Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz Tells Congress About Her “Secret Sauce“

“She literally does God’s work,“ Ken Griffin tells Michael Milken. “She's incredible.“

Eva Moskowitz testifying before a House of Representatives Committee today.

The CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, Eva Moskowitz, testified today before the House Committee on Education and Workforce. The hearing was about the High-Quality Charter Schools Act, which, as Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee Chairman Kevin Kiley described it, “through strategic tax credits aims to vastly expand the numbers of proven, successful charters across the country. Specifically, the bill establishes a 75 percent federal tax credit for charitable contributions toward the start-up costs of nonprofit charter school organizations with a proven track record of excellence.”

Here’s what Moskowitz said (if you want an expanded version, her prepared written testimony is also available):

Thank you chairman and members of the committee for having me. It’s a great opportunity and I appreciate being here.

My name is Eva Moskowitz. I’m the founder and CEO of Success Academies. I started 19 years ago with 165 kindergarteners and first graders. Today, I am educating 22,000 children across K through 12. Success Academy is the fourth largest school district in the state of New York.

But what I am most proud of is the academic outcomes. So we are number one in the state of New York in mathematics, including outperforming the most affluent school districts in the state of New York. We are number three in reading, again, not just closing the achievement gap, but actually reversing the achievement gap. 100% of our students for eight years in a row have gone off to four year colleges.

Whereas in America, only 22% of students take at least one AP, at Success academies 95% of our students have taken and passed one AP.

I'm here today to talk about what is that secret sauce? Because it’s much simpler than I think sometimes policy makers or the American public make it seem to be. There are lots of tools in the tool kit, from small class-size to more money. I would argue that providing a structured, joyful, focused learning environment with an exceptional teacher-training and education-training program is really our secret sauce. Not only do we have rigorous academics in elementary school, but we have robust arts and athletics. And I should just clarify that 94% of our kids are black and brown. 80% live below the poverty line. And I'm sure as you can appreciate, living just below the poverty line doesn't mean that if you are slightly above it, you are a wealthy person. Our kids come from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, and yet the bar is held high, and they do exceptionally well.

I appreciate, Chairman, your advocacy of the High Quality Charter Schools Act. I don't see how we can be for universal school choice if we don't include both private school choice and public school choice. And that was left out of the equation, and I'm hoping that it can be put back in, because this is a unique opportunity to materially impact the lives of children. This bill would benefit up to 6 million children, and we can talk about policies in the future, but we are losing the global educational competition now. America is at a historic low point when it comes to educational outcomes. And so I feel a tremendous sense of urgency to correct course quickly, and these companion bills would give us an opportunity to, pragmatically, in a common-sense way, advance the cause of children. Thank you very much.

Relatedly, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin was at the Milken Institute Global Conference on May 7 in a conversation with Michael Milken, and part of the conversation went like this: