Success Academy, New York City’s largest charter school network, has filed a federal lawsuit against state education officials, arguing that a decision to withhold Advanced Placement exam data from a national ranking publication violates the First Amendment. The suit, filed against New York State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa, challenges the state’s refusal to authorize the College Board to release AP results for New York public schools to U.S. News & World Report for its annual high school rankings.
Attorney Eric Grannis, who represents the network and is married to Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz, said the state’s action amounts to government suppression of truthful information. “There’s no question that it’s a First Amendment violation because, essentially… a publication right is being prevented from reporting real news,” Grannis told Fox News Digital. He noted that U.S. News has used AP participation and performance data for decades without issue, but that Rosa changed course this year.
The lawsuit alleges that because the state declined to authorize the College Board to release 2026 AP scores, U.S. News calculated its advanced course metrics using only International Baccalaureate data. Since Success Academy offers AP courses rather than IB programs, the network received zero credit for 40% of the ranking’s weighted criteria, causing its statewide ranking to plummet from 11th to 196th. “All of this critical information about this incredible success of its students has been suppressed by the New York State Education Department,” Grannis said. “And so we have brought a First Amendment lawsuit to require the commissioner to allow this data to be made public.”
Success Academy accused NYSED of obscuring data to artificially inflate the rankings of traditional public schools at the expense of high-performing charter schools. The network highlighted that while less than 25% of high school graduates nationally pass an AP exam, 95% of Success Academy’s 2026 graduating class passed three or more AP exams, with 60% passing seven or more. Founded in 2006, the network serves over 22,000 predominantly low-income, Black, and Hispanic students across New York City.
The network regularly compares its academic performance to some of the state’s wealthiest suburban districts, such as Scarsdale Union Free School District, where fewer than 10% of students are Black or Hispanic and none are categorized as economically disadvantaged. According to state test scores released for grades 3-8 in 2025, Success Academy ranked first in New York State for math proficiency with a 96% pass rate and second statewide in English Language Arts with a 92% pass rate, trailing Scarsdale by just one percentage point.
NYSED has defended its position by citing student data privacy laws, arguing that student information should not be commercialized for ranking products. However, Grannis argued that applying commercial restrictions to educational reporting sets a dangerous precedent. He noted that major news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post are also commercial entities, but 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 said. “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.”
Grannis also alleged that NYSED’s decisions are heavily influenced by traditional public school interests and teachers unions. “The Department of Education is particularly highly aligned with the teachers union,” he 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 long history of friction with teachers unions, particularly over sharing space in public school buildings, known as co-locations. Charter schools receive public funding on a per-pupil basis, creating financial competition with traditional district public schools. The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit in 2023 seeking to block two Success Academy co-locations in Brooklyn and Queens, arguing in part that the city failed to account for state-mandated costs.