NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Thousands Participitate in March for Charter Schools After the CEO of Success Academy Pressured Staff to Lobby for Them

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Thousands of charter school students, parents and educators rallied in Brooklyn Thursday morning to call on elected officials to support charter schools. Meanwhile, Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy, is back in the political fray as New York City leaders weigh their options in a crowded mayoral race.

Thousands participate in a march for charter schools across the Brooklyn Bridge after the CEO of Success Academy pressured staff to lobby for them. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jene Pierre. On this episode, we're discussing a controversial topic in New York City, charter schools and the fight over their role in the city's education system. Some parents see them as a great opportunity to get their kids into a free, high-performing school that prepares them for college.

But other parents think charter schools siphoned resources from traditional public schools and create an unfair two-tiered system of education. On Thursday morning, thousands of charter school students, parents, and educators rallied in Brooklyn. They said their goal was to call on elected officials to support charter schools. WNYC's education reporter Jessica Gould was there. Jessica set the scene for us. How big was this rally? Yeah, this rally was really huge.

There were thousands and thousands of people filling Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. There were students, little kids, to teenagers, their parents, educators, charter school leaders and advocates. And many of them wore these purple shirts that said, excellence is a civil right. There were speeches and performances. The rapper Common performed. I spoke with one student named Alina Valenzuela. and she said she recently switched from a traditional public school to Zeta Charter School. And here's what she had to say about her new school.

I think my charter school is very good because it's all about hardworking success. And also it's a very good school because it has higher educations as my other public school that I used to go to. She says she really likes the way they do math and reading at her new school. She likes the activities better. and she gets prizes for good work. She liked that. And I asked her why she was there at the rally, and she says she hopes the city allows more charter schools. And Jessica, remind us what are charter schools in the first place? Charter schools are independently run public schools. So they get public funding, tax money, but are run separately from the city's education department. That gives them more flexibility. And charter schools have about 150,000 students. which is around 15% of the public school's student body overall.

So a fraction of the total. Advocates for Charters say it's really important to have these schools so that parents and children can choose and have more options for what works for them. So thousands of people were at this rally in Brooklyn on Thursday, but what was the goal? They said that it was a show of support for charter schools in the Charter movement. Charter leaders and their advocates say that here in New York charters face obstacles. There's a state cap on how many charters are allowed.

They want to see more charters allowed, so they want to see that cap lifted. And they want to make it easier for charters to find space. A lot of charter schools have to go through a process to get approval to be co-located with public schools, and that can make it harder for them to expand. But there's clear political context here, right? What are the candidates saying? Yes, charter leaders and their advocates want more support from government officials so that they can continue to grow and expand and serve more families. So Zoran Mandani has the backing of the teachers union, which is a fierce opponent of charter schools because many charter schools do not have unionized staffs.

And he has also said that he worries about charter schools taking resources away from traditional public schools. that serve a much broader swath of the city's population. And he would consider looking at a review of how charters operate. On the other hand, former governor Andrew Cuomo has historically been friendly to charter schools, and he has said that he would consider replacing underperforming traditional public schools with other schools, possibly charter schools. That's WMYC's Jessica Gool. Still to come, one of the most important.

prominent charter school leaders in the country was called pressuring staff to lobby for the schools ahead of Thursday's rally. We got the exclusive. Stick around. That's after the break. One of the most prominent charter schools in the five boroughs is Success Academy. Its founder, Eva Moskowitz, is back in the political fray as New York City leaders weigh their options in a crowded mayoral race. Earlier this week, before the rally Thursday morning, WNYC's Elizabeth Kim got a hold of a secret recording of Moskowitz, pressuring staff to lobby for charter schools. She's here to break down what's going on. Now, Liz, for listeners who don't recognize the name, briefly tell us about Eva Moskowitz in her school.

Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy. This is the largest and most well-known network of charters in the city. She's also the national figure. She's very much the face of the the charter movement. Now, charters are publicly funded, privately run schools that emphasize college readiness. In New York City, they mostly serve low-income families who like the fact that they have a really strong track record that includes better testing outcomes than your traditional public schools. But they're controversial, Jene. Because they're seen as undermining traditional public schools. they do take away some taxpayer funding and also spaces, right? You can think of it as a fixed pie and, you know, they're definitely fighting for a piece of that pie.

They're also known for a very strict discipline code. Have you heard, like, these are the kids that dress in the uniforms. The tie. They have to be very punctual. That's the charter culture, which actually attracts a lot of parents. but some people say that it goes too far and it can be a little bit abusive. And the other thing I would point out is that charters have been at odds with the teachers union because most charters are not unionized.

And charters really do have an uphill battle in New York because New York is a very pro-union state. So Moskowitz is worried about the future of charter schools right now. Why is that? Tell me what's changing. Well, she sees the writing on the school. wall. Remember I was telling you about how they're fighting for this pie of funding? Well, that pie is about to get a lot smaller if it hasn't already. And that's because the Trump administration has been cutting federal funding to schools. The other reason she's worried is what you mentioned at the top, the mayoral race. Under Mayor Adams, he was someone who, when he ran for mayor, he accepted campaign donations from people who were in favor of charters. And as a mayor, he was someone who, when he ran for mayor, he accepted campaign donations from people who were in favor of charters. And as a mayor, He's been generally friendly on the subject of charters. Charters haven't experienced any expansion, but that's largely because their enrollment is flat. Now comes Democratic mayoral nominee, Zora Mamdani.

He's the frontrunner in the race, and he's taken an adversarial posture towards charters. He's been critical of them. He believes they should have more oversight. And he is also against any kind of expansion of charters. And I should also note that he's endorsed by the teachers union. So I got a recording of Moskowitz addressing several hundred staffers on Tuesday morning. And this is how she characterized the current moment. You did not do the phone to action because you thought this is not very serious.

So I want to just reset for all of you, although I'm cheerful about it. and I believe that we can overcome it, it is an existential threat. And so you cannot sort of brush this off. So when she's talking about phone to action, that's the part where she's talking about lobbying elected officials. That's basically asking people to go on their phones and send these email messages to city electeds and also electeds in Albany. Her goal was to get out 2 million messages. The recording also gives you a sense of her tone. Earlier, she goes on and says, you know, this isn't a democracy.

It's a hierarchy. She's telling the staff that they have to do this type of political lobbying. And she's also made clear prior to Thursday morning's march across the Brooklyn Bridge that that was also mandatory. They couldn't opt out. Didn't matter if you lived in New Jersey. you had to be there. And I just want to note also, Liz, that our colleague Jessica Gould was at that rally Thursday morning,

and she caught up with Moskowitz, who says she did not pressure staff to participate. Here's what she had to say. No, I did not. We, at Success, have a dual mission. The first is to educate kids exceptionally well within our four walls. You can look at our mission statement. And the second is that we change the public. policies, not only for charter kids, but for all kids. And when you decide to work at Success

Academy, you sign up to be an Ed Warrior. And that is very clear in all of our materials. Thank you. That's exactly what a spokesperson for Success Academy gave me in a statement when I asked them to respond to some of the things that Moskowitz said in the recording. And also the feeling among the person that gave me the recording that people in the room felt pressured to participate in what they felt was a political march, right? And I think that if you're working for Success Academy, you have to reconcile yourself with that.

You're not just designing curriculum. You're not just teaching kids. You're being this Ed warrior that she's talking about, which means marching in the streets, fighting to protect charters from elected officials who might want to put more scrutiny on them. And this clash seems very familiar, Liz. Didn't this happen under Mayor Bill de Blasio?

Almost to a t-geny. You know, the setting is the exact same. It was a march across the Brooklyn Bridge. This was in 2013. And it was also after Bill de Blasio became the Democratic mayoral nominee. It was right before the November election. We obtained some of the internal emails that had been sent out to staff and families, and the language is also really very much the same, that this is a moment of urgency.

Moskowitz references her clashes with de Blasio, in fact, in the recording. She says we're in a very similar moment now. And this is not a theoretical worry. We lived through eight years of Bill de Blasio, the first thing he was. did when he became mayor is he threw out three of our schools. Most of you were not here and didn't experience that. To clarify that, basically the Success Academy had permission to open three new schools. And under de Blasio, those charter schools, their ability to be located in certain public schools was canceled. But at the same time, later on, in part because of pressure from Moskowitz, they were

We're given new locations. So you listen to her remarks. We live through eight years of Bill de Plazio. She's saying to the people who work at success that charters could be closed, right? And this could affect you because you could lose your job. So we talked about Bill de Blasio in that clash. What did Moskowitz have to say about Zora Mamdani, who's the frontrunner, to become the next mayor? She doesn't mention Zoran Mamdani by name ever.

And this isn't very sort of important point here because she's trying to walk a fine line here. This is a nonprofit, right? So they can't wade interpartisan politics where they're seen as supporting or opposing a particular candidate. What they can do is advocate for an issue. And in this case, the advocacy is for particular. protecting charters. But you can see how it becomes a gray area, right? Because she's talking about political threats and existential threat. And it's very clear where that threat is coming from because Mamdani, of all the candidates, is the only one who has been critical of charters.

And Liz, I want to go back to the rally Thursday morning because Moskowitz was asked about her opinion on Zeran Mamdani. And here's what she had to say. Are you worried about Zoran Mamdani? I'm worried about every elected official. Like every single one I am worried about. We have a, you know, at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level. Yes, I am worried about support for charters because we can't even establish that charter schools are public schools. This is crazy talk.

Some people have suggested that we had not really been talking about charter school, Jene, until this moment. That's what's been interesting. When this battle emerged under de Blasio, it was really something that was playing out in public schools because we saw charters expanding. We saw some parents being unhappy that their children at a traditional public school suddenly had to share space with the charter school and vice versa. This was actually going on. Now we're in a moment where that hasn't happened at all, which is why a lot of people see this as a political proxy war. And by that, they mean that people who fund charters tend to be very wealthy individuals in the business sector. Think of hedge funders.

Former mayor Michael Bloomberg is a big proponent of charters. And he supported Andrew Cuomo during the primary. So many people see the sort of charter funders as just this anti-Mamandani group. And that's suddenly the reason for all of this. This fervor and this march is because they don't want Momdani to win the election. And it's not really about charters because charters aren't really looking to expand in this moment. I think Moskowitz could say, well, she's afraid that any will be shut down. Would that happen?

But Momdani hasn't talked about shutting any charters down. That's WNYC's Elizabeth Kim. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.