Dear Commons Community,

New York State education officials released a new set of graduation statistics on Monday that show less than half of students in the state are leaving high school prepared for college and well-paying careers.    In New York City, the results show that only 23 percent of students in New York City graduated ready for college or careers in 2009, not counting special-education students. That is well under half the current graduation rate of 64 percent, a number often promoted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as evidence that his education policies are working.   This should not be surprising given that the fact that the  NYS  Education Department as well as the NYC Department of Education have known that many of the standardized tests used to evaluate competencies and achievement were “dumbed down” for many years (see my blog posting The Dishonesty of Standardized Testing in New York City Redux!).  The New York Times has an article reviewing much of this situation but the bottom line is that children and their parents have been done a huge disservice by our education leaders in promoting the illusion that schools have improved in New York City over the past ten or so years.  

Tony