Charter School Network Sues New York State Over Blocked AP Scores Affecting National Rankings

Success Academy, the largest charter school network operating in New York City, has initiated legal action against the New York State Education Department (NYSED), asserting that the state’s actions infringe upon its First Amendment rights.

The charter network filed a federal lawsuit naming New York State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa as a defendant. The suit challenges NYSED's decision to prevent the College Board from releasing Advanced Placement (AP) exam results for New York public schools to U.S. News & World Report, which utilizes these scores for its widely recognized annual high school rankings.

U.S. News & World Report constructs its national high school rankings based on various academic criteria, including the level of student participation in AP exams and their performance on these assessments.

"Now, it both determines the ranking, and the information is also provided by U.S. News & World Report," a representative from Success Academy noted. "So, you can see how many students participated in AP exams, how many, and how well the students did, and how many exams they took. And this has not been a problem for decades."

"But just this year, Betty Rosa, the commissioner of the New York State Education Department, decided that they would not allow U.S. News & World Report to report on any of these AP grades," the representative added.

Legal Challenge and Ranking Impact

The lawsuit contends that NYSED’s policy constitutes a violation of the First Amendment by impeding Success Academy's ability to disseminate truthful, independently verified information regarding its students' academic achievements. The network emphasized that U.S. News relies directly on data provided by the College Board, the entity responsible for administering AP exams, to formulate its annual school rankings.

Due to NYSED's refusal to authorize the College Board to release the 2026 AP scores, U.S. News calculated its advanced course metrics exclusively using International Baccalaureate (IB) data. Given that Success Academy provides AP courses rather than IB programs, the network received no credit for 40% of the weighted criteria in the ranking methodology. This omission caused a significant drop in its statewide ranking, plummeting from 11th to 196th place.

Success Academy has accused NYSED of intentionally obscuring data, suggesting a motive to artificially elevate the rankings of traditional public schools at the expense of high-performing charter schools. The network highlighted its students' exceptional performance, noting that while less than 25% of high school graduates nationally typically pass an AP exam, an impressive 95% of Success Academy’s graduating class of 2026 passed three or more AP exams, with 60% achieving success on seven or more.

Performance and Context

Established in 2006, Success Academy serves more than 22,000 students across New York City. Its student body is predominantly composed of low-income, Black, and Hispanic individuals. The network frequently contrasts its academic results with those of some of the state's most affluent suburban districts, such as the Scarsdale Union Free School District, where less than 10% of students are Black or Hispanic, and none are classified as economically disadvantaged.

According to state test scores released for grades 3-8 in 2025, Success Academy achieved the top position in New York State for math proficiency, boasting a 96% pass rate. The network also secured the second-highest ranking statewide in English Language Arts (ELA) with a 92% pass rate, narrowly trailing Scarsdale by just one percentage point.

State's Defense and Counterarguments

NYSED has defended its stance by citing student data privacy regulations, arguing that student information should not be exploited for commercial ranking products. However, a representative for Success Academy, Grannis, asserted that imposing commercial restrictions on educational reporting establishes a dangerous precedent. He pointed out that prominent news organizations, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, are also commercial entities, yet their for-profit status does not diminish their First Amendment protections.

"If the commissioner had her way... it would strike at the heart of the First Amendment," Grannis stated. "It would mean that in theory, she could prohibit anybody from reporting on, say, the average reading scores of New York City school students because that would be, in her view, profiting—having a newspaper article in a for-profit magazine about student data."

Allegations of External Influence and Broader Policy

Grannis also alleged that NYSED's decisions are heavily influenced by the interests of traditional public schools and teachers' unions.

"The Department of Education is particularly highly aligned with the teachers union," Grannis claimed. "The teachers union is adamantly against accountability. They don't like there to be lots of public information getting out there about how well students are doing because it's going to point out that the students at charter schools are generally doing far better than the students at the district schools that are unionized."

Success Academy has a well-documented history of disagreements with teachers' unions, particularly concerning the shared use of public school buildings, a practice known as co-location. Charter schools receive public funding on a per-pupil basis, which creates financial competition with established district public schools.

In 2023, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) filed a lawsuit attempting to block two Success Academy co-locations in Brooklyn and Queens. Their argument partly centered on the city’s alleged failure to adhere to a state-mandated class-size law.

Grannis further argued that the state's initiative to suppress the release of scores reflects a broader policy stance against standardized metrics.

"They have made this very public for years... they call it 'less testing, more teaching,'" Grannis remarked. "I think it might be more accurately titled 'less teaching, less accountability,' because essentially it hides the failure of the district schools to obtain results. And you know what governments do when they don't like unfavorable comparisons: they suppress information."