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It’s no mystery that Success Academy has high expectations — not just for its teachers, but also for its parents and students. Having a high bar is the key to Success’ amazing results. But the charter network’s expectations can make life hard for families and kids who don’t quite make the mark. In this episode, we will hear from two families who ran headlong into Success Academy’s high expectations. -- Thanks to our sponsor, Cole Haan. You can hear more of Lisa and other Gimlet hosts in conversation at ExtraordinariesOnTheMic.com, produced in partnership with Cole Haan.

Success Academy has grown quickly — in just 12 years, the network has gone from one school in Harlem to 47 schools across New York City. In order to do this, Success has had to hire many inexperienced teachers, and move them up the ranks quickly. Amidst all this growth, there is a lot of pressure on the staff to continue performing at incredibly high levels. And Success has managed to keep crushing the state tests. In episode 4 of the series, we examine how growth has changed Success for better, and for worse. -- Thanks to our sponsor, Cole Haan. You can hear more of Lisa and other Gimlet hosts in conversation at ExtraordinariesOnTheMic.com, produced in partnership with Cole Haan.

Success Academy’s state test results are truly remarkable — their students score in the top one percent in New York State, often beating out kids from the wealthiest districts. And the network's reputation is built on these results — it’s a big part of how they attract new students, win over donors, and get approval to open school after school. To find out how Success gets these scores, we go inside their test-taking machine. There are puppies and toys, “pump-up” songs, and a crazy event at the 19,000-seat Barclays Center called Slam the Exam. And, of course, there’s lots of test prep. We’ll hear from students and teachers who’ve grown skeptical of all the time devoted to getting good scores. We’ll see how significant ing the state test can be for a student who’s struggled. And we’ll hear Eva Moskowitz defend her school’s intense focus on test prep, which she prefers to call “mastery.”

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the highest performing and most controversial charter school network in New York City, and the subject of this season of StartUp. To understand Success, you have to understand Eva. So on this episode, we go back to the beginning, looking at what got Eva interested in education in the first place, seeing the battles she fought on her way to starting Success, and watching as she opens her first schools. She cut her teeth serving on the New York City Council as chair of its Education Committee. In 2003, she did the unthinkable for a Democratic politician: she challenged the teachers’ union. The war that ensued would include protests outside her schools, parents opposing Success at local hearings, and a newly elected mayor trying to shut her down. Eva’s instinct to fight has helped keep Success Academy growing, but it has also made her a lot of enemies.

The Story: Eva Moskowitz wants to fix a really big problem. There are over a million kids in New York City’s public schools. Most can’t read or do math at grade level. Many won’t graduate on time. And it’s largely poor, black and brown kids who are stuck in the lowest performing schools. Eva’s the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the subject of this season of StartUp. And she’s actually making progress. Her school network is growing at lightning speed, and her students get among the highest standardized-test scores in the city, beating out schools in some of the wealthiest districts. And the education world is watching. But not everyone likes what they see. In this season, we ask how exactly Success is doing what it’s doing, and why does it have so many critics? Today, on the first of our six-part series about Success, we meet a mother, Sherisse, who desperately wants her son to get into Success, so that he can have opportunities she never had herself. And we go inside a Success classroom on the first day of school, to see what parents like Sherisse are clamoring for. The Facts: Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Our theme song is by Mark Philips, remixed by Bobby Lord. Build Buildings wrote and performed our special ad music. Additional music by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Hot Moms Dot Gov, Jupyter, Mothica,Golden Gram and BlueDot. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs 

Alex Blumberg sits down with the stars of the Homecoming  TV show-- Julia Roberts and Stephan James, and director Sam Esmail-- to talk about how they came to the project and what it was like to film it. This is the final part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: gimletmedia.com/newsletter. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

Being in charge of a big-budget TV production means having to make decisions. It's a new kind of power for Micah and Eli, and one that's sometimes uncomfortable to exercise. The words they write have real-world, three-dimensional-- and sometimes winged-- consequences. This is the third part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: gimletmedia.com/newsletter. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

Micah and Eli get to work, writing the scripts for the Homecoming TV show. But taking something meant only for the ear, and turning it into something for the eye... proves to be deceptively challenging. Plus, Alex visits the set of the show, to meet the small army of people actually building the visual world of Homecoming. This is the second part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: gimletmedia.com/newsletter. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

Two years ago, Gimlet released its first fiction podcast: Homecoming. Now, this November, a television series based on the hit podcast and starring Julia Roberts is launching.  Alex Blumberg was behind the scenes as Homecoming went from podcast to TV production. In this first episode, Homecoming creators Eli Horowitz and Micah Bloomberg recount the journey, from concept to podcast to pitching the show to bigtime Hollywood producers. And we hear from some of the celebrities they met along the way. This is the first part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show. Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: gimletmedia.com/newsletter. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

The Story: Alex is back in the host’s chair today to introduce a new show from Gimlet - his own! It's an interview show called Without Fail where he talks to people who have made a big bet and either won.. or lost. When Sophia Amoruso started selling vintage clothing on eBay from her tiny San Francisco apartment, she had no idea that one day she would be at the helm of a fashion brand valued at 350 million dollars. And once venture capital came into play, it seemed the sky was the limit for Sophia and her company Nasty Gal. Find out how Sophia went from bankrolled to bankrupt—and what she's doing differently with her new company, Girlboss. The Facts: This episode was mixed by Peter Leonard. Theme and ad music by Bobby Lord. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

The Story: Alex is back in the host’s chair to introduce a new show from Gimlet - his own! It's an interview show called Without Fail where Alex talks to people who have made a big bet and either won or lost. When Andrew Mason started Groupon 10 years ago he was in his mid-20s, fresh out of grad school, and running a company for the first time ever. Within 2 years Groupon was called the fastest growing company in history. And then just as rapidly. And just as dramatically. Its fortunes changed. This dream rise, the nightmare fall, all in this incredibly short time-span - it’s like a startup fable. But it actually happened. To a real guy! In part one of this two-part conversation, Andrew talks with Alex about Groupon’s rise. How it started as a website designed for something completely different, what it felt like when it finally caught on and started to grow, and Andrew’s own conflicted feelings about being a CEO. The Facts: Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Theme music by Bobby Lord. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs 

The Story: At the end of the last episode, co-founders Justin, Emmett, Michael, and Kyle had a big problem on their hands. Streaming Justin's life 24/7—the very idea their company was founded on—turned out to be kind of boring. Pretty soon people stopped watching. In this episode, the four friends try desperately to extend the life of their company by making some risky but important decisions. In the process, their scrappy startup catches the eye of some very powerful people who challenge everything they’ve built. The road of a startup is a bumpy one and, as Justin and his team are finding out, they have only just gotten started. This is the second part of a two-part story that originally aired in April of 2016. Listen to Part 1 https://gimlet.media/2N80DUE.    The Facts: Matthew Boll and Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Our theme song was written and performed by Mark Phillips. The special ad music, Microliters, was written and performed by Build Buildings. Additional music by Kevin Sparks and the band hotmoms.gov. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs 

The Story: A group of friends moves across the country to launch an unlikely website that they think could replace television. The media loves them. They just need to figure out how to get their s to feel the same way. This is part one of a two-part series that originally aired in April of 2016. The Facts: Matthew Boll and Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Our theme song was written and performed by Mark Phillips. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs 

The Story: In the evangelical world, there are very few female church planters. In 2012 only three percent of all conservative churches had women as lead pastors. In large part because one of their key theological beliefs is that women, according to the Bible, are not meant to lead churches. But there are other reasons too — maybe even bigger reasons. This is the story of one woman’s quest to do what all the boys were allowed to do… and how she tried to square what she wanted, with what lots of others said that God wanted. This is the sixth and final episode in our series on church planting. The Facts: Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Build Buildings wrote and performed our special ad music.Additional music by Haley Shaw. For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs 

This is our fifth and final episode following pastor AJ Smith, who has been trying to grow a new church in Philadelphia. It’s a process that has come with all sorts of existential problems, but also… some very practical ones. In order for Restoration Church to become self-sustaining, it needed to double in size by the end of the year. We’re now half-way through that year and the big question is, how close are they? To cope with the stress of starting a church from scratch, and to seek clarity on how to move forward, AJ takes a trip into the woods with reporter Eric Mennel. But over the course of the day, Eric finds himself reflecting on his own relationship with God, confronting a question he has been trying to avoid for months: Why has he stopped going to church? Hear about the future for Restoration, and a bit about Eric’s fraught relationship with faith, in the fifth episode of our series. 

Hell, homosexuality, and the role of women in church — these are some of the most sensitive topics in Christian theology today. And the implications are huge: where an individual church stands on these issues can have a major effect on who does or does not attend, and … who gives money. A common critique of church plants is that they present as progressive, but at their core, many still hold very conservative beliefs. People can attend for months or even years without understanding where their church falls on topics like gay marriage or the ordination of women. So on this week’s episode, we sit down with pastor AJ Smith and ask the tough questions. This is the fourth episode in our series.

In the world of church planting, every Sunday counts… but there are a couple Sundays each year that can truly change the fate of a church. One of them: Easter. If you want to grab somebody who is open to church, but for whatever reason isn’t going, Easter is the time to do it. AJ and Leah need to double the size of Restoration by the end of this year, so they need this day to go well. They don’t have a fancy egg dropping helicopter or an egg shooting cannon like some churches do, but they do have a plan… one that involves 100 frozen chickens. In this week’s episode, we follow AJ and Leah as they give everything they’ve got to make their plan work. This is the third episode in our series on Church Planting. Listen to the first episode here.

It takes more than just a calling to start a church. You need a following. You need money. And to get that money, pastors often have to a kind of test.  Welcome to the wild world of assessment. There’s  whole industry of professional assessors who use psychological tests, behavioral interviews, role-playing scenarios and more, to try to determine if a pastor will be able to create a successful church. In this week’s episode, AJ goes to assessment camp — but he doesn’t go alone. Spouses are required to get assessed too. Just imagine an intense round of couples therapy, but as part of your job interview. That’s what assessment can feel like. This is the second episode in our series on Church Planting. Listen to the first episode here.

Every year, there’s a movement of thousands of pastors starting new churches — they call them church plants. It’s a world remarkably parallel to the tech industry, with incubators, growth metrics and, well, angel investors. One of these pastors, Watson Jones III, has dreams of starting a bustling new church in North Philly. But first, he has to figure out how to get people to show up. Watson might have the most difficult task of any founder in America: Convincing people who don’t know -- or even believe -- in God to change their minds and his church. Reporter Eric Mennel tells the story of this young church plant in a new multi-part series from StartUp. Listen now to the first episode. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/Ourrs

For the last six months at StartUp, we have been following a group of pastors and their families who’ve shown us what it’s really like to start a church in modern America. It’s a movement of people trying to disrupt one of the oldest, most bureaucratic institutions in history: The Christian church. Here’s a sneak peek.