Eva Moskowitz: Impressive Venom?

The January/February 2018 issue of The Atlantic is set to include this article on Eva Moskowitz and her Success Academies charter schools. The article, entitled, “The Charter-School Crusader,” written by Chalkbeat co-founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief Elizabeth Green, is a perplexing read.

In short, the piece reads as if it were written by two people: One who is impressed with Moskowitz and her schools (and who perhaps wishes to please Moskowitz with this article), and another who sees the problems of the likes of Moskowitz continuing to expand a hedge-funded, education empire that could buy its way to doing whatever it so desires– with the term, “whatever” holding dark and damaging overtones.

Green might have been trying to include both pros and cons of Moskowitz and a Moskowitz-styled education, but the concerns Green expresses cannot be reasonably reconciled with the language of admiration included in the selfsame article.

Consider the following spit-shine of Moskowitz’s Success Academies “empire”:

Empire has not killed quality. On the contrary, students at Success—where intensive test prep in math and reading goes hand in hand with a strong emphasis on science, art, and chess—regularly trounce their peers all across New York on state tests. Unlike other high-scoring charter schools, such as kipp, Success saw no dip in performance after the state adopted the tougher Common Core academic standards. The stellar scores helped Moskowitz open more schools, faster, than any other charter-school leader in New York.

A few paragraphs later is this:

Entrusting a person who has such an exceptional capacity for venom with the care of children can seem unwise. Which is just one reason I am more than a little terrified by the conclusion I’ve reached: Moskowitz has created the most impressive education system I’ve ever seen. And as she announces in her memoir, 46 schools is just the beginning. “We need to reach more students,” she writes.

If “the empire has not killed quality” in “the most impressive education system I’ve seen” (Green’s second usage of the term “impressive” to describe Moskowitz’s schools), then how does one then conclude (with “terror”), “Entrusting a person who has such an exceptional capacity for venom with the care of children can seem unwise”?

You got me.

Further along:

Moskowitz has realized that she can do more to change public schools as a private citizen than as mayor—by operating outside of democracy rather than within it. I agree with her, and that unsettles me.

Unsettled. Even so, Green (who as an education journalist cannot be unaware of the charter school fraud and mismanagement connected to removing public money from the public purview but who does not address these issues), concludes the following:

Of all the reforms that have set out to free schools from this [bureaucratic, priority shifting] trap, to date I’ve seen only one that works: the implementation of charter-school networks. Large enough to provide shared resources for teachers, yet insulated from bureaucratic and political crosscurrents by their independent status, these networks are creating the closest thing our country has ever seen to a rational, high-functioning school system. They have strengthened public education by extracting it from democracy as we know it—and we shouldn’t be surprised, because democracy as we know it is the problem.

If democracy is the problem, let’s get rid of it, right?

No. In fact, following the above statement, I notice that green uses the word, “worry” several times, mostly connected to Moskowitz success:

Worries about a lack of democracy could similarly be quieted by giving locally elected leaders more oversight of charters, an approach that reformers have adopted in Indianapolis and will try in New Orleans next year.

I want to believe in such an evolution. It would be the best of all worlds if the most efficient way to run great schools was also the most equitable, accountable, and parent-friendly. But I worry that’s hard to pull off. … Left to their own choices, parents could very well resegregate schools as effectively as zip-code-based systems of assigning schools have done. …

Charter boards, designed to sidestep the unwieldy directives of democratic school governance and focus ruthlessly on leading good schools, are the main reason charter networks operate so well—and also the main reason I worry as the networks grow. …

As these networks grow, overseeing them will become both more important and more difficult. Already networks in several states have rejected requests for documents, saying that public-records laws don’t apply to them. Once the Success empire includes 100, 200, or even 300 schools, will regulators feel comfortable exerting their ultimate authority to shut a school down? Or will charter networks become, like banks, too big to change?

We can’t know for sure. We can speculate, though, and when I do, I worry. [Emphasis added.]

Not only does the likes of Moskowitz seem to worry Green; possible consequences of the choices of the parents themselves also worry her.

I’m also unclear on the “ruthless” focus “on operating good schools”- and on this practice working “so well.”

How does one callously and cruelly operate “good” schools?

Again, you got me.

Green is aware that Moskowitz’s schools are backed by hedge funders– who have money to purchase a place above accountability. Nevertheless, for all of her “worry,” she offers as the closure to her article the stuff-and-fluff of  *hoping for the best*:

…The best-case scenario is that the bigger Moskowitz’s network becomes, the more responsibility she and her board take—not just for their students and for their network’s growth, but for all students and the civic community, too. But what if well-heeled activists like [hedge-funder Daniel] Loeb decide to push for state laws that weaken regulators’ power and strengthen the power of wealthy board members (and why wouldn’t they)? The best we can do is hope that the same dogmatic confidence that has fueled the most promising model we have for public education won’t also destroy it.

I am truly at a loss for how Green could possibly consider charter schools as “the most promising model” for education, particularly given some of the up-close-and-personal details she includes concerning Success Academies operations in the middle of the article.

Here’s a biggie: Moskowitz’s so-called “empire of quality” hinges on “narrow” test-prep-ed:

For all Moskowitz’s eloquence about the importance of rigorous academics and extracurricular activities, teacher after teacher has reported that at Success, test prep always comes first, narrowing the kind of work students do.

Another major issue: Actively (and selectively?) discouraging the very “parental empowerment” they supposedly advocate. (In other words, the exercising of the school making the choice, not the parents):

Similarly, however much Moskowitz aspires to make Success Academy inclusive, in practice she and her staff sometimes tell families to look elsewhere for a school, because Success just isn’t the right fit.

Finally, the school making the choice to control parent choice by refusing to backfill all grades:

Success backfills only in kindergarten through fourth grade. Any older than that, Moskowitz argues, and the students won’t be sufficiently prepared for the school’s rigorous academics. …

There is more to Green’s article than I present in this post. I invite my readers to read it in its entirety.

Given the negatives Green presents regarding Moskowitz and her Success Academies, the attendant positive press re: “empire of quality” just does not seem to fit.

  Eva Moskowitz

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Want to read about the history of charter schools and vouchers?

School Choice: The End of Public Education? 

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Schneider is a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author of two other books: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?. You should buy these books. They’re great. No, really.

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