A report released Tuesday by the Success Academy Charter Schools network claims that nearly half of New York City's public schools, totaling 906 institutions, are failing to adequately educate students. The analysis, titled "By Any Honest Measure," found that in these schools, fewer than 50% of students passed state exams in math, reading, or both last year. This means approximately 43% of the city's 912,000 public school students attend these underperforming institutions.
According to the report, a majority of students in 503 of the identified schools failed both math and reading exams. The analysis further states that about a third of these 906 schools have been on state accountability lists for years, with some designated as failing for decades. The report criticizes city and state policies for allegedly exacerbating the problem rather than addressing it, suggesting that failure has been normalized and systematically obscured within the system.
Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz stated that the report represents the most extensive review to date of consistently low-performing schools. The analysis contends that New York policymakers and educators have, in some instances, rewarded failure by allocating more funds to low-performing schools with declining enrollment. New York City spent $40 billion on public education in 2024, averaging $36,293 per pupil, which is double the national average. The report indicates that lawmakers have directed over $40,000 per student to these failing schools.
The proportion of students attending failing schools increases with grade level: 34% of elementary students, 49% of middle schoolers, and 62% of high schoolers are in schools where a majority of students are not passing math or reading. The report highlights that many students transition from one failing school to another throughout their academic careers, with many high school graduates requiring remedial courses at CUNY community colleges due to being unprepared for college-level work.
Grade inflation and lax accountability for students and teachers are cited as significant contributors to the problem. The report notes that student grading policies often measure effort, participation, and attendance but exclude performance on state standardized math and English exams. This practice, reportedly scrapped by the Panel for Educational Policy under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, results in most students receiving good grades and being promoted despite poor performance on state tests. Similarly, state policy reportedly prohibits the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, leading to nearly universal satisfactory ratings for educators. The report pointedly contrasts this with the data: "98% of teachers [rated] effective. 43% of students failing. The math doesn’t add up."
The state Education Department also faces criticism for allegedly lowering benchmarks on its math and reading exams to inflate passing rates. The report suggests this manipulation is evident when comparing state test results with scores on the federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exams. The report alleges that Albany has been complicit in downplaying or concealing failure, citing the state's cessation of comparisons between traditional public and charter schools' standardized test results, as charter schools generally perform better.
Further criticisms include state lawmakers blocking the expansion of higher-performing charter schools through enrollment caps. The report also points to a 2016 law that changed the designation of "persistently failing schools" to "persistently struggling." A significant concern raised is the class size reduction law approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers, which the report claims will cost billions more. This mandate was passed despite a decline of 123,000 students in city public schools since 2020. The report argues that many struggling schools already have low class sizes due to low enrollment and that evidence does not support the mandate's effectiveness. Of the approximately 900 failing schools, 167 are noted as being severely under-enrolled.
The report suggests several remedies, including making state test data more accessible, tying teacher and school evaluations to student results, ending the manipulation of state tests and grade inflation, and curbing wasteful spending. The analysis concludes that failing schools deprive children of their futures, while under-enrolled schools drain the budget without providing returns.