For a while, it seemed like things were improving in the city's public school system. Test scores were up and the disparity in performance between white kids and minorities was small. But the 2010 test scores smashed that dream, showing a 25% drop in passing rates from last year, and a gaping divide in performance between the city's white and Asian students and black and Hispanic students. Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told the Times, "On achievement, the story in New York City is of some modest progress, but not the miracle that the mayor and the chancellor would like to claim." more ›

State officials have recognized a few more consequences of the state's standardized tests being deemed too easy. On top of students advancing grades without being properly prepared, the "improved" math and English scores led to student placement in selective middle schools and bonuses for teachers. Testing critic Diane Ravitch told the Daily News, "[The progress reports] are only as good as the data they are based on, and now we know the data is phony. Schools have been punished and teachers have been rewarded based on these fraudulent tests." Those "rewards" cost the city $33 million. more ›

It's official—Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have fixed the public schools! Why, how else could 84% of the city's 1,058 elementary and middle schools receive A's on the DOE's annual performance report card, with only 3% winding up with marks of C or below. In fact, all of the schools that received F’s last year and remained open received A’s or B’s this year. Sounding like a teacher who had "accidentally" left the answer key during the final exam and now had to justify the stark improvement from the 61% of schools that got A's and B's when the system began only two years ago, Klein said yesterday, “We want to make clear that that means that they met their progress targets. Not by any stretch of the imagination that those schools don’t have a lot of improvement ahead of them...You can be assured we will raise the bar next year.” The grades schools receive are determined on how much student test results improve in a given year and have been criticized for their heavy reliance on standardized test scores. more ›