Schooling the Mayor

We remember clearly how Mayor Mike asserted that he should be judged in his mayoralty on just how much the school system improved on his mayoral watch. The verdict? Well, if you believe Andrew Wolf, and we think that he is the most prescient observer of the educational scene that we have in this town, the mayor's tenure is a failure.

As Wolf points out in today's NY Sun the educrats are negotiating with the state DOE to re-jigger the methods by which city high school graduation rates are calculated. As he says, "the city is using some very liberal criteria" in an attempt to get the graduation rate to exceed 50% (it is calculated at 43% now). So, instead of actually trying to get more kids to graduate the department of education in the city is engaged in a cover up effort to paint a rosier picture than the real world numbers show.

In addition, the department is also "closing " schools before the state lists them on the endangered SURR list, and thus avoiding a realistic disclosure of the real number of schools that are failing their students and parents. Well we're not surprised, because the only real expertise Klein has brought to the education effort is a business management one; and the skill set there is an ability to cook the books. Which once again reminds us of Marx, Groucho and his brothers, who coined the wonderful phrase: "Who are going to believe, me or you own lying eyes."