Billionaire Ken Griffin Donates $25 Million to NYC’s Success Academy Charter Schools
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Hot on the heels of a $300 million gift to Harvard University, the billionaire Ken Griffin is continuing his education-focused donations.
On Monday, it was announced that the Citadel founder was giving $25 million to New York’s Success Academy, the largest charter-school operator in the city, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The money will go toward the schools’ expansion goals, in which Success Academy is trying to enroll an additional 10,000 students over the next five years, CEO Eva Moskowitz said Monday evening at a benefit honoring Griffin.
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“I do not understand how we will be a nation of greatness unless we educate our children to be great,” Griffin said during the event. “Success Academy is a road map not just for New York but our country. This gift is about momentum.”
Success Academy, which began in 2006, currently has 49 schools throughout New York. The 20,000 students enrolled are majority Black and Latino children, and many are from low-income families. (In August, the group will open four additional schools, with room for another 2,000 students.) The company has become well known for its high test scores and 100 percent acceptance rate to four-year colleges and universities, Bloomberg noted.
Over the years, to aid in their mission, the schools have received a number of donations from notable names. Bloomberg Philanthropies, led by Michael Bloomberg, gave $100 million last year for a K–12 school in the South Bronx, while the investor Dan Loeb donated $15 million in 2018 to help innovate high-school education. On Monday, both Loeb and Griffin visited one of Success Academy’s schools and sat in on a few AP classes.
“I’m not going to say which classes we struggled in the most,” Griffin said. “But I think I need to go back and look at some of my high school textbooks again.”
Recently, the billionaire hedge-funder has been on a bit of an education spree: Along with his Harvard gift from earlier this month, he gave $20 million to Miami Dade College a few days ago. Of course, that’s all just a fraction of his $35 billion net worth.
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