Teachers are fleeing Success Academy Charter High School.
Students are protesting. Completion rates are incredibly low.
Success’“great” literacy program mirrors others available online.
Success’ teacher certification plan thrown out by courts.
Parents are suing the network.
Meanwhile, Success Academy Charter School CEO Eva Moskowitz rakes in the dollars.
How much should Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of the Success Academy Charter School Network, be paid, assuming there is any reason she should have her job at all?
For comparison, the median annual salary for a public school teacher in New York City is $67,661; the average principal earns $125,489, while a Superintendent makes $189,395 a year. Salaries go up with experience, improved credentials, and levels of responsibility. A teacher with fifteen years of experience and three credits beyond a master’s degree will earn $102,009 in 2018.
Richard Carranza, the new Schools Chancellor, will receive an annual salary of $345,000. Carvalho supervises a school system with 1.1 million students and 1,700 public schools so he receives about 31 cents per pupil or about $203 per school. Carranza has been a high school bilingual social studies and music teacher, a principal, a deputy superintendent, and the Superintendent of the San Francisco and Houston school systems. He completed doctoral coursework through Northern Arizona University and is pursuing a doctorate of education at Nova Southeastern University in Educational Leadership.
The Success Academy Charter School Network operates 46 schools in New York City with 15,500 students. In 2016, Eva Moskowitz received a “pay package” of $782,175. That means she was paid over $50 per student and $17,000 per school. A lot of Eva’s money comes through backdoor payments. Her base salary is $195,000, but she received another $255,000 extra in payments from the Success Network and another $300,000 from the Network’s foundation.
Moskowitz must have some really impressive credentials. Eva does have an earned Ph.D. in history, but she has never taught in or administered a public school on any level. Her main qualifications for all that money are her political and financial connections. Even Eva has second thoughts about her qualifications. At a recent closed-door meeting with parents after a year of turmoil at a Success Academy High School, she admitted, “I knew that I was putting it together with bubble gum and Scotch tape.” Eva then confessed, “I have never seen a school in our network that has been this disorganized.”
So why is Eva Moskowitz in charge of these schools and paid this exorbitant salary plus perks. Moskowitz was a member of the New York City Council and has ties to deep-pocket hedge-fund company CEOs who figure they can profit from school privatization and have lots of money to “donate” to politicians through Eva’s Great Public Schools and StudentsFirstNY political action committees. This summer John Petry, who has founded or worked with a series of hedge funds and is a member of the Success Academy Charter School Networks’ Board of Directors, contributed over $45,000 to Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign. Cuomo is a charter school champion who speaks at Moskowitz pro-charter rallies. Former Success Board chair Daniel Loeb is also a big Cuomo donor.
Of course, Eva does this job because she loves children, not because of the financial rewards and political influence she receives. I bet Eva would do the job for nothing. So Eva, prove how much you love the children and refuse to accept any payment at all.
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