Did Charter School Queen Eva Moskowitz Mess Up the Books?

Image by Getty Images
Eva Moskowitz has long been a controversial figure in New York, mostly because she has championed charter schools and feuded with liberals, including Mayor Bill de Blasio. She recently invited more wrath by meeting with Donald Trump amid speculation that she could be in the running for a spot in his Department of Education.
Now the controversial educator in charge of New York City’s Success Academy group might find herself embroiled in new controversy after an audit found that the charter school network could not adequately document that it delivered special education services for which it had billed.
“We found situations in which Success Academy was violating its own standards, or those of oversight agencies,” City Comptroller Scott Stringer, whose office launched the probe, wrote in a statement. “This isn’t about district versus charter schools — it’s about protecting taxpayer dollars and following the rules.”
The network operates almost three dozen schools in New York City, all of which are privately operated but receive public funds. According to the audit, Moskowitz’s organization failed to properly document $50,000 in special education services that it asked the city to reimburse. Additionally, the city sampled special education students at one Harlem location and found that half the students there were not received educational services to which they were entitled.
Success Academy disputed the findings in Stringer’s report, telling The New York Times that report represented “political grandstanding.”
“Success Academy employs one of the world’s top accounting firms to routinely and rigorously audit its finances,” spokeswoman Nicole Sizemore told the newspaper. “The comptroller’s office spent two years preparing this report but couldn’t unearth anything of substance.”
As a leader of the Success Academy network, she has clashed with de Blasio, who in the past has sought to limit the charter network’s growth. Some have mentioned her as a future mayoral challenger.
Before working at Success Academy, she served as a New York City councilwoman. As Trump cast about for an education secretary, she was mentioned as a possible candidate, until archconservative Betsy DeVos got the gig.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.