Education

Numbers don’t lie and test scores and graduation rates are proof that the five-year partnership with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is working, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said today.

“While there’s a long way to go in New York City before we have the school system we all want, the results over the past five plus years reflect significant progress,” he said. 

His remarks came during a keynote speech of a conference about mayoral control of school districts, organized by the Manhattan Institute. Not everyone shared his assessment. 

David C. Bloomfield, the program head of educational leadership at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, said that Klein and his team are masters at cherry picking their own data. 

“They have juggled the numbers to make them seem more successful than they are,” he said. 

The control of the New York City school districts was transferred in 2002 from independent boards of education to the office of the mayor, who appointed Klein as chancellor. This governance change has emerged as one of the more important trends in school reforms, beginning in Chicago and Boston in the 1990s, according to the organizers of the conference. Proponents argue that it improves accountability and efficiency, but Klein’s policies have drawn much criticism. 

“By definition, reformers are in the business of ruffling feathers,” said Klein. 

He prefaced his presentation of test scores and graduation rates by saying that unlike his critics, he wanted to make “apples to apples comparisons.” 

Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, said Klein’s assessment is flawed, relying primarily on state test scores instead of federal test scores. 

Under the No Child Left Behind law signed in 2002, states must test students in grades three through eight in math and reading, with the aim of making all students “proficient,” but the law lets each state write its own tests and determine what proficiency means. The National Assessment of Education Progress, often referred to as the nation’s report card, however, doesn’t and is considered a better indicator. 

“Mayoral control has not produced the great things that Chancellor Klein described, because the most important thing we have to look at in terms of outcomes is the NAEP test,” Ravitch said. 

The results of the federal tests show “now significant change” in almost all the different measures tested in 2007. 

“I am not against mayoral control but what I am against is mayoral autocracy,” she added. 

Despite disagreeing with Klein’s assessment and policies, such as the small schools movement, Bloomfield supported the mayoral system. 

“Opponents to mayoral control are fighting the wrong battle,” he said. “They are seeing this as a referendum on Klein and Bloomberg.” 

He explained that mayoral control was about stability and agility for the next generation of students, beyond any elected official’s term limit, especially considering Bloomberg will be out of office in 2009.