Success Academy’s AP exam numbers prove it: Charter schools are where kids thrive

More proof that charters are running circles around their city run counterparts: So many Success Academy students are taking Advanced Placement exams this year that the network is renting space at the Javits Center to accommodate them all. A whopping 1,317 Success scholars will sit for the exams this year, up from 1,000 last year.

(And it’s sure to be yet more next year, as the network’s high schools are still expanding.) Some kids will sit for as many as five of the 17 offered AP exams. As Success CEO Eva Moskowitz notes , prepping for and taking AP exams is huge for kids from underprivileged backgrounds, giving them a genuine taste of college level work before they’re actually off on their own in college.

All high school students at Success take at least one Advanced Placement class, and 80% of them pass at least one exam. In contrast, only about 51% of city traditional public school students who took an AP exam in 2022 passed — and that includes all the whizzes at Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech, and Bronx Science, along with other selective high schools, which means the rate for regular high schools is wretched.

As state officials keep lowering standards and weakening graduation requirements for regular public schools (and doing their best to hide the evidence of failure ), charter public schools like Success are bursting with more high achieving students than they have the space for. It’s a shining glimpse of what’s possible when people actually committed to educating kids (not to kowtowing to teachers’ unions ) are in charge of a school system.

And Success is now a system in its own right, operating 53 schools and educating 20,000 kids despite the establishment’s hostility to charters and the state’s cap on charter schools. Data released last month shows the stark reality: Kids who attend charter schools are thriving while their underserved peers in city run schools wither, as the charter kids scored seven points higher on the English proficiency exam and 13 points higher on the math exam for grades 3 8.

If you want brighter futures for New York’s kids, the solution is clear: more charter schools..