The State University of New York’s charter committee approved another 17 charter schools for New York City, including 14 new Success Academy charter schools. By 2016, the chain run by Eva Moskowitz will have 50 charter schools serving some 16,000 students, this in a city where 1.1 million students are enrolled in public schools.
The state approved 17 new charter schools for New York City on Wednesday, substantially increasing the size of one of the city’s largest and most polarizing charter networks, Success Academy, and setting up a battle over where the schools will be located.
The state’s charter schools committee, part of the State University of New York’s board of trustees, approved 14 new Success Academy schools, which will bring the network to a total of 50 schools serving 16,300 students by 2016, the network said. The new schools would begin with kindergarten and first grade, and then grow each year as new grades are added. Three new Achievement First charter schools were also approved….
The new Success charters are approved for Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan; 9 in the Bronx; 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 22, and 23 in Brooklyn; and 24, 27, 28 and 30 in Queens.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, Success Academy’s founder, Eva S. Moskowitz, winked at the negotiations — and, possibly, the court battles — that are to come.
“We look forward to working with the Department of Education to identify appropriate locations so that these schools can open and more children have an opportunity to receive the high-quality education they want and deserve,” Ms. Moskowitz said.
Charter schools receive public money but operate independently of the larger school system — and they attract vigorous, often vitriolic debate in New York City.
Why are her charters so polarizing? Could it be because she enrolls a smaller proportion of kids with disabilities and English language learners than neighborhood public schools and has a high attrition rate? Could it be her boasting about how much better her schools are than the public schools? Could be.
As we noted in an earlier post, the city is obligated by state law to pay Eva’s rent,wherever she locates, even though her coffers are overflowing and her chain is amply supported by billionaires. And according to press reports, the Moskowitz chain has rented corporate offices in Wall Street at a cost of $31 million over 15 years.
The lesson: Whatever Eva wants, Eva gets.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And this is why I cannot vote for Cuomo!
I would like to send my wishes to Karen Lewis and wish her the best of health and speedy recovery. I hope her condition is not very serious.
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I expect that the next time we hear about Eva’s annual pay, it will be bigger. Her income from her for-profit Charter school chain seems to grow as she opens new schools and steals new students by luring their parents in through her marketing campaign.
I’m sure her goal is to reach a 7-figure income with an agenda to take over the entire New York City Schools, and then she will pay herself an 8 or 9-figure income.
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I don’t think it’s really about the money with Moskowitz. There are quicker and easier ways for someone of her abilities to make a 7-figure income. If she were on Wall Street, she’d get a $10 million bonus after a year like this one.
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Maybe she’s a human wrecking ball and destroying public education gives her a rush—-makes her feel powerful.
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FLERP, it’s not about the money? Say that about teachers who make $40,000-50,000 a year, not about someone who is paid nearly $600,000 a year. Come on.
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I’m saying that I don’t think her main motivation is to get rich. If that were her goal, this would be a very strange way of closing about reaching it.
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In real K-12 public education, no one make $600,000 a year.
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There’s a story somewhere on the net
where someone questions the propriety
of her huge salary, and Eva snaps back:
“Yeah, I make a good living. So what?!”
The implication is that that the problem
is that others are jealous, not her salary.
She also says something like, “I deserve it
because I care for these students like
they were my own children, not like in other
schools.”
The implication being that traditional
public school teachers and administrators
don’t care about their students as much
as Eva, so she deserves the big bucks,
but they don’t.
There’s also a video of a meeting of parents
from an area where a new Success Academy
will be opening. Early on, a question is asked about
how much she is being paid. Eva then walks
out, knowing she faces a crowd that’s going
to challenge her.
Here it is:
Eva tries to give her stock speech about
what led her to start Success Academies… but
people aren’t into it—neither her supporters, nor
her detractors.
The interesting moment is at :
2:49
when a woman favorably disposed to Success Academies
says,
PARENT: “Even those of us who support you
are waiting to hear you talk about the schools.”
This parent does this in a calm, reasonable
tone. Her face and gesture are supportive and
attempting to help Eva out.
However, it’s interesting to see how Eva treats her…
EVA: (off camera) “Don’t tell me what to say.”
This is very controlling behavior, and directed
at a supporter.
The mask has dropped from Eva’s face.
A man then asks Eva about her salary, so, Starbucks
“grand-ay” in hand, Eva bolts from the room.
If Eva doesn’t have total control of an event,
and a totally docile, adoring crowd, she runs.
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Not that she dislikes money, of course.
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Isn’t it obvious that her motivation, far more than money, is political power? It explains why everything to her is a zero sum game, and it’s not enough for her to “win” — she needs to make sure the things she despises (i.e. unionized public schools) “lose”. The more one of her new school openings can damage a slowly improving public schools in the district, the happier she seems to be.
Not all charter school operators are like that and It saddens me that the dozens of ethical charter operators running schools that do try to educate all students don’t speak out against Eva Moskowitz. A few of them have quietly tried to disassociate themselves from her, but the rest seem terribly cowed. Are they that afraid of her?
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Of course they are afraid of her and her supporters.
Look at what happened when the new mayor tried to deny a few of Eva’s applications to launch new charters. Wall Street poured $5 million into a weekend campaign to demonize the new mayor that led to a drastic drop in his popularity with the people. In time, the mayor may have corrected that drop in popularity, but he didn’t have that time and Eva and her masters knew that. If you control the message, it’s easy to fool most of the people for a short period of time.
Eva, with help from her billionaire supporters, is applying the same tactics to get what she wants that the Nazis used to demonize the Jews on their path to power and taking over Germany. This was before the concentration camps and the ovens and gas chambers.
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Why were 100&% of the 17 charter schools chains? Will more be approved? Did any independent schools apply?
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Okay… let me get this straight… (I’m in another state
trying to keep up on this.)
Eva gets untold millions in tax money— money from citizens whose
children are from traditional public schools, and who are being damaged
by Eva’s charters and their expansion, as funds that would have gone
to traditional public schools are diverted to Eva, and space from
their buildings are given to Eva… seriously impacting the quality
of education, as Eva’s occupation (co-location) takes away
necessary space from the traditional public schools,
The space Eva seizes includes rooms needed for Special Ed.
students—the same students that Eva would never let set food into her
own schools, because they’re so costly to educate, and they’d bring
down her schools’ test scores… and if and when a mistake allows one
of those students to set foot and attend her schools, Eva viciously pushes
them out… dumping them on the traditional public schools to educate.
(A\m I getting this right so far?)
Eva then uses some of those millions to propagandize against anyone
who dares oppose her, propagandizing favorably about her
own schools—the slickest and most manipulative
Madison Avenue spots that money can buy—and against
the traditional public schools… even though she caused
those schools to struggle, by diverting their money, and
seizing space in their buildings.
Those citizens have no millions to counter Eva’s propaganda.
Nevertheless, Eva’s P.R. machine is only partially successful, as
citizens elect a mayor she hates, with polls showing that those voting
for him want the new mayor to make good on his promise rein
in Eva, and stop the starvation of the traditional public schools.
He wins in double digits, so this mandate is unmistakeable.
The Mayor and his schools chief do only a minor reining
in of Eva—approving only 14 or 17 new charter schools.
Eva goes ballistic at even this minor action, then uses
millions of citizens’ tax money to put on commercials
claiming that her schools and the children attending them
are being victimized…
Eva then spends God-knows-what of those
tax-payer originated funds to bus thousands of
her supporters/parents/students up to Albany to
and put on a high-tech rally for the cameras,
which the governor—whom she previously bankrolled
to get elected—addresses.
(Am I getting it right?)
Again, the parents of traditional public schools have no
such multi-million dollar war chest to counter Eva’s
media campaign… millions, again, that originated with the
protesting citizens in the first place.
And if any traditional public school teachers
or principals tried to take children out of school during
school hours to protest against Eva and in favor
of their own schools—as Eva constantly does—they’d
be instantly fired.
Eva’s lobbyists successfully push the governor to pass legislation
that will divert even more money from traditional public schools into
Eva’s schools—legislations for forces the NYC Public schools
administration to let her take over whatever traditional public school
space she demands,or failing that, pay the rent for whatever
buildings she needs to expand.
This damages the traditional public schools and their
students even more… as this means even more tens
of millions will be diverted from their schools into Eva’s.
This, of course, will force the traditional public schools
to cut their budgets to the bone, and raise the class
size to unheard of levels, fire teachers, cut programs, etc.
Eva then uses those even greater millions of tax-payer money
to put on even more millions of dollars of commercials
propagandizing in favor of her schools, and against
the traditional public schools—-even though Eva is a
big part of the reason the traditional public schools
are struggling… as Eva is bleeding them dry and
taking all their money. and school space
(Am I still getting this right?)
The citizens/parents of kids in traditional public schoosl
have no multi-million dollar war chest to put on any
commercials with a viewpoint opposing Eva’s propaganda…
or put on manipulative public rallies.
REPEAT this process ad nauseum.
Throughout this, Eva’s annual salary for supervising
just 10,000 students approaches $600,000… while the
Chancellor supervising. 1,100,000 studuents gets about
half of Eva’s annual salary ($300,000)
(Am I missing something?)
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And on top of this, I just learned the
latest news that Eva is now usingthat they
tax payers’ money to lobby in
Washington, D.C—ostensibly
against and weaking the
traditional public schools serving
the children of same tax payers, and who
are furious that she’s doing so:
Read about it here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/09/success-academy-lobbyists_n_5955180.html?utm_hp_ref=education
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Eva said making a run for the mayor of NYC is not out of the question. She’s not only greedy, she power hungry.
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alie_wall that was a truly brilliant analysis, but you left out one important thing.
In all of this, Eva Moskowitz is aided and abetted by a compliant media, especially the vaunted NY Times, who seems to have assigned reporters trained by Judith Miller to report on the charter school issue. Remember discredited “reporter” Judith Miller, who became the stenographer for all Bush Administration claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and dismissed any valid criticism of the “intelligence” as coming from anti-war protestors? The NY Times reporters also breathlessly report all of Eva Moskowitz boasts and dismiss any facts that contradict them as coming from the UFT. It’s hard to know whether those reporters are just lazy, or are being told by their editors that the story is to be positive or else. One wonders if, years from now, the Times will do another soul searching report on how its reporting went so wrong. (To be fair, a few brief articles have tried to be a bit more even-handed, but those are rare and certainly haven’t been seen in many months, if not years.)
The other point is that SUNY is supposed to be granting charters to schools who serve at-risk students, but Eva Moskowitz does not give priority to low-income students in any of her schools. She used to do so, but when she was given space in wealthy neighborhoods, she quickly asked SUNY to replace the “low-income” priority with “lives in the district” priority. And if that district just happens to be one of the richest ones in the country, well, isn’t she just shocked to find her school smack in the middle of it! But it’s purely a coincidence that only 1 in 4 students in that school is poor. It’s such a coincidence that she needs to put a 2nd school there just to make sure.
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She will fit the finest traditions of Tammany Hall and boss tweed. Maybe she’s Hindu and this will be her reincarnation, after being that low, perhaps a roach is next on the progression for her.
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The WWRRS has contacted me and asked that I warn you to not use any reference to members of their group in the same sentence with A.M. or else face reprisals.
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The AP/Cincinnati Enquirer reports a Chicago based charter school chain, associated with Turkish nationals, “used 474 foreign-born teachers in Ohio schools, from 2005-2013, most from Turkey…..about 12% of the chain’s teachers in Ohio, this year, are on H-1B visas…. Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira, (quoted) ‘It seems clear from the data…(that) American workers as well as foreign workers from other countries, did not have a legitimate shot at getting the teaching jobs.’ “.
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To add insult to injury, apparently Eva is co-locating one of those new charters into Gracie Mansion: http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2014/10/eva-gets-cozy-with-bill.html
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What’s GBN News?
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GBN News is a satirical news site, created by humorist and NYC parent Gary Babad. It is often difficult to tell the difference between news and satire these days.
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That’s the truth.
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There’s a story somewhere on the net
where someone questions the propriety
of her huge salary, and Eva snaps back:
“Yeah, I make a good living. So what?!”
The implication is that that the problem
is that others are jealous, not her salary.
She also says something like, “I deserve it
because I care for these students like
they were my own children, not like in other
schools.”
The implication being that traditional
public school teachers and administrators
don’t care about their students as much
as Eva, so she deserves the big bucks,
but they don’t.
There’s also a video of a meeting of parents
from an area where a new Success Academy
will be opening. Early on, a question is asked about
how much she is being paid. Eva then walks
out, knowing she faces a crowd that’s going
to challenge her.
Here it is:
Eva tries to give her stock speech about
what led her to start Success Academies… but
people aren’t into it—neither her supporters, nor
her detractors.
The interesting moment is at :
2:49
when a woman favorably disposed to Success Academies
says,
PARENT: “Even those of us who support you
are waiting to hear you talk about the schools.”
This parent does this in a calm, reasonable
tone. Her face and gesture are supportive and
attempting to help Eva out.
However, it’s interesting to see how Eva treats her…
EVA: (off camera) “Don’t tell me what to say.”
This is very controlling behavior, and directed
at a supporter.
The mask has dropped from Eva’s face.
A man then asks Eva about her salary, so, Starbucks
“grand-ay” in hand, Eva bolts from the room.
If Eva doesn’t have total control of an event,
and a totally docile, adoring crowd, she runs.
LikeLike