NYFERA aims to provide accurate, clearly explained information about New York education. When an error is established, our responsibility is to correct it, explain material changes, and consider whether the same problem affects other pages or resources.
This policy applies to articles, school and district profiles, tables, charts, downloadable resources, tools, captions, and AI-assisted material published by NYFERA.
Readers can report a possible error through our Contact Us page. Please use the subject line “Correction Request” and include:
- The URL of the affected page.
- The statement, figure, or school detail you believe is incorrect.
- A brief explanation of the problem.
- Supporting evidence, preferably an original or official source.
- The relevant reporting period, school identifier, or dataset version, where applicable.
A concern can still be submitted without a proposed replacement. Please do not include confidential student records or other sensitive personal information.
Correction requests must be assessed against the evidence. Review should consider the original source, the wording and context of the published material, and any supporting documentation supplied by the reader. Where necessary, additional sources or clarification may be sought.
Priority should reflect the potential impact of the error. Incorrect school identification, misleading admissions information, significant numerical mistakes, privacy concerns, and errors affecting a page’s conclusions require particular attention.
We aim to address substantiated errors as promptly as verification allows. Review times may vary with the complexity of the issue and the availability of reliable sources.
Corrections, clarifications, and updates serve different purposes.
A correction fixes information that was inaccurate or materially misleading when published. Examples include attributing data to the wrong school, using the wrong denominator, misstating a policy, or presenting a percentage-point change as a percentage change.
A clarification makes accurate information easier to understand when the original wording was ambiguous or lacked necessary context.
An update adds information that became available after publication, such as a new school-year dataset, a revised program offering, or a subsequent policy decision. New information does not automatically mean the earlier reporting was wrong.
Material corrections must be visible to readers. They should not be hidden within an unexplained rewrite. Visible correction notices are also an established practice in published journalism standards.
A correction notice should identify the affected information, explain the correction, and state the date of the change. If the correction changes an interpretation or conclusion, the notice must make that clear.
Minor spelling, punctuation, formatting, or broken-link repairs may be made without a separate notice when they do not change meaning. An error involving a person’s identity, a school’s identity, a quotation, or an important numerical value must not be treated as a cosmetic edit.
School profile corrections require careful identity checks. Similar school names, multiple campuses, renamed institutions, and reorganized programs can lead to mistakes. Updates should be matched to the appropriate official identifiers and records.
A school representative’s request is useful evidence, but it does not automatically establish that every requested change is accurate. Profile changes remain subject to verification. Disagreement with a fair, supported description is not itself grounds for removing it.
Data corrections must address the calculation and its consequences. Review should check the source release, reporting period, unit, denominator, rounding, and any relevant methodological changes.
When a source publisher revises its data, NYFERA should distinguish that revision from an error introduced through our own transcription, calculation, or interpretation. Material revisions should identify the source and period affected.
Missing or suppressed values must not be replaced with zero or reconstructed. Corrected figures must also be reflected in affected charts, summaries, comparisons, and downloads under our control.
Where a shared dataset or tool causes errors across multiple pages, correcting one page is insufficient. The underlying process and other affected outputs must be reviewed.
Retraction or removal may be necessary when a correction cannot adequately repair the material. Examples include fabricated evidence, fundamentally unsupported conclusions, or serious privacy concerns. A public explanation should remain where appropriate, without repeating harmful or confidential information.
AI involvement does not reduce NYFERA’s responsibility. Errors in AI-assisted content require the same review and correction as any other error.
Readers who believe a correction request was misunderstood may submit additional evidence or explain what remains unresolved. Decisions should follow the evidence, regardless of the requester’s relationship with NYFERA.
NYFERA can correct its own publications but cannot amend official school, district, or government records. Requests to change those records must be directed to the responsible institution.