Two weeks ago we ran an editorial by Sol Stern in the Education Gadfly in which he argued that ?For Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, test inflation was the gift from Albany that kept on giving, and they found ways to build even higher monuments to their reputations as school reformers.? Yesterday we ran a rebuttal from Joel Klein which conceded that ?NYC has a lot to do to improve student performance: More students need to graduate and they need to be college-ready.? However, it declared, ?that recognition doesn't remotely undermine the demonstrable progress NYC has made during the past eight years.?
Now Sol is back with the final word:
I agree that New York City's test scores have improved since the launch of the Bloomberg/Klein reforms in 2003. But student test scores also improved significantly over a five year period in the administrations of Chancellor Klein's predecessors. The difference is that Mayor Bloomberg used his massive public relations operation to claim that the gains under his administration have been ?historic? and prove that the city's reforms should be emulated all over the country. Indeed, Chancellor Klein has taken that message to Australia and Israel. Last year Mayor Bloomberg narrowly won election to a third term in part by hyping those unprecedented improvements. Now that the balloon has burst, the administration has changed its line. It now argues that the city's gains have been greater than the state's other big cities. Imagine, though, how last year's mayoral election would have turned out if the Bloomberg slogan was, ?We're better than Buffalo.?
- Sol Stern
And the fight goes on.
-Mike Petrillli
