The public perception of Success Academy (SA) amongst NYC youth and parents alike has progressively worsened, especially in lower-income communities where parents tend to feel like the intentions of institutions like SA are fabricated. However, the main reason why Success is so criticized by students (especially those who attend it) is its strict policies and insistence that their students are “creative and critical thinkers” who thrive without the various “gifted and talented” programs throughout the city. But what really constitutes a child as “gifted”? Is a student only worth their academic performance?

Are we instilling success, or survival?

“You are the future.”

That’s what my old principal at The Magnet School of Leadership and Exploration (LEAD-X), Tammy Katan-Brown said to me when I interviewed her. I asked her how she felt about Success’s January 2023 attempt at an integration into our school and how it caused panic among the citizens. As for how she believed it would’ve affected us? Her answer was simple: “I’m glad they didn’t come in.”

According to her, their plan was to weasel their way in and pick out the high-performing students from our school that would be “better suited” in an environment like Success Academy, while phasing out any students in their institutions that don’t meet up to their standards.

This wasn’t based on pure assumption, however, as in late October of 2015, the principal at Success Academy Fort Greene Elementary was placed under heavy scrutiny by educators across the city for creating a “got-to-go” list, which highlighted unruly students or students who he believed were “unlikely to succeed.” The intention was to push these students out to improve test scores. Although Success Academy attempted to refer to this as an “anomaly,” stating that his list was not representative of their ideals on education, an article by Politico revealed that not even 2 weeks after he had taken a supposed “leave of absence,” he was teaching third graders at an entirely different Success Academy elementary school in Harlem. Needless to say, this incident sparked deeper skepticism and insight into the various practices and policies that students at Success Academy are held to.

The criticism of Success Academy’s policies extends outside of just other educators. Even those who have attended SA have mixed reviews on the policies and expectations placed on students. A strong example of this is Keitan Brown, a former student at Success Academy Springfield Gardens, and now a student at Forest Hills High School, believes that the public view on Success Academy is largely exaggerated. “It honestly wasn’t horrible… People say it’s so strict and unfair but it really isn’t that bad until you get to like seventh-eighth grade and they start handing you three or so tests a day.” It’s easy to pile on a ton of hate about a given topic when you don’t know much about it. As Keitan says, “It’s their own way of… striving to see people succeed.”

But is this truly what our students need to reach their true potential?

During my research and interviews for this article, my sources mentioned multiple instances where a student’s performance or presentation was weirdly obsessed over by the administration. Whether it was the color of their socks, the way they looked at a teacher after being reprimanded or getting a question wrong -this isn’t an exaggeration, I couldn’t interview one of my sources for this exact reason-, students seem to be viewed as statistics more than actual humans. It goes without saying how harmful this form of discipline is, but the true danger is the very size of Success Academy. They have such an expansive outreach to families that, for the most part, do not know any better. This brings us back to the idea of a ‘gifted child’. Now that we’ve beat the dead horse of success versus survival into the ground, is it truly that dangerous to pick out children based on arbitrary numbers?

Ms. McDermott, English teacher at FHHS seems to be on the fence. Before Forest Hills, she actually worked in a charter school and felt that her experience there was mixed. On one hand, she admires the way a student’s behavior is sort of highlighted in the charter school model. “I feel like in a public school, there’s more of a chance [for] things to be often swept under the rug, whereas charter schools will be better at cleaning it up.”

On the other hand, when I presented the “got-to-go” list and the leaked voice recordings of Ms. Moskowitz (CEO of Success Academy) instilling that unfortunate familiar survival in her staff, Ms. McDermott highlighted the importance of individualism in a school setting. “This is a teacher’s job… This is why it’s important for us as educators to really hone in on you guys one by one and see where you’re struggling. If we can’t work around your inconsistencies, inabilities, etc., we cannot help you the way that we need to.”

If we aren’t meeting our students in the middle, they will never reach the top. They can want to reach success for their entire lives and fail as long as we clip their wings. This system is flawed, and there won’t be any real difference or change until education is about building children up from where they currently stand instead of tearing them down for not fitting into the rigid expectations of the institutions they are a part of.

Lastly, as we all know, the best way to learn the truth about something is to go to the source. An anonymous source of mine within the charter school system made sure to mention that the blame can not be entirely placed on the teachers. The stress the students feel as a result of the intense curriculums and unrealistic classroom rules are mirrored in the fear that an underperforming student or behavioral complaint could be their last straw. “Think about it, as a teacher, I have to put my best foot forward and I have to be the best I could possibly be, because my students have to be exceptional. If my students aren’t exceptional, the question becomes: ‘What are you doing?’ And if the question becomes ‘What am I doing?’ then I think, ‘Okay. I’m going to get fired.””

This vicious cycle of fear-mongering creates a suffocating working environment that feels authoritarian in nature. It feels more like a prison than a school. More like an endless void you cannot escape than a workplace. The statistics Success Academy prides itself on and the goals they want to achieve. The smiles that seem to be one bad grade away from shattering into pieces and the administrators who sound more like drill sergeants than educators.

It stands to reason that a warped perception of Success Academy’s true goals are what we really witness day in, day out. This institution fosters disaster and mental instability, not success and academic achievement. And those around us have begun to realize it, too.