Update: Watch out Florida! Success Academy plus billionaire Ken Griffin, a GOP megadonor have pushed through legislation in that state to allow charter school expansion and co-locations inside public school buildings. This divisive policy has caused great controversy and a loss of space needed for class size reduction and other necessary services in NYC public schools since Bloomberg/Klein began co-locating charters in 2005. It was also illegal as there was no charge for this space, while the law said charters should be charged the market value for free space. We helped launch a lawsuit against this practice in 2011, which very slowly moved through the courts until at then-Gov. Cuomo's behest, the law was changed in 2014 so that from then on, NYC would be obligated to provide free space to all new and expanding charters in public school buildings or help subsidize their rent in private buildings. NYC is the only district in the state and the nation with this obligation.
Last Thursday, September 18, 2025, several large charter school networks held a rally in Cadmen Plaza and a march across the Brooklyn Bridge to push for the continued expansion of the charter school sector. This was apparently provoked by the fact that the leading candidate for Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has said he opposes allowing more charter schools to open, especially since they have reached their legal cap in NYC under state law.
Liz Kim, reporter at Gothamist, got hold of a tape of a speech that Eva Moskowitz, CEO of the largest charter school chain, Success Academy, gave to her Charter Management Staff and 158 new teachers, exhorting them to attend this march and rally, and to make at least five “phone-to-action” calls to their elected officials.
In the speech, Moskowitz harshly reprimanded those who had not yet done so: “You did not do the phone-to-action because you thought, ‘This is not very serious,’” she said. “So I want to just reset for all of you. It is an existential threat.” And:
“We have faced threats throughout the last 20 years, we have a core competency in political threats, unfortunately. But this is one of these moments where there is heightened risk, policy risk, political risk, and so we are going to do what we've always done, which is to stand up for children and families in a massive way in Cadman Plaza to speak our minds and to make sure that government works for children and families. … government doesn't naturally work for the people. It has to be forced and made to work for the people. So we're doing two things. One is this parent mobilization, and the second is our phone to action campaign.
And our goal is to send elected officials, two million messages. Now, teachers, you'll do a network one now and then when you get to your schools, you'll do a local one.
But I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the network, because only 25% of the network was doing the phone to action. …And you know, would be natural for you not to understand we have these nice offices, Aren't they nice? Very nice.
You guys [work] for a not for profit, you are highly compensated. You could say, What? What? Me worry? What's there to worry about? But there's a lot to worry about, and this is not a theoretical worry. We lived through eight years of Bill de Blasio. The first thing he did when he became mayor is he threw out three of our schools.”
This is untrue. De Blasio did not kick out three of her schools; he rejected three Success charter co-locations that had been proposed by Bloomberg before he left office but not yet implemented. De Blasio also accepted co-locations for five other Success charter schools.
In any event, after a barrage of negative television ads, DOE officials were browbeaten into finding and renting private space for these three Success charter schools at city expense for $5.4K - $11K per student. By last year, the number of Success charter schools rented directly by DOE had risen to nine, with buildings added under both Mayor de Blasio and Mayor Adams, at a cost of $14.3 million annually. By renting these buildings directly and failing to ask Success to rent the buildings themselves, they are sacrificing 60 percent reimbursement from the state for those expenses.
At the meeting, Moskowitz was clear that she was requiring all network staff and teachers to both make phone calls and participate in the rally:
“When we ask you to do phone to action, you kind of do it. You can't make people chase you down. … we've kind of gotten loosey goosey here and just know your managers are going to hold you accountable to an extraordinary standard of performance. … When your network are giving a directive, I think we're getting a little democratic here. We are quite hierarchical.
There is a chain of command, and when your boss asks you to do something, assuming it's not unethical or a question of conscience, you do the task. Are we clear? I do not want to have to chase people down for phone to action. Is there some argument or particular reason? Anyone live in New Jersey? Okay, that's not an excuse. I hate to tell you, list your 120 Wall Street address and get it done. ….”
She then told her staff and teachers to take out their phones and make all five phone calls to elected officials right then and there.
According to a report in Labor Notes, Success Academy employees were also required to send emails to elected officials, and were ordered to “submit screenshots of these emails to their managers to confirm they had sent them.”
Success Academy was not the only charter chain to make participation in the rally mandatory for staff, parents and students. It was also required by the Zeta charter chain, founded by Emily Kim, former attorney for Success Academy. A document sent to staff at Zeta Charter Schools made this clear:
“100% attendance expected from all Zeta families, students, and staff. Each student must attend with a parent/guardian to ensure the safety of every child. Students cannot attend the rally without an adult family member or authorized chaperone.”
Students, their parents and staff had to arrive at Zeta at 6:30 AM to get on the bus to Cadman Plaza, according to the schedule. If parents wanted to bring their younger children, they had “to bring their own seats for the bus ride to the rally,” presumably meaning they had to pay for their own transportation to get to Cadman Plaza.
Teachers at Zeta were told it was their responsibility to get parents to attend:
“All teachers must ensure 100% completion through family follow-up calls Mon., Sept. 8th- Wed., Sept. 10th. Your Principal and Operations Director will share a school-wide tracker to follow up and log all family calls accordingly.”
There is a real question about whether mandatory attendance at a political event or forcing teachers to make political phone calls is legal. The day after the rally, on Friday, John Liu, Chair of the Senate NYC Education Committee and Shelley B. Mayer, Chair of the Senate Committee on Education sent a letter to NY State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa and John King, Chancellor of State University of New York, whose agencies authorize and oversee charter schools.
Senators Liu and Mayer expressed “great concern that many charter schools in New York City cancelled classes and pressured students, families, and staff to participate in a political “March for Excellence” on September 18, 2025. We urge the state to conduct a thorough investigation into potential violations of state law.”
They also pointed out how “canceling classes during a school day and forcing families and students to engage in a political rally is an egregious misuse of instructional time and state funds. We urge SUNY and the State Education Department to exercise their oversight authority and fully investigate this matter to determine any possible violations of state law, and if such violations are found, to claw back a portion of state per capita funding from each school administration that engaged in this event, and to take steps to ensure future misuse of student’s precious school time does not continue.”
Though they didn’t specify any laws that might have been broken, in 2023 Governor Hochul signed into law Senate Bill 4982, which prohibits employers from coercing employees into attending or participating in meetings where the primary purpose is to communicate the employer’s opinions on religious or political matters. The law also holds that the courts may impose monetary penalties on employers who do this, and that employees can seek “equitable relief and damages” in court if they do.
In any case, this is not the first time that Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy have been found guilty of breaking laws. Repeatedly, her charter schools have been shown to deny students their legal rights, violating their privacy, and pushing out those who do not make the grade either in terms of behavior or test scores. A sample of these documented violations are listed at the end of this post.
Evidence of inflated charter rental payments and missing matching funds
Charter schools now drain more than $3 billion dollars annually from the DOE budget, plus charge more than a hundred million dollarsper year in rental subsidies. NYC is the only district in the nation that is obligated to either co-locate charters in public schools or help pay for their rent in private buildings. This applies to all new and expanding charter schools since 2014, after they go through a perfunctory appeal process, according to a law pushed through by then-Governor Cuomo and the charter lobby. The amount spent on their rental expenses by DOE has risen sharply over time –though 60% of these expenditures are supposed to be reimbursed by the state.
In 2019 and 2021, Class Size Matters issued two reports that provided evidence that DOE had overspent on rental assistance to charter schools by $21 million. We also revealed suspicious charges for rental subsidies paid by DOE to several charter schools, including those run by Success, that owned or subleased their own buildings.
In one case, the rent for two Success Academy charter schools housed at Hudson Yards increased from approximately $793,000 to over $3.4 million in one year – more than quadrupling , causing DOE to pay $3 million in rental subsidies for those two schools alone in 2020.
We also found that public schools co-located with charter schools were owed millions of dollars in matching funds for facility enhancements, compared to the amounts required by state law. From 2014 to 2019, 127 co-located public schools were owed a total of $15.5 million.
Please email Comptroller Lander and ask him to audit these programs
Shortly after the release of our second report, in March 2022, Senator John Liu, Senator Robert Jackson, and Rita Joseph, chair of the Council Education Committee, sent a letter to Comptroller Brad Lander, urging him to audit this spending, based upon the troubling findings in our reports. I recently learned that no such audit has been conducted. An analysis also shows that Lander has audited fewer DOE programs than any other NYC Comptroller since 2003 at this point in office.
We are now engaged in examining DOE own reports of their spending on charter school rent, which continues to rise sharply higher each year, as well as their continuing failure to provide sufficient matching funds to public schools for facility upgrades and repairs.
Please email the Comptroller now and urge him to launch an audit on these programs before he leaves office in January, by filling out the form here.
Where it says, “Your Suggestion,” please write:
“I urge you to audit DOE spending on charter rent, especially charter schools that own or sublease their own buildings, as well as charters whose buildings DOE rents directly and thus is unable to receive 60% reimbursement from the state. Also please audit the lack of public school matching funds, as there is evidence that they continue to be owed millions for facility upgrades.”
Feel free to rephrase this any way you like.
Below is a brief list of legal challenges that reveal a documented pattern of Success Academy violations, including the failure of these schools to provide students with their mandated services, repeatedly suspending them for minor infractions, violating their privacy, and pushing them out when they do not conform to rigid behavioral expectations or do not score high enough on standardized exams.
Success Academy pushing out students and violating their civil rights
· In 2016, parents, legal aid groups and elected officials, including then NYC Public Advocate Letitia James, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, alleging Success Academy had made numerous violations of the rights of disabled students, including pushing them out of their schools.
· in 2018, Success was sued by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), again alleging how they had failed to provide mandated services to students with special needs, and imposed harsh, zero-tolerance discipline. The case was settled in 2018 by Success by paying $1.1 million in legal fees.
· Also in 2018, Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) filed a complaint to the NY State Education Department pointing out how Success denied special needs students their legal rights. The following year, NYSED issued a ruling that the charter chain had violated student civil rights under the law.
· In 2021, a US District Court judge ordered Success Academy to pay a $2.4 million fine to settle a claim of discrimination against five learning-disabled children, essentially forcing parents to withdraw from the school.
· In 2023, an Investigative report by Pro Publica revealed how Success charters make repeated calls to 911 for student misbehavior, often for minor offenses, causing the police and Child Protective Services to be involved, and suspended students repeatedly until parents agree to take them out of their schools.
Success Academy’s dismal record on privacy:
· In 2015, Success Academy officials published exaggerated details of a student’s records when he was attending Upper West Success, and shared them with reporters nationwide, to retaliate against him and his parent after they were interviewed on the PBS News Hour about his repeated suspensions and the abusive treatment he suffered at the hands of Success school staff from first grade onwards. The school was subsequently found guilty of violating both the state student privacy law by the NY State Chief Privacy Officer (CPO), as well as the federal privacy law known as FERPA by the US Education Department, when they finally ruled years later.
· In 2016, SUNY Charter Institute noted unspecified violations of FERPA by Success Academy Cobble Hill, Success Academy Crown Heights, Success Academy Fort Greene, Success Academy Harlem 2, and Success Academy Harlem 5 during site visits, as noted in their Renewal reports.
· In 2019, Success Academy Prospect Heights retaliated against a parent by releasing her daughter’s education records to a reporter, including notes from psychologists and her special education plan, after the parent had spoken out about how her child had been effectively pushed out of the school by repeatedly calling home about behavioral issues, threatening to call child services, and sending her back to kindergarten after she started first grade.
· In October 2023, a parent filed a complaint that Success Academy Rockaway Park Middle School had improperly posted the grades of her child on the walls of their school. On December 21, 2023, the State Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) ruled that the school had violated both federal and state student privacy law.
· In February 2024, Success appealed this decision, claiming that the parent had signed a consent form allowing this disclosure, but in March 2023 the State CPO pointed out that the consent form did not specify the student records to be disclosed or the purpose for such disclosures, and did not clearly state to whom these disclosures could be made. The CPO also attached a model FERPA consent form that the school should use.
· Yet on March 7, 2024, a different parent whose child attended Success Academy Cobble Hill Elementary School filed a similar complaint, and that her school had posted her child’s name and test scores on a bulletin board in a public hallway at the school. After she had first raised this issue with the principal, and her concerns were dismissed, she removed the posting from the bulletin board. The school then banned the parent from entering the building, even to pick up her child at the end of the school day. Again, the school claimed this disclosure was allowed by the generic consent form that the parents had filled out. Yet as the CPO pointed out in April 2024, the consent form was not specific enough about what personal information would be disclosed, and where, and thus the school had violated both FERPA and NY State privacy law.
