Listen up, mayor and the NY Times

The Times ran an editorial last week, "Parents need to know", which claimed that NYC parents didn't understand how the weak state exams had been "shortchanging students" and that they did their "children no favor" when they disrupted a Panel for Education Policy meeting on Monday. This was after the PEP chair, David Chang, refused to let them speak in response to a long, deceptive power point that claimed, despite the collapse of the state test score bubble collapse, that the schools had made great progress.

The editorial also excused the state test score inflation by stating, "Weak state tests are a chronic problem throughout the country — one that education departments are only beginning to come to grips with." Oh please. The NY test score inflation has been obvious to nearly all objective observers since at least 2007, despite the fact that it conveniently allowed the mayor to claim great improvements during his campaigns for the renewal of mayoral control and re-election, illusions that were bought hook line and sinker by the mayor's allies on the Times and the other editorial boards.

The editorial ended by claiming that the schools have nevertheless been "narrowing the performance gap between white and minority students." Yet the gold standard, the national exams called the NAEPs, show no narrowing of the achievement gap in any grade or subject since the Klein regime began. Truly, the Times editors "need to know" and start living in the real world, for they, along with the chancellor and mayor, have lost all credibility, and should stop criticizing parents while displaying their ignorance of what's really going on in our schools.Our mayor, who famously said people could "boo him at parades" if people didn't like his educational policies, will likely see more booing of his Panel of Eight Puppets in the months to come, unless he wakes up and starts to listen.