Last November, at age 60, I ran my first New York City Marathon. I wasn’t a runner then — and if I’m honest, I still don’t consider myself one, though over the last two years I’ve now run 1,426 miles.
On Sunday, I’ll be back at the starting line in Staten Island.
People keep asking me why I’d do this to myself twice. The answer? I believe in leading by example, to “show, not just tell.”
As an educator leading the city’s largest charter-school network, I ask teachers, students and families to undertake their own marathons every year.
For 13 years, they must keep going: persisting through challenges and frustration, overcoming occasional failures. Education is an endurance sport.
This year, I won’t be running alone. I’m running with an SA alumna, my daughter Hannah, now a senior at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.
We are running alongside 50 other SA educators, staff and supporters and supporters.
We are lacing up for something bigger than ourselves: We’re running in solidarity with the 22,000 Success Academy scholars running their own marathons every day: the education marathon.
Running 26 miles is hard. So is providing a truly excellent education to every child, regardless of background or zip code.
Both take preparation, perseverance and belief. Both test your endurance. And both prove that the hardest things in life require a mind-over-matter mentality.
When I founded Success Academy nearly 20 years ago in Harlem, I wanted to create schools that offered a holistic approach to education, engaging and challenging students’ intellect, while also cultivating their talents in art, music, sports, chess and debate.
We set the bar high and gave children the tools and support to reach it — and they proved what was possible.
Back then, we started small — one school, 165 kids. We crawled before we walked, walked before we ran.
Today, our network has grown to nearly 60 schools across New York City, serving mostly low-income families in some of the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Our students’ achievements speak for themselves. Every member of our first eight graduating classes was accepted to a four-year college. Three-quarters of our students are the first in their families to go.
Success Academy high-schoolers take 15 to 20 Advanced Placement courses — 65% of the Class of 2025 passed five or more AP exams.
Their excellence extends far beyond the classroom: Our scholars have earned top national rankings in debate, advanced to championship competitions in choir and dance and even landed a gold medal at the Pan American School Chess Championships in Brazil this year.
None of these successes came easily. They were earned through persistence — through showing up, practicing, failing and trying again.
But while our scholars are pushing hard to the finish line, the nation’s education system is slowing down.
Across the United States, academic performance has been backsliding. Standards are being lowered; effort is being replaced by excuses.
Too often, adults are teaching children to avoid hard things rather than embrace them. We’re losing our national belief in excellence — and with it, our children’s confidence in what they can achieve.
That’s why I’m running again this year — not just for our kids in New York, but for all the children across this country who deserve a world-class education.
At Success Academy, we’re beginning a new leg of our marathon: expanding nationally.
Thanks to a catalytic $50 million gift from philanthropist Ken Griffin, we’re preparing to bring our model of rigorous, joyful public education to Florida, opening our first schools there in 2027.
But let me be clear: We’re not leaving New York. This is our hometown.
The need here is still immense, and our work is far from finished. Expanding nationally isn’t about moving on — it’s about extending opportunity.
Every child in America deserves access to an education that demands excellence and delivers on it.
As I train for the marathon with my daughter, I’m reminded that every great effort takes a community — runners, coaches, cheerleaders, supporters along the way.
Education is no different. Our teachers, parents and students are in this together. Each of them is proving that when you set high expectations and believe in kids, they’ll rise to meet them.
The marathon’s finish line isn’t in Central Park. It’s in every child who crosses the stage at graduation, every family whose trajectory has changed, every young person who discovers what they’re capable of when given the chance to do hard things.
We can do hard things. We must. Our kids deserve nothing less.
Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.