Moskowitz offers rare apology in private memo to staff
Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz offered a rare, albeit brief, apology on behalf of her charter school network in a private memo to staff on Thursday night, a contrast to her publicly defiant stance in the wake of a recent spate of negative media coverage.
"No matter how you view it, this is a tragic situation for the scholar and her mother, and many of us are deeply sorry that we have let her down," Moskowitz said in the memo, responding to a New York Times report that the mother of a Success student who had her work paper torn up by a teacher has withdrawn her child from the school. The Times also reported that the child and her mother, Nadya Miranda, are homeless, and live in a family shelter.
Much of the rest of the memo focused on criticizing the Times, an institution that has rivaled even Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration and the United Federation of Teachers recently as the prime subject of Moskowitz's scorn. But the apology is notable for its bluntness, and for the fact of an admission of responsibility.
In public, Moskowitz has responded to the Times story by lambasting the press, and in particular what she scornfully refers to the "paper of record." She has accused the Times of bias, and has commissioned her recently-hired group of media relations professionals at Mercury to send near-daily press releases calling on the paper to direct more coverage to problems in the city's district schools. Moskowitz offers rare apology in private memo to staff | POLITICO: