Eva Moskowitz has applied to the State University of New York‘s Charter School Institute for permission to open another 14 charter schools in New York City by 2016, a request that seems sure to be approved.
Chalkbeat reports:
“If Success’ proposal to open 14 new schools by 2016 is approved by the trustees of the SUNY Charter School Institute, the network will enroll about 35,698 students and cost the city more than $165 million (not including the cost of potential private space) by 2020, according to the application.
SUNY’s board is widely expected to authorize all 14 schools in a vote planned for October. SUNY has approved all of Success’ existing schools.”
To demonstrate its positive impact on nearby public schools, the Success application said that one Harlem school had begun hanging college pennants in its hallways, following a Success practice. In another example, a Success principal in the Bronx was sharing advice about instructional practices with a public school principal.
Given the fact that there is a charter cap in New York City, the rapid expansion of the Moskowitz chain may set off rivalry with other charters that find themselves frozen out by Success Academy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
At KIPP schools they display college pennants. SA adopted a lot of the no excuses practices like this.
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Moskowitz is hated for her avarice, not only by every public school teacher who is conscious of what is happening to the public schools in NYC, but by most others in the charter community, as well. They know better than most what a nasty piece of work she is.
It’s a sign of how desperate things have become that the only thing which may slow down her power, money and real estate grab is the internecine competition with other edu-privateers, since Mayoral control of the schools apparently only exists when you’re closing public schools, not trying to protect them, as we learned this spring from our Reptilian Governor’s kneecapping of Mayor De Blasio, aided by the silence of the UFT’s craven misleadership.
If there was real accountability for Moskowitz and other charter operators, the SUNY Charter Institute would not approve any new SA openings until it fully investigated the gross discrepancy between SA’s vaunted 8th grade test scores – graded in-house by SA teachers, unlike the public schools, and provided with prep materials by the tests’ publishers prior to the tests – and the inconvenient fact that not a single Success Academy 8th grader was accepted to any of the city’s specialized high schools.
If such a discrepancy existed in a public school, we could reliably expect accusations of cheating from the editorial boards of the newspapers, and former detectives working for the DOE’s Office of Special Investigations would swoop down and start aggressively interviewing everybody in the building, including the Lunch Ladies.
Yes, folks, in the snake oil salesman world of so-called education reform, vicious frauds like Moskowitz get to preen and perform in front of Congress, while from the entities that are supposed to oversee her metastasizing empire, we get… the sound of crickets.
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So in essence Eva is making herself superintendent of a completely separate school district in NYC. Not a school district where the superintendent was hired by a board of community members…but one where she was appointed by a corporate board. And as long as she makes a profit and can keep opening schools she will keep this position regardless of how the students fair, right?
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I wonder if there is a link between the decision to close the Moreland Commission and the campaign contributions made by privatized charter schools founders like Ms. Moskowitz… Or am I being too conspiratorial in my thinking?
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Wgersen, it is hard to imagine an implausible conspiracy theory about education these days
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Many years ago, before he successfully rehabilitated his reputation by using his Foundation as a veil to pursue his self-interest, a New York Times review of a Bill Gates biography quoted Old Pasty Face disparaging a competing publisher for only having “finite greed.” The clear implication was that Gates’ greed was infinite, that he was proud of it, and that it was a desirable thing.
As with the “infinite greed” of Bill Gates, so too with the inexhaustible reservoir of cynicism, deceptiveness and venality of the so-called education reformers.
In other words, given enough time, every conspiracy that the readers of this blog might conjure about the so-called reformers will likely turn out to understate their awfulness.
Observing their behavior and comparing it to their rhetoric, it’s literally impossible to be too cynical about them, or to underestimate their greed and will to power.
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The WikiLeaks, shadow GATS information, summarized at Truthout, “A Top-Secret Agreement to Carve Up Public Services,” provides evidence that it is not paranoia when they are actually out to get you. “…pensions will be dismantled, by international treaties.”
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I also agree that the Success Academy’s test scores are highly suspect, since they are much higher than the district schools and other charter schools in the city. The NYC Charter School Center Data Brief for 2012-2013 stated “while Success Schools high results will doubtlessly draw scrutiny, a great deal of that attention should be directed to the network’s instructional practices…” These results should definitely “draw scrutiny” from the NYS Education Dept. We saw similar anomalies in Atlanta and Washington D.C. and upon investigation, widespread cheating was discovered.
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