Success Academy 3: The Test

Success Academy’s state test results are truly remarkable — their students score in the top one percent in New York State, often beating out kids from the wealthiest districts. And the network's reputation is built on these results — it’s a big part of how they attract new students, win over donors, and get approval to open school after school.

To find out how Success gets these scores, we go inside their test-taking machine. There are puppies and toys, “pump-up” songs, and a crazy event at the 19,000-seat Barclays Center called Slam the Exam. And, of course, there’s lots of test prep. We’ll hear from students and teachers who’ve grown skeptical of all the time devoted to getting good scores. We’ll see how significant passing the state test can be for a student who’s struggled. And we’ll hear Eva Moskowitz defend her school’s intense focus on test prep, which she prefers to call “mastery.”