Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy High School for the Liberal Arts may have set a record: 70% of its Faculty left in one year.
Mercedes Schneider cites a story in the Wall Street Journal that says only 20 of 67 staff members will return in the fall. Of course, it’s not yet August, so that number could get worse when school opens.
Some of those who left complained about the “punitive culture.” Or the “rigid discipline” or “harsh policies.” Some first-year teachers quit teaching altogether.
Schneider notes:
“In June 2018, Moskowitz’s high school graduated 16 students, or 22% of the original 73 first graders from 2007.
“Maybe some of the remaining 2007 first graders were moved back a grade midyear (can you imagine??), so maybe, like some of those exiting SA high school teachers, they are technically still tethered to Eva’s World.
“Bright spot, though: At least the percentage of returning SA high school teachers is higher than the percentage of students who made it all the way through from first grade to high school graduation in 2018.”
When you read this, you can see why Eva needs to train her own teachers. Her methods are different from that of other schools. And with this kind of turnover, she must face a perennial teacher shortage.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What is Mercedes talking about? 100% of the teachers on this year’s staff who taught at SA last year have returned. Secretary Duncan is probably bestowing a Human Resources Award on the institution.
More seriously, this is an astounding statistic.
The turnover probably keeps payroll lower which allows for higher managerial salaries.
Does Moskowitz have what it takes to be in Trump’s swamp- DeVos has 9 luxury boats, 4 planes and 2 helicopters.
Moskowitz is a big fan of DeVos. “Betsy DeVos has the talent, commitment, and leadership capacity to revitalize our public schools and deliver the promise of opportunity”, tweeted Moskowitz in early 2017 when she was mounting her personal PR campaign for DeVos’ confirmation as Sec. of Education. (Moskowitz also wrote op eds and sat for interviews extolling the virtues of DeVos during those weeks after DeVos’ was nominated.)
I don’t know about “swamp”, but Mercedes (and the NY Post) also report on the Success Foundation, Inc. — a non-profit whose sole purpose seems to be to pay Eva Moskowitz hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. According to the NY Post — ONE donor gives to the Success Foundation, Inc., and the foundation pays most of it to Moskowitz.
I find it hard to believe that giving someone already earning nearly $200,000/year an additional $500,000 in compensation constitutes a legal “charitable” purpose — especially when Moskowitz is spending her time lobbying for Betsy DeVos.
But perhaps that answers your question as to whether Moskowitz has what it takes to be in Trump’s swamp.
The Success Foundation sounds very similar to the Trump Foundation. A foundation whose main purpose is hardly “charity” in most people’s definition of the term. No doubt Trump himself would disagree and think it is the perfect “charitable” organization.
For more accurate information about the Success Academy non-profit status and who gets paid what see the IRS 990 form at https://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2016/205/298/2016-205298861-0e261458-9.pdf
You may be asked to register at Guide Star. There is no fee unless you want a premium service. The 990 forms are available when you register.
Thank you for the link to the 2015-16 990 PF. There are 3 big red flags I see here:
The extraordinarily high salaries of some top staff, which include “bonus and incentive compensation” that is as high as $105,000 in extra pay for one of them.
Executive VP of Schooling – $391,000
VP of Advancement – $406,000
Ex VP Policy & Legal Affairs – $420,000
Sr. Managing Director of HR – $325,000
Exec VP of Communications – $295,000
The extraordinarily high “consultants” payments:
Over $5 million to A-1 Technology, Inc. Nearly $2 million to “Falafel Software”. $1.2 million to “Enterprise Solutions, Inc.” That is over $8 million in a single year to 3 consulting companies.
Moskowitz’ total compensation and how the majority of it seems to come from a “related” organization — Success Foundation, Inc. If the NY Post article about this is correct and this is a single donor – or even 2 or 3) whose tax-deductible “donation” is spent to subsidize Moskowitz’ salary, that seems quite questionable. Especially if Moskowitz is spending time attacking some politicians and endorsing others. If there is a charitable purpose to Moskowitz’ over the top efforts to get DeVos confirmed, I wonder what it was. If that effort by Moskowitz to get DeVos confirmed pleased the donor whose annual donation pays most of her salary, it is even more problematic. Because I doubt very much it pleased most of the students and their parents who attend Success Academy charter schools.
That extra $500k is the price for Eva’s soul.
I can tell those teachers are feeling very “empowered”
Moskowitz testifies in DC constantly. No competing opinions are ever invited and the assembled politicians ask her nothing of substance, but instead fawn over her and parrot her lines.
Interesting that these turnover stats are never mentioned.
Echo chamber in action. Only charter cheerleaders need apply. Dissenters don’t even get in the door in DC, let alone “at the table”.
It probably works well for Eva because the employees are always new hires and thereby everyone is constantly off-balance and not in a position to question anything or make any waves.
Fast food chains actually like their high turnover. It keeps employees compliant. They’re all “new” so they follow directions with no questioning or backtalk.
There’s no “institutional memory” either- every day is a new day- so there are no employees who see the trajectory of the place, who understand whether it’s getting better or declining.
It’s a really common tactic for authoritarian managers and workplaces to exclude anyone who has amassed some memory of past practices. They can’t have those people asking questions.
Think of all the corporate ed. reformers who send their own children to rich kids’ private schools for $30,000 – 50,000 / year. Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan, Wendy Kopp, Dave Levin, and Mike Feinberg at KIPP, etc. (Well, Feinberg’s not a KIPP anymore. He was fired for allegedly molesting students, and harassing his female teaching staff).
In particular, focus on Success Academy Board Member and The 74 founder Campbell Brown, who sends her own kids to a rich kids k-12 school Heschel.
Could you imagine what would happen if the 7-out-of-10 teachers left annually even one time? What would happen if Heschel started this year with 70% of the teachers brand new to the school?
Here’s what Heschel says about its faculty:
https://www.heschel.org/about/message-from-the-head-of-school
x x x x x x x x x x x
HESCHEL Website: “(Heschel employs) faculty dedicated to the values that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: intellectual exploration, respect, integrity, love of the Jewish people and tradition, and a commitment to social justice. … Heschel teachers strive to nurture and support the diverse talents of each student. … ”
x x x x x x x x x x x
Nowhere in there do they state that they lose 70% of their teachers every school year … because they don’t.
If there was such faculty attrition, all the Heschel parents — including Campbell and her husband Dan Senor — would go thermonuclear … as in …
“We’re spending $40,000 a year-per-kid, and you’re approaching staffing the way a fast food joint would?!!!! What the-f#%k are you doing with all the tuition we’re paying???!!!!
Does anyone with any sense think that the Success Academy Board Member — as Campbell currently sits on that board — giving this speech BELOW could possibly pipe at a Success Academy Board of Directors meeting and challenge this abominable rate of teacher attrition, or for that matter, challenge Eva in any way?
Here’s Campbell from a couple years back.
( 01:36 – )
CAMPBELL BROWN: ” … I’m a soldier in Eva’s Army. … the accomplishments of Eva and the team that makes (the SUCCESS ACADEMY schools) possible. It amazes me that anyone would dare try to put a chokehold on the most exciting, innovative things happening in public education right now. … there is no compromise possible. … ”
No, Campbell wouldn’t say boo. As with so many of the corporate ed. reform establishment, Campbell thinks there’s one type of education for her own kids, and one for other people’s kids.
I though high employee turnover was a sign of a poorly run business, no?
Maybe that’s why the school’s 70% turnover rate was reported by the Wall Street Journal. Eva’s harshness is a financial liability.
Just imagine if a hospital or law firm, or a tech company had sucha turnover. It would mean that ‘experience is not available in a complicated workplace/practice.
REAL teachers need experience.
Dedicated teacher-practioners love to be with kids, and love to pass on what they know… which is all teachers do. Trained civil servants are needed in many capacities, but EXPERIENCED professional practitioners of a complicated discipline are REQUIRED!
How the human brain learns ,and the PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR in ChIldhood– which the professional educator studies for the 2 COLLEGE DEGREES needed for a license ( I have 4) are not necessary as NY Governor Cuomo believes.
Not to mentions the deep study of specialties in content– literature, humanities and science etc.
But in the schools, where children go to learn important skills, the equivalent of a trained ‘medic’ instead of the professional ‘physician’ is ok, for two reasons:
1- to create a dumbed-down citizenry that can ge confused and misled in a time of disinformation.
2- To ensure the failure of the school, so that it can be replaced by private schools, that make owners huge profits, and can choose their ‘clients’ — winnowing out children who desperately need the services and education a real school provides.
for those wanting more about why there’s such high attrition, go here:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Success-Academy-Charter-Schools-high-turnover-Reviews-EI_IE381408.0,31_KH32,45.htm
Here’s a sampling from employee reviews:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Mar 21, 2018
Helpful (20)
“WORST PLACE EVER! CULT! DO NOT WORK HERE!”
CONS
If I could give negative stars to Success Academy I would. The only reason why I gave 5 stars for Career Opportunities is because there is such high turnover that there are always job openings.
Insanely high (and constant) turnover at the network and schools. The operations team, for example, was losing people at a daily rate. Most people quit, but they also force you out if someone doesn’t like you – either by treating you terribly or just firing you. If you get fired or give notice, they make you leave right then and there – you cannot say goodbye or gather your things (they send your belongings to you).
They have a goal to expand to 100 schools in the next 5 years but they won’t be able to do it if teachers and employees keep quitting at the insanely high rates they are!
Success’ approach with the kids is terrible and frankly abusive and punitive. Students are constantly berated and screamed at – spend their day in terror. They get 20 minutes for lunch and recess because food and fresh air isn’t important to a child- only test scores are! Test scores are they only thing that matter and they spend most of the day preparing for those tests – a process that most teachers think is a carrot and stick method – if you do well, you get a treat. During testing, staff cannot wear heels or loud shoes, students cannot go to the bathroom (and often wet themselves), students cannot wash their hands (strictly use hand sanitizer), and teachers aren’t allowed to eat.
Teachers are encouraged to “tear and repair” – meaning tear up a test/homework if a student did poorly and then make them redo it.
Teachers have 12+ hour long days and don’t get to sit down in their classrooms.
Success is really wasteful with their money. They spend millions of dollars building their schools, only to change room use a year later and spend thousands of dollars to renovate a perfectly good classroom. Employees have said that classroom items such as custom lockers and bulletin boards cost $20,000 per room – money that should be going toward students directly (or even other public schools!)
The network office is just as terrible as schools. They break you down, but don’t build you back up. A lot of people go to HR about issues and HR does nothing. In fact, they often force the victim to meet with the accused employee face to face, instead of protecting and supporting them. There is a lot of victim blaming here. Management has openly bragged about managing with fear.
If you make any mistake, you are treated like a murderer.
Long office hours. Staff is required to be available by phone 24/7. Most people end up rolling over their vacation because its too stressful to leave work for an extended period of time – either due to extensive work load or because management makes you feel terrible.
You will only get a promotion if you do what they say and keep your mouth shut. If you are liked by management, you will move up quickly. Most of leadership is in their 20’s – started off as teachers and are now directors. They don’t care about experience, they want sheep -easily-led people who do what Success says and keep their head down and mouths shut. Follow the herd or be slaughtered.
Success is 100% a cult. Drink the kool-aid and you’ll be successful. Refuse to drink the kool-aid and you’ll be kicked out.
Success brags about how great and successful they are but turn a blind eye to how they treat their kids and employees.
Advice to Management
WAKE UP! People are treated terribly and there is high and constant turnover. But management doesn’t see it – or chooses to ignore it – because they are so blinded by the “mission”. Success treats everyone terribly – from the students to employees to anyone they interact with. Their reputation is TERRIBLE. Employees are miserable and third parties don’t want to work with them.
I would never in a million …
-Culture of fear among students and staff
-Absolutely no autonomy as a teacher. You teach a script and cannot deviate.
-Negative environment in which teachers are micromanaged and extremely overworked. We had a closet known as the “cry closet” because teachers would go in there and cry.
-Extremely high turnover because everyone is miserable, including the students
-Unethical test prep, “drill and kill” …
*I worked at the Network Office for over a year and I decided to come on board even though the Glassdoor reviews for Success Academies were quite bad. As a former employee, if you are thinking of working at the Network Office, particularly in the Talent or HR departments, please take the reviews you read here seriously. As a Talent or HR professional, you will find yourself highly disappointed during your time at SA *…
And one more thing arom Susan Lee Schwartz, who was the 1998 NY State English Council’s “Educator of Excellence” : I spent years as the cohort for the (vanished POOF) REAL New Standards research of the (the Harvard thesis on )
the 4th PRINCIPLE of LEARNING– which MUST BE PRESENT if if a teacher is to meet THE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS — is TOTAL EXPERIENCE — INCLUDING the COLLEGE level of education so she/he can meet the 3 other PRINCIPLES that UNDERLIE ALL LEARNING! (Notice the absence of the word ‘teaching’) :
1- Clear Expectations for Achievement.
2- Rewards for Achievement
3- Authentic Assessment, and GENUINE Evaluation… Notice the words , authentic and genuine!
BTW –I used portfolio to assess the student performance (writing and thinking about what they read) . I never gave a test….which is why Harvard studied my practice for the research… AND WHY I had to be sent packing before Gates and friends could mandate their ‘reform’ crap! They needed to replace the GENUINE Teacher -Practitioner before TFA could put the ‘trained’ schoolteachers’ in classrooms to spend 10 months with America’a future voters.
The trained novices that come out of college these days WITH LITTLE BACKGROUND IN PEDAGOGY, , cannot meet any of these requirements without experience in the practice called a CLASSROOM!
Once more my metaphor:
If an inexpereinced trained medic with little background in MEDICINE was allowed to treat patients by following the mandates of the hospital director —people would die and the hospital would fail.
The big question is not who is leaving. Moskowitz spent an extraordinarily huge amount of time helping DeVos get confirmed. Every employee there is complicit in that effort.
The big question is who is STAYING!
Which young people were lured by the promise of high salaries to put aside their own values and work hard to promote the values of Eva Moskowitz?
Which young people listened to Eva Moskowitz insisting that she has to suspend extraordinarily high numbers of African-American Kindergarten and first grade children because of their violent actions and said “I want to work for her because she understands how violent certain (non-white) children are when they are 5 years old.”?
Which young people listened to Eva Moskowitz’ over the top praise of Betsy DeVos and said “I want that honest and upright woman who recognizes the excellence in Betsy DeVos to recognize the excellence in me.”?
Those are the young people who are staying and getting promoted! They adore everything about Eva Moskowitz and what she says about Betsy DeVos and the 5 and 6 year old at-risk children she claims must be suspended because they are so violent in her schools. It’s the ones who are disgusted with that who leave. The ones who stay love it!
We already know from the link above to the 990 PF how much it costs for some of Moskowitz’ top staff to remain silent and complicit as Moskowitz endorses DeVos and tells the country how extraordinarily violent so many African-American Kindergarten children who win her lotteries are. Those high level Success Academy administrators demand very high salaries and bonuses to keep promoting Moskowitz as a purveyor of truth when she says those things. Some of them demand $100,000 bonuses in addiction to their annual salary. Does this “non-profit” really have to pay an executive who is already earning well over $250,000 annually another bonus of $80,000 – $100,000 in one year? Is that use of money that should be spent on education really necessary so those top executives won’t leave?
Is that their price to be complicit? They sell their integrity cheap.
Every human monster like Eva Moskowitz is going to find people that follow and/or support them. Hitler did. Mao did. Stalin did.
McCarthy did and he was a U.S. Senator.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare
And FDR signed Executive Order 906 that was probably unconstitutional since it locked up American citizens and destroyed them economically.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/roosevelt-ushers-in-japanese-american-internment
Using fear to program and manipulate people is a weapon with a long history.
I would compare Success Academy’s treatment of students and employees to fast food and big box chains that fight minimum wages and unionization.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/31/amazon-accused-of-treating-uk-warehouse-staff-like-robots
The thing to note about fast food joints and big box stores is that they sell cheap junk, and put stores and restaurants that deliver better quality out of business, sucking the quality of life out of every city and town they descend upon. Big money for a few; mistreatment, cheap junk and poverty for the rest.
When life gives you lemons, throw them at a CEO.
Success Academy to education is the equivalent of Wal-Mart to destroying small town rural America with its big box stores and its institutionalized union bashing/hating, poverty wages, and the offer of costly medical care (what’s offered by Wal-Mart costs more than what most employees earn).
I’d dance in the street in front of my house if I woke up tomorrow to discover that every Wal-Mart in the United States exploded at 3 AM — as long as no one died in the blasts.
Given how we all feel about the Walmart Waltons and Bill Gates of Microsoft, I know you’re just gonna LOVE this: Walmart and Microsoft are teaming up on cloud-based products to compete with Amazon.
I’ll be cheering for Amazon to win this contest. While Amazon isn’t perfect, I rate them higher than Wal-Mart or Bill Gates.
They all need to be broken up.
So sad that a nut job is in charge of education now, she was a terrible city councilor and now she is torturing and minorities and there parents. Why doesn’t she do what Jeff Sessions does put minority children in cages to help the learn. I tell everyone not to send there children to any of these insulting institutions. Ms. Eva is how she likes to be called reminds me of Betty Davis in one of her plantation movies. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever recommend that anyone who loves there children even entertain these sick motives surrounding education.
Plantations/feudalism is the goal of Bill Gates, the Koch’s and Waltons.
Political policies that achieve it, are the goal of Pete Peterson, who is attempting to destroy Social Security and John Arnold, who is attempting to destroy public pensions.
The NY Post reported (July 14, 2018) Eva’s compensation was $782,175 in 2016. The total pay for top managers at Success when coupled with consultant fees equals about $1000 per student or about 10% of the average amount that NY state spends per student. The money is siphoned off for people, who the students likely never see in their halls nor classrooms. And, the percentage would be even higher if it included other overhead costs like staff for data processing, administrative assistants, janitors, equipment and supplies, all of which are limited to use by top management.
The descriptive word, “Academy”, is a reach in name, if ever there was one.
“Success Academy” should be renamed to “Success Agony”
Subtitled: A publicly funded, private sector, for-profit school designed to terrorize through fear while crushing your child’s lifelong learning skills to make sure they never grow up loving to read. Our end goal is to instill a fear of books and learning in your child.
Agree, adding….while grinding them down to be serf workers.
I know at least in one elementary SA the turnover numbers are similar this year, so I am not surprised. I anticipated it once SA managed to get SUNY to allow it to give out bogus teacher certification.
Snark from the internet about Betsy’s yacht -“Surveillance video shows Karma untied the boat”, “Whoever untied the boat is rich and white because DeVos only hangs around rich, white people”, “womp, womp, poor little oligarch”, “Can Betsy spell yacht?”, “When she heard about the yacht, Betsy probably smirked and gave a blank stare”, “DeVos, the Titanic of education”.