Gary RubInstein explains how Success Academy figured out how to game the high school ranking system of US News so that it’s high school would land on the list as one of the best high schools in New York City.
Gary begins:
In the latest U.S. News & World Report Best High School Ranking 2023-2024, the Success Academy High School was ranked the 102nd best high school in the country and the 12th best high school in New York State.
This is strange, he notes, because its graduation rate is one of the lowest in the state and the nation.
For all the schools in the top 80 in New York state, the second lowest graduation rate was 92%. The first lowest was Success Academy with a 75% graduation rate.
On this graduation rate statistic, Success Academy is actually in the bottom 10% in the state and also in the bottom 10% in the country. Nationally it is number 16,468 out of 17,680.
How is it possible that a high school with such a low graduation rate is ranked as 12th best in the state?
Open the link, and read Gary’s explanation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
With that system, the Early Colleges can’t even be listed because rather than taking AP tests, they teach kids the college curriculum. My kid decided not to use the Associate’s Degree and will spend 4 years in undergrad, but just discovered the Greek history class will in his 4 year college will use the same text book the High School Early College used!
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Of course, they game the system.
I’m less sure about the issue of fifth-year seniors. The public school district in Iowa, where I was on the board and our children attended, had both fifth-year seniors (locally called “super seniors”) and three-year graduates.
Flexibility is good, no?
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Gary writes: “More amazing is that only about half of the students who make it to 9th grade also stay to graduate from there in the 12th grade. And among those who do graduate, at least 25% of those take five years to graduate.”
It has been clear to me for a long time that Eva Moskowitz was much more interested in promoting herself than in doing good for all students and not just the ones who made her look good and justified her high compensation. Back when she started, she could have been lobbying for giving the most disadvantaged students extra years and slowing down the curriculum for students who needed it, instead of allowing a false impression that 99% passing rates on state tests could be achieved by any public school, just by using her barely trained teachers who offer students her superior way of teaching. Moskowitz disputed the need for small classes and (with the help of complicit education reporters, fawning profilers like Elizabeth Green, and the sycophants at the SUNY Charter Institute) the extraordinarily high attrition rates and high rates of students repeating grades were virtually hidden and never mentioned.
If there were even half decent education reporters at the NYT or Chalkbeat or any other NYC newspaper, this would have been thoroughly examined as important news. But since almost all of them practice journalism as stenography, and believe that presenting “both sides” means quoting some fawning praise from a SA press release with a disclaimer that some biased pro-teachers’ union person disagrees, none of them come close to doing even a cursory dive into the many anomalies that Gary points out that deserve real examination. And don’t get me started on their oversight agency, the almost criminally negligent SUNY Charter Institute which ignores high attrition rates in a manner that makes their own integrity highly suspect – I have watched their fawning rubber stamping of SA renewals and it is truly a shocking display of negligent – and sometimes embarrassingly and inappropriately fawning – oversight.
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I also wonder if Gary noticed this very late comment from a Success Academy parent. Diane, on April 21, 2023, you wrote a post entitled “Gary Rubinstein: Success Academy Whistleblower Makes Startling Claims”. There was some discussion the next few days, but last month, more than 4 months later, when Success Academy was back in session for the new year, a new comment appeared:
August 17, 2023 at 2:19 pm
Hello Gary I would really love to touch base with you as my child has only been in this school for 3 days and he already was suspended because they said he broke a pencil and leaned back on his chair. I told the principal of the school staff has no compassion, empathy, or patience for a new student to adjust to a whole new way of learning than I’d like to give him at the least some time to adjust like a month or so and the principal said oh I know it won’t take you that long to come to that realization. So basically I got the impression that my son just made the got to go list and is currently in first place on that awesome children black list. I also felt the lack are compassion from just her voice and responses. Very cold and callous. If I am wrong then I will admit I’m wrong but honestly I’m usually very good at spotting out insensitive people. If this is the impression that I’m getting on the third day I’m almost certain things won’t get any better as far a the humiliation of my child and me continues. Please feel free to contact me as soon as you possibly can. I have fear for the future of my child at SA.”
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I forwarded the comment to Gary.
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Thanks, Diane. I now feel badly that I copied the entire comment, including the name, because Success Academy can be so horribly ruthless in going after people who dare to challenge their false narratives, and I fear for this woman’s child who clearly had already been targeted for punishment in his first days there. Is there any way for you to edit out the name from both places just to protect her son? I recall a recent instance when Ann Powell publicly demonized a young child – it was shocking to see an adult so consumed with protecting a “brand” that a child became fair game. It is clear to me the types of people who are promoted at SA are more concerned with the brand than with children, and those who aren’t like that walk away, with a few who are brave enough to speak out ignored by the fawning NYC education media.
Anyway, hopefully you can edit out the name. It may be too late, but if this child is still at SA, I worry about what will happen to them.
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I deleted the name.
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Thanks very much!
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Sucess is a sham and joke! Teachers last 2-3 years and they lie and cheat grades and state tests. Sucess = fraud
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