Firing Line

How to ace public education.

This week on "Firing Line."

Free public education is an idea that dates back to the founding of our nation, but the reality has often fallen far short of the ideal.

500 desperate parents applied for just 155 slots.

In 2006, Eva Moskowitz opened the first Success Academy, a public charter school in Harlem, New York City, a neighborhood often failed by public schools.

Every American child should have access to an excellent education, an excellent free education.

Success Academy has grown into dozens of schools in New York City and will open its first schools in Miami, Florida next year.

100% of Success Academy's graduates go on to four-year colleges.

But can what works for Success Academy work for America?

Well, I don't see why it can't.

What does Eva Moskowitz say now?

"Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... and by the following.

Eva Moskowitz, welcome back to "Firing Line."

Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here in your new school in the Bronx, the nation's poorest congressional district.

20 years ago, you founded Success Academy.

I've known you for at least 15 of those years and watch in wonder as you have proven your model and scaled it to what is now 59 schools serving 22,000 students, K-12.

If Success Academy were its own school district, it would be ranked number one in math and number two in reading out of 700 school districts in New York State.

That's correct.

Who are the scholars at Success Academy?

94% are kids, Black and brown kids.

The vast majority live under the poverty line.

15% or so are special needs children.

They're non-native speakers of English often.

But their parents believe in the American dream and trying to do better for their kids than they've had.

How do they get in to Success Academy?

It's a random lottery.

And this year, for example, Margaret, we have 26,000 applications for about 3,500 spots.

We're sitting here in your newest facility, a K-12 facility in the South Bronx.

I will tell you, Eva, I have seen private schools within a stone's throw of this location with tuitions upwards of $70,000, with facilities that cannot hold a candle to what I have seen here today.

You have 300,000 square feet and will eventually have 2,400 students.

Why did you choose to open a school here?

And what is your aspiration for this campus?

- Well, as you mentioned, I've been doing this for 20 years.

I started with 165 kindergartners and first graders, and I've educated kids for 20 years in whatever facility I was given.

And it was really important to me to not use the facility as an excuse.

You often co-locate with public schools.

55 of the 59 schools are co-located, and all of the five schools in South Florida that I'm opening in '27, '28 are co-located.

- So it's not about the facility.

- It's not about the facility.

However, children, poor children, deserve a beautiful facility with the amenities.

We're sitting here in the high school reading room.

Our kids read K to 12, 30 minutes a day, in school, books of choice.

We have six beautiful dance studios because we believe that one of school's obligations is to develop kids' passion in art, music, dance, athletics.

So this building represents all of our schooling values and some values that we're not able to achieve in other buildings.

So, for example, affluent kids get a lot more light and glass and wood on the ceiling, which softens the experience.

They get a lot more greenery.

And so we tried to bring all of those elements to our poorest students.

- Just to be clear, public school students from this zip code enter a lottery to come to this school?

- Yeah, everyone has entered a lottery to get here.

- There's no pre-testing?

- No pre-testing.

- This is not merit-based?

- It's not merit-based.

It's children in the neighborhood who would otherwise, unfortunately, go to a failing school, but now they're able to come to this.

If they're lucky enough to win the lottery.

If they're lucky enough to win the lottery.

And we hate that because, as you know, I'm the mother of three, the notion that, you know, lottery winners and lottery losers love their children equally.

It's just a question of luck.

And it shouldn't be that way.

Every American child should have access to an excellent education, an excellent free education.

This district is represented by a Democratic member of Congress, Ritchie Torres.

Oh, my goodness, the best.

As a Democrat, he is one of the most outspoken supporters of charter schools and of this program.

And one of the things I've noticed, Eva, over the last 20 years is that this issue has become bipartisan in a way it just wasn't when you started this.

20 years ago when you started, I don't think we could have found a Democrat that would stand up for charter schools.

I mean, it was a bit of a -- I was the lone Democrat.

You were the only one.

You were the only one.

But, I mean -- It was rough.

And it should be bipartisan.

You know, the children are not Democrats or Republicans.

You know, that partisanship is for elections.

It's not actually for governing.

For governing, you need people on both sides of the aisle.

But there are now -- It used to be that the Democrats could fit in a phone booth.

There were very few and far between.

And now it is -- we don't have as many as I would like because of the special interests, frankly, but -- In the Democratic Party.

In the Democratic Party.

The unions have a disproportionate influence on Democratic politicians.

This week, Success Academy released a report identifying 906 New York City schools where fewer than half of the students passed state exams for math, reading, or both last year.

It states 43% of the city's public school students are stuck in schools that have been, quote, "massively failing for years."

Why is fixing failing public schools so difficult?

Well, I would say that the teachers union, and to be fair, the bureaucracy, kind of perpetuate year after year the same lack of accountability, and the children suffer for the sins of the adults.

In other words, the teachers aren't held accountable.

The teachers are not held accountable.

And look, it's not totally their fault in the sense that principals are not leading instructionally, and superintendents are worrying about the busing and not the instruction.

The whole system, top to bottom, is unfortunately broken.

And if I could contrast that, again, with, you know, what is possible, we are taking poor kids living below the poverty line, and regularly our schools are at 96% passing the math exam, in the 90s passing the reading exam.

New York City spends double the national average per pupil.

Yes.

What does this tell us about the relationship between government's investment in schools and the results?

We're not getting our money's worth.

The taxpayers and the children are not getting their money.

It's no surprise to you, I'm sure, that the Department of Education dismissed the report, calling it, quote, "a vehicle to detract from" -- Success Academy's -- "attempts to circumvent the New York City charter cap and promote its academic achievements."

What's the problem with the charter cap, and how do you respond to that criticism?

Well, the problem with the charter cap is, why would you want to put a cap on the American dream for children?

Why would you want to put a cap on opportunity?

In other words, there is a limit to how many charter schools are allowed to exist and operate within New York State and New York City.

Right, there are zero left.

So these 26,000 parents that applied this year, I'm gonna have to send them home empty, because government, the state education department, and the legislature have a cap on the number of schools that I could open.

If the cap didn't exist, I would be opening 10, 15, 20 schools a year.

As perhaps the most successful model of public charter schools in the country, you have not only proven that you can do this, but as the first, you receive a lot of incoming in terms of criticism.

I do.

How do you respond to one of those criticisms, which is, "Yeah, the results are impressive, but this is not something that can scale to fix the entire broken public education system?"

Well, I don't see why it can't.

I am running the fourth largest school district in the state of New York.

I am doing it on less money than the state of New York.

I believe that's an excuse.

Why can't every kid in New York and across America get an excellent education?

You know, Margaret, we're spending more money in America than anywhere around the globe.

And yet every international test indicates that Americans are losing the educational battle.

And I think it has enormous implications for national security, American prosperity.

I love kids, and I love learning.

But I think the implications are actually much bigger if the nation doesn't get its act together.

A moment ago, when I said, "This is -- You've proven the model, and you've scaled it, but you couldn't really scale it to fix the entire public school system," you said, "I don't know why not."

Could you?

I think, I don't think I can as one individual.

But imagine if at every school, children read for 30 minutes a day.

Imagine if we taught mathematics not as computation, but as conceptual thinking.

Imagine if we gave kindergartners science five days a week.

You could.

We have shown the way.

We have a blueprint.

You have to be excellent at what you do.

And right now, poor quality dominates.

Take on the critique or the criticism that your schools are leaving public schools with fewer resources.

You're taking the good students away from the regular public schools.

And somehow you're making them look bad, but it's also hurting them.

This is a common critique from your political adversaries.

- Well, I would say they're hurting themselves because they're losing enrollment because what they're offering families is so inadequate.

And it's not only inadequate from an academic point of view, it is inadequate from an artistic and athletic.

You know, you're not going to motivate students to learn if you're not inspiring their passions.

Kids have to fall in love with school and schooling in order to be highly motivated, particularly in this world of a phone-centered childhood and social media.

Schools have to kind of get their act together to be compelling for children and families.

So I would argue that districts across America are losing enrollment because what they're offering is not very good, and parents are voting with their feet.

They're either going to vouchers and private schools, micro schools, charter schools, Catholic schools.

They're going to anything but what they're being offered.

And there are still good schools in suburban America serving very affluent kids, but most schools, district schools serving poor kids are frankly of poor quality.

Yeah.

The mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has said that he opposes the expansion of charter schools in New York City.

How would you make the case to a Mamdani administration to support charter schools if you had a private one-on-one with him?

It would really be inequity.

It would be, "What are you supposed to do?"

And by the way, it's not just the poorest middle class.

You know, you are priced out of elite private school if you were a middle class person.

And the only escape route is, frankly, what Mamdani's family did.

I went to Stuyvesant.

He went to Bronx Science.

That was the escape route for middle class people.

You just mentioned Bronx Science and Stuyvesant.

What are those schools?

Those are test-in, highly selective schools.

So for example, at Stuyvesant, 26,000 kids take the test every year and only eight to 900 get in.

- But it's merit-based.

- You have to take a very rigorous test.

You had to study and take this test.

I spent hours and hours making sure 'cause my parents couldn't afford an elite private school.

That should not be the only option, is a tested school.

So I would say, "Mr.

Mayor, follow your dreams.

You want affordability?

Support charter schools 'cause they are educational affordability."

- Yeah.

You know, this program was originally hosted by William F. Buckley, Jr., and this debate has been brewing since the '80s.

Listen to what conservative Thomas Sowell argued when he made the case for vouchers in 1986.

- As long as the public school system is a monopoly, they will act as other monopolies act towards their customers, with contempt.

Back in 1978, when there was a push for a voucher scheme, the New Republic objected, not on any of the grounds you've heard here, but on the grounds that, in their words, the least educated, the least ambitious, and the least aware would be left in the public schools.

In other words, those low-income minority parents who are ambitious, who do want their kids to get ahead, ought to be told that no, they must wait until every last member of that community agrees with them.

I wonder if the New Republic editors are prepared to have their children held hostage until everyone in the community reaches the point of wanting the kind of education they want for their children.

What he's saying is what is, you know, good for the goose should be good for the gander.

But there are, you know, he's right, affluent families would not stomach schools that are that counterproductive.

And yet we leave kids in those schools for decades on end.

Yeah.

You know, Thomas Sowell himself went to school in Harlem.

And there he's answering the argument that is made on the left that taking the most motivated students out of the regular public school system, you're making things worse for the ones who are left behind.

You heard his answer.

What is your answer to that critique?

- Well, I would say, first of all, parents have a variety of motivation levels.

And I would not say that we are educating exclusively, by any means, highly motivated parents.

We are motivating parents to want better for their children.

We go door-to-door in public housing to recruit parents.

It's those 26,000 applications don't just fall into our lap.

We go out and say, "You deserve better."

I notice you answer that question from the perspective of parents.

And I think there, the argument is, you're taking highly motivated students out of the public school system, and that leaves the other students worse off.

But if your children are getting in by lottery, you're not measuring their motivation if they're matriculating into Success Academy.

- And if you talk to any one of my 59 principals, they would say, "We wish we had highly motivated.

That would make the job easier."

We have to motivate our children and our parents to be able to go on this 13-year journey, which involves sacrifice and is hard and involves hard work.

- Another critique I'd like to give you a chance to respond to is that there's some sort of process that cherry-picks families and students.

What do you say to that?

Well, I don't think you can make that argument when you have 26,000 applicants for 3,500 spots.

Our goal, educationally, is to educate every child exceptionally well who crosses our threshold.

And you should know, Margaret, that there's also financial incentives.

If you lose a kid, unlike the district, you don't get the resources.

We only get the resources if the child is in the seat.

So we have a financial incentive to educate every single child.

And we have 15% special needs.

We have kids who have mental health problems.

We have parents who have anger management issues.

If you saw the range of kids and families that we deal with on a daily basis, there's no -- there's no way we would be cherry-picking.

It doesn't look like a private school.

Where does this leave the children and the parents who don't win the lottery and who don't have the opportunity to attend a school like this?

Well, it's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking.

You know, I keep saying this.

I have three children, and if any one of the three were not getting an excellent education, I would, you know, move to Canada or I would do whatever I needed to do.

- I should add that this school was good enough for not just the children in the districts you opened it in, but for your own children.

- Yeah, my two youngest started at Success in kindergarten and went through-- - They went K through 12.

- They went K through 12.

- In this school, which it does say something about putting your money where your mouth is.

- Yeah, and they got it great.

- Although it's not money.

- It's not money.

- And they, you know, they got a good education.

- 100% of your graduating class in 12th grade will matriculate into four-year colleges.

How do they do when they're in college?

- They do well, partly because we are preparing them, not only academically, but I said this before, for us, the habits of mind that highly successful people have, we are cultivating those starting in kindergarten.

So we have four-year graduation rates that surpass anything that other charters or districts have achieved.

We do about 80% in four years, and the rest are graduating in six years.

Nationally, in America, only 11% of Black and brown kids are completing college in the four-year time period.

You have caught the attention of many people for your success.

There have been voices and supporters who have advocated to you that you should run for mayor of New York City.

What is your next 5 to 10 years look like?

Do you have another chapter in a different form of public service?

I don't know.

I'm very dedicated to public service.

I think having elected officials who have broad views is very, very important, and the nation suffers often from electeds that are more narrow in their kind of focus and interests.

But for the next five years, certainly, my focus is on national impact educationally.

It's a big deal to go out of state.

And I can see us not only starting in Miami and going elsewhere in Florida, but frankly, I can see us going to other states.

I really want to leave America with a path, an educational path forward.

So right now, my focus is in public service, educationally, and I'm hoping to bring governors and mayors from all over the country to see K-12 excellently done in action.

But I don't know if I will run for elective office.

I'm pretty obsessed with this one problem.

So I'm focused on that, but I might.

- Well, what you have done in the last 20 years has undoubtedly been a public service to this city and to the education reform movement.

And I am so grateful for your time here on "Firing Line."

Thank you for returning.

Thank you for having me.

"Firing Line with Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... And by the following.

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