Er-r-r, Um-m-m, Well, Hm-m-m: Mayor Dissembles in Blagojevichian Style

Attempting to respond to the recent, politically cataclysmic decline in the academic proficiency measurements whose "gains" he has insistently touted for the past six years, Mayor Bloomberg resorted in his news conference last week to the sort of double-talk dissembling we have come to associate with Rod Blagojevich. In so doing, he managed at one and the same time to refute the validity of the very measurement system upon which he has built his claimed education record, disparage those who aspire to a college education, and assert that it doesn't really matter what you measure or how you're measuring it as long as the numbers get better.

As reported by Maura Walz in "Going Gaga" at Gotham Schools (in far greater depth and detail than any of the missing-in-action local mainstream media), the Mayor first sought to defend himself using an "it's all relative, anyway" argument.

"Everybody can have their definition of what it [proficiency] means," the Mayor argued lamely. Later in the press conference, he even took the audacious step of asking reporters to stop referring to students who score a 3 or 4 on the NYS standardized (3 - 8) exams as "proficient"! Chancellor Klein, parroting the new party line of relativism, chimed in that "Level 3 is simply a single line," conveniently ignoring the thousands of press releases and millions of dollars the DOE has spent under his watch jerking schools over that "line in the sand" under threat of student retentions, teacher and principal dismissals, and school closures.

No doubt sensing that the relativism argument was not sufficiently convincing, the Mayor tried the Alfred E. Neumann, "What, me worry?" defense by suggesting that academic success (i.e., proficiency) was really not all that it was cracked up to be anyway. "The last time I checked, Lady Gaga is doing fine with just a year of college." Mr. Mayor, you might have noted that LeBron James is doing even "finer" with no years of college. Why should parents worry about education and college when they can aspire to the likes of Lady Gaga and LeBron James? With inspiration like that from their mayor, NYC kids should be taking to the city park basketball courts and music clubs in droves! Perhaps it's time to start creating report cards based on hoops talent and on-stage performance audacity.

Finally, the Mayor fell back on what might be called the "longitudinal data" defense, declaring along with Chancellor Klein that what has really mattered all along was improvement over time. In other words, the validity of the measurements are irrelevant as long as the numbers get better every year. Putting aside for the moment the data-corrupting impact of the Mayor/Chancellor's relentless mix of incentivizing principals and teachers while threatening job loss and school closure over those very measures, the sheer illogical senselessness of this argument is intellectually breathtaking. It's as if we spent eight years teaching students how to empty the ocean with teaspoons, finally realized that it wasn't working, but argued for continuing on the grounds that we've gotten better at it each year and our students are now spooning out 21.47% more water (ever so precisely measured to create more credibility) than they were eight years ago.

Of course, every bit of this is founded on the demonstrably false premise that being a "3" or a "4" in math and reading at any and all points between Grades 3 and 8 somehow defines one as being educated. All it actually appears to signify so far is that one is adequately proficient at taking the NYS standardized Math and/or ELA exams. No known positive correlation exists between being a "low 3" and being successful on the NAEPs, the SATs, high school graduation, college acceptance, or anything else. To the contrary, recent data on required freshman remediation of incoming NYC public school students from SUNY/CUNY suggest that the correlation, if it exists, could just as well be negative, that focusing so intently on a single pair of exams and a single pair of success measures deprives students, as one might reasonably expect, of a genuine education.

The bottom line from last week's news conference? Don't expect to see any changes forthcoming. In true George W. Bush style, today's politician never questions him/herself, never rethinks his/her approach, and never admits he/she might have made a mistake. Dissemble, obfuscate, and rationalize -- no matter the continuing cost and damage done to the city's children. After all, one of them could just be (ugh!) the next Lady Gaga.