Author Archives: garyrubinstein

In my first book ‘Reluctant Disciplinarian’ I made a big deal about how it is risky for a teacher to be too nice or too fun or, in some ways, too ‘human’ as it might cause students to lose respect … Continue reading →

[Note: This post draws from an interview I conducted with an anonymous source who identifies as a KIPP alum from the late 1990s. I consider this person credible based on the evidence they provided. Additionally, the post relies on publicly … Continue reading →

Success Academy is the largest charter school network in New York State. Starting in 2006 with one school, there are now around 40 Success Academy schools with around 20,000 students. And with a recent $100 million grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies, … Continue reading →

Success Academy is a charter network with about 40 schools in the New York City area. They are known for their high standardized 3-8 test scores. Though it has been proved that their test scores are somewhat inflated by their practices of … Continue reading →

Success Academy is the infamous charter network of New York. Founded in 2006, and featured in Waiting For Superman, its growth was fueled by high standardized test scores. But as people, like me, looked more closely at the publicly available datapproa we … Continue reading →

There is exactly one KIPP high school in New York City. KIPP NYC College Prep High School was started in 2009 to serve students graduating from KIPP middle schools. In 2013 they moved into a new facility that was part … Continue reading →

In the latest U.S. News & World Report Best High School Ranking 2023-2024, the Success Academy High School was ranked the 102nd best high school in the country and the 12th best high school in New York State. Here is … Continue reading →

Life is short. Over the past 11 years, since I entered the education reform debate on social media, I have had a lot of ‘debate opponents.’ The first was actually business tycoon Whitney Tilson, but others have come and gone, … Continue reading →

Teach For America’s teacher training has always been the weakest spot of an organization that has no shortage of weak spots. Ask any teacher what the most useful part of their training was and they will tell you that it … Continue reading →

With around 200,000 students, Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the 8th largest school district in the United States.  For years there was talk about the state possibly taking over the district and this finally happened on June 1, 2023.  … Continue reading →