If you don’t live in New York City or within the education policy universe, Eva Moskowitz might not be on your radar screen. She should be. With a recent front page piece in The New York Times about the extraordinary results posted by her network of 32 Success Academy charter schools and how those results were achieved, Moskowitz is the most controversial figure in American education today.
She’s also a devastatingly effective political player whose name is on every credible short list of candidates to be New York’s next mayor, and deservedly so. Her successful battles with incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasioare becoming legendary.
But she’s as much educator as politico. When New York adopted more rigorous, Common Core-aligned tests two years ago, scores slumped statewide, including at most of Gotham’s successful charter schools. But Success Academy soared. While just 29 percent of New York City students met the new, higher English standards last year, 64 percent of those attending Success Academies were proficient; in math, they nearly tripled the weak city-wide performance. A stunning 94 percent of Success Academy students, mostly low-income children of color, made the grade.