence as it was regarding his chairing the HSA5 board and being a member of the Success Charter Network board, in lieu of his being the vice chair of the latter and omitting the former. While the Wikipedia article about him follows the latter formulation, a Wikipedia article is not to be a source (although it may be linked to and it may be checked for sourcing) and the source given in the Wikipedia article about him uses the former formulation (and I cited the source). If he is off the HSA5 board and/or is vice chair of the Network board, please source accordingly before we re-add.

I deleted a section heading that had no body.

Some restyling was done. E.g.: The phrase "founder of HSA" was redundant, thus removed. A tense was changed to the past, for consistency with the content and sourcing. Some more was grammatical, like deleting an extra article. Section headings set as simple boldface were reformatted, so they'd appear in the table of contents, and their case was changed to sentence case, to conform to Wikipedia's preference. I edited ndash coding (probably mine) to "–".

The editors who did much of the editing discussed in this talk topic/section edited under IP addresses, i.e., rather anonymously. IP editors may be less likely to see this talk topic/section, because they wouldn't have watchlists. If you're one such editor, consider creating a usernamed account so you can watchlist this page. Feel free to discuss changes to the article.

Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:41, 23 July 2011 (UTC) (Corrected (deleted an article, replaced "either" with "it", & reworded re ndash): 22:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)) (Prior correction: Not from "either" but from "each": 22:32, 23 July 2011 (UTC))

propose renaming this article
I propose to rename this article from Harlem Success Academy to Success Academy Charter Schools. This would reflect official renaming. While the first few schools in the group were in Harlem and the original name was Harlem Success Academy, the group has opened schools elsewhere in Manhattan and in the Bronx and Brooklyn. In Wikipedia, names such as Harlem Success Academy can serve as redirects. If there is any objection to the renaming, please post it. Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

new image deleted, probably permanently
Copyright has apparently not been licensed for use of the schools' logo in Wikipedia with application of the subsequent license. That would make the subsequent license null and void and misleading to Wikipedia editors. This would not affect the picture of the people in the hallway except that the picture and the logo have been combined into one with one subsequent license purporting to apply and therefore both the logo and the picture are affected. Unless the licensing concerns can be resolved, the best solution may be to redo the combined image as two separate images. The hallway picture might then have the licensing that was purported for the combined image. The logo then would perhaps be handled under the Logos guideline, without adding an unauthorized license.

I like all of the imagery, but the legal issues are a problem, which is why I raised the issue and got a reply at the Wikipedia help desk (the Logo and License Applicability section). And, separately, the two images would still be good. As this kind of deletion (speedy for copyright violation) likely includes scrubbing of servers, the deleted content likely cannot be recovered now.

Also consider the people in the picture and the commercial use of a likeness of a person, which is another legal issue. I think Wikipedia's licensing system means that commercial use must be permitted. If so, any person in the picture who is recognizable in a jury's judgment may need to give permission for the use of their likeness, and for any pictured person who is a minor the permission may have to come from a parent or guardian. (It may be that even if only one person recognizes a person in the picture the pictured person's right is violated. I would not assume that many people have to recognize someone before there's a legal issue.) I'm not certain of this, since there may be news or press issues as well. Wikipedia probably has discussed this in a policy or guideline you can access. It may also be possible to modify the picture so that recognition is stymied and still have it look realistic. If such a modification is applied, the Wikimedia page where the image is stored should say so, for accuracy of article/s showing the picture.

Thank you for your work. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

edits in Jan., 2012
Thank you for recently updating this article. I hope you continue. This article has had many adverse edits in the past and I try to keep it within Wikipedia's standards.

If a statement with two facts is supported by a source and one fact and the source are updated, check whether the source is positioned in the sentence to make it look like the source also supports the other fact. Then be sure the source does support both facts. Otherwise, readers will be misled. If that source does not actually support the second fact, you should find a source for the second fact or preserve the original source and place or edit it so that readers will know which fact is supported by which source. If a fact does not have a source cited for it, the fact can be challenged, edited, or deleted by any editor (the exception being, as Wikipedians sometimes say, that no source is needed for the fact that "the sky is blue", or for any fact not likely to be challenged). Much about HSA has been challenged in the past (possibly because of political dislike toward Dr. Moskowitz) and sourcing should be carefully done.

Sources should be secondary, meaning at least one level removed from personal experience. Usually, that means an independent third-party reliable source. By contrast, for example, SA's website is a primary source about SA. Self-statements are primary sources. Primary sources are allowed but must be used with greater care and generally should be shunned (except in the External Links section, for example). Try to find secondary sources wherever possible. Part of Wikipedia's standard is at WP:PSTS.

The lede (sometimes spelled "lead") should be a summary of the body of the article, so it doesn't get a reference. Because the lede is a summary, any statement in the lede should essentially be in the body, too, so the reference should be positioned where the body's statement is.

A tendency to write an article like an advertisement sometimes crops up. The recent edits to this article were mild in that regard; I've seen a much more obvious case recently in another article. While this school network has remarkable achievements that should be described, legitimately sourced criticisms also have to be included or preserved. Articles that are too much like ads are subject to severe rewritings or reversions to earlier revisions, often by editors less familiar with the subject.

Ref elements generally follow punctuation. For example, we'd write, "This is a fact, and this is another fact. "

Images need alt texts, so that people who are blind or visually impaired can have their browsers read aloud information about a picture. The old image also lacked an alt text for a long time and now I've added one (I could have long ago but didn't get to it). If you create a new image and add it, please add an alt text with it.

Thank you again for your work. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Edit Summary for June 30, 2012
When I edited the article, approximately and mainly I added the CEO to the lede; added content per media articles; added citations; added quotation marks and brackets to a passage that was actually quoted from a source and added references, both to the paragraph that had been recently added; added the Infobox School template and its information; added the Further Reading section; added the schools' main office address into the Locations section and its latitude and longitude near the top; added the UFT's abbreviation; reorganized the Teachers and Management section, including merging two adjacent paragraphs and moving some content to the Academics section; reorganized subsections in the Criticisms section; moved some subsections from the Criticisms section to other sections; moved a paragraph about school size from the Academics section to the Schools section; moved the description of who Gonzalez is to the new first reference to him; deleted "and positive feedback", "like many other charter schools in New York City", and "schools" in "schools schools" as redundant and repunctuated to fit; deleted the sentence tagged as needing a citation (because the sentence's content is likely true of all or no charters so, if someone sources it, it belongs in the charter school (New York) article (with a source) or nowhere (if without a source)); deleted an unnecessary year; clarified geography for the schools; clarified who Joel Klein is on the first mention; edited the tone in the Promotion and Advertising subsection of the Criticisms section; reworded an "example" to an "instance"; edited tense and style; and renamed one subsection in the Criticisms section from Money Spent on Advertising to Promotion and Advertising.

I plan to trim references shortly.

Further editing is planned, to come perhaps within a week, including for article organization and style.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:56, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPOV

 * (The following was copied from Talk:Eva_Moskowitz because it is more relevant to the Success Academy Charter Schools article and any further replies should be here. Nick Levinson (talk) 16:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)).

Eva Moskowitz is very controversial in NYC, she has many critics, and many critical articles have been written about her in WP:RS, which should be reflected in this article under WP:WEIGHT and WP:NPOV.

All of the criticism of Moskowitz in this article seems to have been deleted, leaving the article looking like a press release. Please read WP:NPOV before you delete the criticism. Under WP:BLP, we are required to include only material supported by WP:RS, but we are not required -- or allowed -- to delete substantive criticism that is supported by WP:RS. --Nbauman (talk) 01:02, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * All of those newly-(re-)added criticisms are about her work with Success Academy Charter Schools. Therefore, they belong there, not in this article, and they're already in the schools article. This biographical article, with respect to the schools, is only a summary. To put the same content in both articles would be redundant and would create an editorial maintenance problem for Wikipedia. If critique about her work at the schools were to belong in the biographical article, then noncritique about her work at the schools would also belong in the biographical article, which means almost the entire schools article would be copied into the biographical article. It is very unusual, if it ever happens, for biographical articles to include much nonsummary information about organizations if the organizations are covered in separate articles. As examples, see articles about authors and separate articles about books the same authors wrote. Instead, articles are cross-linked, and the Moskowitz and Success Academy Charter Schools articles are cross-linked. On the other hand, if, say, the Harlem Education Fair was the subject of criticism, that would belong in the Moskowitz article, which covers the Fair, because the Fair does not have a separate article. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:40, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Nick, I don't follow you. Let me take this one point at a time. She's "drawing over $300,000 a year for overseeing 1,000 students, while New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein makes $250,000 for running over a thousand schools", according to Gonzalez. You deleted that from both the Eva Moskowitz article and the Success Academy Charter Schools article. Do you believe that belongs in either article? --Nbauman (talk) 04:20, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's in the Success Academy Charter Schools in the section Teachers and Management, but I left out the amounts, since she has also told an interviewer that others get paid more for less, in effect, and I left those out, too. But I can get that source at home and add it soon as a citation. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:37, 1 July 2012 (UTC) (Corrected link, albeit after next post: 15:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC))
 * I still don't understand. Why did you leave out the amounts? That's deleting well-sourced information. Gonzalez made the point that Moskowitz is making over $300,000 a year for overseeing 1,000 students, while the NYC Schools Chancellor makes only $250,000 for overseeing over a thousand schools. That's a legitimate point. Gonzales made the point stronger by giving the specific figures. It's vague and uninformative to simply say that some people think she's making too much (while some people think she isn't). --Nbauman (talk) 00:30, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It would create a weight problem in giving the dollar figures in one direction but not in the other direction. The latter are probably available from primary sources about the other schools, which can be used with care, but I haven't searched for those. The secondary sources pointing in both directions are provided for readers who want to research the point further. One could also raise the issue of the size of the managements at both charters and at the noncharter system, including above and below the Chancellor/CEO level; I think the noncharter system is larger. That, too, could be researched, with a somewhat better chance of finding it in a secondary source for the noncharter system, but again relying on primary sources for the charters, and if we don't use any source for the latter we'd have another weight problem. I think stating the argument in the schools article is the best compromise. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC) (Clarified/edited: 15:27, 2 July 2012 (UTC))
 * You say we would have to research the point from primary sources. That sounds like WP:OR To me. Why isn't that WP:OR? --Nbauman (talk) 18:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Original research is not allowed and secondary sources are preferred but primary sources are allowed under WP:PSTS. However, they must be used with care (meaning even more care than is required of secondary sources), if primary sources are to be used at all, and some are not allowed at all. Nick Levinson (talk) 22:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)


 * WP:WEIGHT says, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint."


 * Many WP:RS have given her salary. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/nyregion/in-east-harlem-school-building-uneasy-neighbors.html http://nymag.com/news/features/65614/index4.html http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/2365181/


 * Where in the text of WP:WEIGHT does it say anything that prevents us from giving Moskowitz' salary? --Nbauman (talk) 23:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Do we have the upward comparison of her compensation to that of in-city charter leaders who are paid more for fewer schools than she runs? I hadn't seen the Times article, and I'll likely read that tonight, but I haven't seen those numbers anywhere else. Without them, we're missing context. Nick Levinson (talk) 14:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Nick, could you please answer the question I asked you above? What in WP:WEIGHT prevents us from giving Moskowitz' salary? -- Nbauman (talk) 20:29, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it might raise a combined BLP and weight issue, because she has contended against that comparison and offered (in the press) a comparison going the other way, as described in this Wikipedia article, so that if we contextualize by supplying one set of numbers (that she gets more than some relevant parties) we should also be supplying the other set of numbers (that she gets paid less than some other relevant parties). If she should be paid proportionately to how many schools she runs or students she enrolls in the year of the comparison and if Klein's pay is taken as the baseline, on first impression I think she would have gotten less than the legal minimum wage, so contentiousness is not inappropriate, so that the number of schools or students cannot be the sole criterion. That's why I think the other set of numbers is needed. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:31, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I've read WP:WEIGHT several times and I don't see anything in there that supports or applies to your argument that we can't include Gonzalez' numbers unless we supply those other numbers. Please quote the specific text in WP:WEIGHT that you're basing this on. --Nbauman (talk) 01:45, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I added her salary but not Klein's. I added hers because the latest one seems undisputed and current and pay levels for SA principals and teachers are given. Old compensation figures may lack due weight until an upward comparison is available to go with a downward comparison and an old figure by itself would probably be too trivial (weight and BLP contentiousness are areas for good judgment; cf. "[n]ote that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail" and WP:BLP ("[t]he idea … that every Wikipedia article is a work in progress, and that it is therefore okay for an article to be temporarily unbalanced, because it will eventually be brought into shape … does not apply to biographies. Given their potential impact on biography subjects' lives, biographies must be balanced and fair to their subjects at all times.").). The New York magazine page you linked to (p. 5) didn't have her pay level nor did the rest of that source and I didn't find it in the Voice source either, unless it was in a reader's post (my copies didn't include all of those), but readers' posts lack reliability as sourcing, so I usually don't read them or rely on them. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)


 * http://nymag.com/news/features/65614/ Tile stains and potty pee might seem beneath this CEO’s pay grade (north of $300,000 per year)


 * http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/2365181/ On this day in the Bronx, Moskowitz is opening a charter school that has 185 black and Hispanic children and one white child. And though she could afford to send her children anywhere on her salary ($300,000), two of her own children go to Harlem Success Academy 3, where they are among the only white children. (Her older son goes to NEST+m, a traditional public school for the gifted on the Lower East Side.)


 * Gonzalez is a WP:RS. He thought that the proper comparison was, "That means Moskowitz, who is responsible for four schools, makes more than Chancellor Joel Klein, who gets $250,000 to run 1,400 schools." You changed that to a vague statement that eliminated the numbers of schools and dollar figures. Nobody reading this piece could understand that without going to the link. Any college English style book, starting with Strunk & White, would tell you that specific writing is better than general writing.


 * Why did you delete the numbers from Gonzalez' quote? --Nbauman (talk) 17:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I apologize for missing the New York and Voice reports. Although the New York one wasn't on the page you first cited, I had gone through the page you've since cited and had done likewise for the Voice and I missed both reports until returning to them by searching for your quotations. I shouldn't have missed them.


 * Nonetheless, they don't change the issues on how to use the information in Wikipedia, issues already discussed, supra.


 * I agree on your basic point about Strunk & White and it is a very good classic but the Wikimedia Foundation has responsibilities and has made choices reflected in its policies and guidelines overriding that point, and I've quoted two of them, supra. This applies not only to Wikipedia but also to most publishers, each of whom has similar or different standards about what it publishes. It is within those standards that guidance on writing, such as Strunk & White's, applies. Such guidance is not usually superior to standards about what to publish.


 * Your question on why I omitted the dollar and school-quantity figures has been answered, supra, unless you're asking for clarification on some point or other, unspecified.


 * Links are provided precisely so readers can follow up. Both links to other Wikimedia pages and links to external sources serve that purpose, and thus serve concision. Because of the links, it is not necessary to repeat everything in a source, and Wikipedia wants editors to exercise appropriate judgment about what to put into a Wikipedia article.


 * In this case, the BLP and weight standards are very applicable. BLP is concerned with contentiousness. Moskowitz has been contentious regarding the comparison of her salary to Klein's. It is not an unreasonable contentiousness. She hasn't told the press (to my knowledge) that her pay can't be mentioned. We mention it in Wikipedia. She has contended against the comparison to Klein's because other charter leaders were (and maybe are) paid more than she was (and maybe is). In effect, she told the press that one comparison without the other is something she was contending against. If the upward comparison was false, it could be ignored. But I have no reason to doubt its veracity, and you haven't expressed doubt about it either. If the other leaders' salary data can be presented, then so can the Klein/Ryan data, even though the comparison would still be flawed, because logical flaws are often irrelevant to reporting what a proper source says. There may well be verifiable secondary sources reporting what the two other charter schools/groups were paying their leaders. If they're available, we can certainly report, without violating the constraint on synthesis, that source A reports that school/group B pays its leader amount C to lead quantity D of schools and quantity E of students while source F reports that school/group G pays its leader amount H to lead quantity I of schools and quantity J of students. Mainly, research is needed. It can probably be completed online. Depending on the sourcing found, the writing for Wikipedia is unlikely to be hard.


 * We don't disagree on Gonzalez as a reliable source. He's cited eleven times with six footnotes and named four times in the body of the SA article (with overlaps, probably a total of eleven). Dismayingly, I discovered that some editor had long ago written that Gonzalez wrote of a "lawsuit" by which he got access to emails when Gonzalez wrote of a "request"; the two words are not close to synonymous. Belatedly, I discovered this and corrected it. I guess it's time to be yet more careful about reviewing other people's edits even if sourced.


 * Nick Levinson (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2012 (UTC) (Corrected syntax: 15:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC))


 * Nick, what you say supra is a violation of Wikipedia policy and a misreading of WP:WEIGHT.


 * As I said, you haven't quoted any specific text to justify omitting Gonzalez' quote. You write, "[n]ote that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail". But that's begging the question. That assumes there is undue weight in comparing Moskowitz' salary to Klein's. There is none.


 * Gonzalez is a WP:RS. You are not. Gonzalez' opinion is therefore admissible in a Wikipedia article. Yours is not.


 * You say, "if we contextualize by supplying one set of numbers (that she gets more than some relevant parties) we should also be supplying the other set of numbers (that she gets paid less than some other relevant parties)..."


 * This is WP:SYNTH, and more generally WP:OR, which violates a Wikipedia guideline.


 * WP:SYNTH is "Synthesis of published material that advances a position," Your position is that Moskowitz gets paid more than some parties, but less than other parties. If you can find a WP:RS that says that, with regard to comparing her salary to Klein's, you can put it in. But you can't say that on your own authority without a WP:RS.


 * In particular, you can't use primary sources to make comparisons, because that violates WP:NOR WP:PSTS. "Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so."


 * Furthermore, under WP:PRESERVE, you should not delete well-sourced material. If you disagree with it, you can try to find WP:RS who also disagree with it, and add them. But you shouldn't delete Gonzalez' comparison of Moskowitz' salary to Klein's just be cause you yourself don't think it's a valid or complete comparison.


 * That would be deleting balancing WP:NPOV material, and violate WP:NPOV. All you can do is add a contrary WP:RS. --Nbauman (talk)


 * Adding an RS is what I proposed and I did not propose myself as a source. My analysis is appropriate for the talk page because it is part of explaining the problem with the desired edit and therefore part of helping to improve the article. I did not add that analysis into the article's text and therefore did not violate policies and guidelines on editing the article.


 * Because she has put the matter into contention and reasonably so, WP:BLP applies. BLP is policy. BLP requires, as one solution, balance without waiting until some future date to achieve it. In other words, in a case like this, one side of the argument may not be presented until the other side is also presented with the first. BLP policy requires "balance" (2d paragraph of the BLP subsection).


 * WP:PRESERVE has a subsection at Problems That May Justify Removal. It explicitly presents BLP as part of that justification for removal and does not modify BLP. BLP provides grounds for deletion.


 * That is also how the WP:NPOV policy against undue weight by "depth of detail" applies. The rest of the view is already stated in the article.


 * Deleting the figures was not deletion of balancing material. It wasn't balancing any other material. Balancing material is what we need to add as a condition of adding the otherwise-unbalanced figures.


 * You wrote, "Your [my] position is that Moskowitz gets paid more than some parties, but less than other parties. If you can find a WP:RS that says that ...." I did find it in an RS. I did not make that up. She stated two charter schools/school groups pay their leaders more than SA pays her. That's in the article, sourced.


 * No synthesis is proposed or required to present the balancing information. That we find and add sourcing is proposed. Presenting a sourced upward comparison would therefore not be synthesis or original research. We do not need to do much more than provide the two sets of figures and their sources (Gonzalez for one and whatever sourcing we find for the other). For example, we do not need to "advance" a view beyond what the sources say by our saying whether her compensation is good or bad. The sourceable views on that are already in the article.


 * Nick Levinson (talk) 16:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC) (Corrected wording: 16:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC))