A Romanian teacher argues that top school rankings are misleading, attributing success not to school quality but to the financial resources of parents. Maria Ștefania Manea, from a leading high school in Bucharest, contends that the current system of ranking schools based on national exam results presents an incomplete picture. She suggests that schools with high rankings primarily benefit from students whose families can afford supplementary tutoring and resources. This creates an uneven playing field, skewing results and masking underlying socioeconomic disparities. Manea implies that these rankings inadvertently reinforce existing inequalities within the education system. The teacher believes a true measure of a school’s effectiveness requires assessing its impact on students from diverse backgrounds, not just those already advantaged. She calls for a more nuanced evaluation of school performance.