Well, you could always have a good sulk. Or you could take a pill. Or you could make terrorist threats.

Mayor Bloomberg's budget cuts are not being welcomed by principals, some of whom face almost a half-million dollars in losses. Though the mayor insists his cuts should be no problem, principals, now responsible for staff salaries, have an entirely different view:

Asked what he would cut, Barry M. Fein, the principal of the Seth Low Intermediate School in Brooklyn, responded, “My throat.”

The principal of Norman Thomas High School took a more pragmatic view:

“That’s six teachers’ salaries for the rest of the term,” he said.

It's tough to see how you relieve rampant overcrowding and the highest class sizes in the state with fewer teachers, but that is Mr. Bloomberg's apparent plan.

In other news, Mr. Bloomberg's sweetheart deal to devote Randall's Island to private schools has been halted. Apparently, they may have to share it with the bootless and unhorsed, unpleasant though that prospect may be.

The ruling means that the Bloomberg administration must essentially start from scratch by submitting its deal with the private schools, which include Buckley, Dalton and Chapin, through the Uniform Land Use Review Process. That process requires major projects to be approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council, and to be reviewed by the local community board and the borough president.

Apparently, being Mayor does not actually mean you own the city, and can lease it to whomever you wish. While we may have done away with checks and balances in the field of education, they are still in place elsewhere.

Let's get rid of mayoral control and give our schools a real chancellor, rather than a rubber stamp.

Thanks to Schoolgal

I regret any dissatisfaction with posting policies. However, without posting actual IP addresses, I do know the difference between a DoE source, like the one below, used by poster "Aristotle:"

OrgName:    New York City Public Schools
OrgID:      NYCPS
Address:    2 Metrotech Center
Address:    Suite 3600
City:       Brooklyn
StateProv:  NY
PostalCode: 11201
Country:    US

and an Optimum Online source, like this one used by poster "Socrates:"

OrgName:    Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems)
OrgID:      OPTO
Address:    111 new south RD
City:       Hicksville
StateProv:  NY
PostalCode: 11801
Country:    US 

Call me cynical, but last I looked, that ain't Manhattan, let alone a city school. Furthermore, last I heard, Cablevision was available only on Long Island, and most certainly not in New York City public schools. Perhaps making demonstrably false claims to boost your credibility is acceptable elsewhere. Personally, though, I don't much care for it.

If you wish to discuss topics here, fine. I'm afraid posting decisions are final, and not open to discussion.

It looks like a lot of city kids, perhaps victims of testing mania, are not getting their mandated gym classes. In Queens, they "often don't have the time, space or staff" to offer classes.

That strikes me as odd. In my school, which Mayor Bloomberg has managed to stuff to over 250% capacity (because he just loves city kids) students seem to get gym all the time. Our only problem is they barely fit in the gym. That's why it has to be really, really cold before any gym teacher decides to stay inside.

Some mornings, I come in wearing an arctic parka and a scarf and a hood, but the kids are out there, many of them in t-shirts and shorts. I wonder how on earth they don't freeze to death, but I don't imagine they'll stop dragging them out there until one of them does.

Honestly, I don't know if gym classes are enough to solve problems like childhood obesity. I suppose they're a good start. But personally, I'd rather kids got no gym at all than see them dragged out on freezing cold days.

That's Gold Rush, with Byron Berline, Mark O'Connor, Jerry Douglas, and Bill Monroe, who composed it.

Well, maybe not, but City Council member Peter Vallone wants to limit the amount of homework kids get. Apparently no one has disabused him of the notion that children need time to play, so he wants first graders to get 10 minutes of homework, second graders 20, and so on.

He said limiting homework would increase the time children can spend going outside and exercising. He said his own two daughters sometimes get so overwhelmed by homework that he cannot convince them to play outside.

Is Vallone right? Was I mistaken when I bolted shackles and chains to my little daughter's desk so she'd sit and work until bedtime? I've always given her a bowl of gruel, and promised her extra rations if she'd pass enough standardized tests. I thought that was my role as a parent.

Maybe Vallone is onto something, though. Kids need to be kids, right?

What do you think?

CNN showed a few speeches from the candidates. The Democrats had little to say, McCain was gracious in victory, and Mitt Romney worried out loud about losing jobs to "countries like Asia and India."

Our beloved Saint Rudy pleaded for "less lawsuits." While the English teacher in me kept thinking "fewer lawsuits," the newspaper reader in me couldn't help but remember that before 9/11, Mayor Rudy was perpetually involved in lawsuits, suing everyone in sight.

And while he nickel and dimed the cops, the firefighters, and the teachers, I don't personally recall Rudy using 35-dollar-an-hour lawyers in any of his lawsuits.

You see, lawsuits are important when he starts them. They're just not important when you or I start them.

Farewell, Saint Rudy. Not everyone is bold enough to adopt a strategy of ignoring virtually every contest in order to win at the end, and it was tough to see how all those purposeful losses would snare the nomination. Historically, it's never worked, but not everyone is Saint Rudy, who sues for the right to bring his mistress into the home he shares with his wife and young children. Rules don't apply to Saint Rudy, who ignores term limits and doesn't want to be bothered standing for re-election.

Take a broad view, Rudy. Look on the bright side. Whoever wins in November, your loss is the American people's gain.

The Carnival of Education is up, and a day early too, at Creating Lifelong Learners. Where is that, you ask? Why it's right here.

You'd think every principal jumped in ecstasy at every mandate from Tweed, to hear some of them talk. But that may not be the case after all. Many, upon discovering from local papers that their budgets would be cut by 70,000 bucks, seem not to have responded positively at all. But they filled out all those satisfaction surveys, didn't they?

(Principals' union rep) De Vale said the results were distorted because many principals were not under the impression that their answers were actually anonymous.

"This is a climate of fear," he said. "Principals don't speak the truth."

There's a familiar-sounding remark. And it's refreshing to hear it spoken by someone who represents administrators. Many teachers told me they had the same suspicions about the surveys we took. The atmosphere of fear and loathing that took flight after the arrival of this administration is palpable, and it's only reasonable that principals should feel it too.

A historian of the New York City public schools, Diane Ravitch, reached a similar conclusion after giving a speech to a group of more than 500 principals on Saturday.

She said the principals applauded loudly when she criticized Mr. Bloomberg's education record. Puzzled, she asked some principals afterward why the survey results had been so positive.

"They said, 'Everybody is afraid to say that they're dissatisfied,'" Ms. Ravitch said.

And who can blame them? After having given up tenure, principals live and die at the pleasure of Tweed. It's important for Tweed to be able to hold people accountable. After all, their own chief accountability officer literally runs from public school parents, so it's important for them to be able to point fingers at principals, who can consequently point fingers at teachers.

The atmosphere in city schools is toxic. That's not good for principals, it's not good for teachers, and it's certainly not good for the 1.1 million kids who learn in our public schools. It's regrettable that so few of us trust our leaders, but after watching them for six years, it's very tough to give them the benefit of a doubt.

The always objective Bob Novak is suggesting that John Edwards, should his numbers continue as they are, might be tapped as Attorney General.

Don't you get sick and tired of people criticizing your school systems? I mean, there you are, closing big schools and reopening them as five small schools, and does anyone even say thank you? Those ungrateful bastards.

Not only that, but then they complain that you don't allow special ed. and ESL kids. So you accommodate their pesky demands, and still no thank you. I mean, there they are, ten real-live special ed. kids in your brand-new academy. That oughta be good enough for anyone, right?

So what if you didn't actually hire a special ed. teacher or provide mandated services? You've got a presidential campaign to attend to, for goodness sakes! I mean, can't these people just shut up for one cotton picking minute? If they're so unhappy with the public schools, why can't they just lay out twenty grand for a good private school?

What's wrong with these people anyway?

Thanks to Schoolgal

The DoE is going to try year-round schools at several test sites. An organization called the "After-School Corporation" has determined it's a good idea, and that's enough for Tweed. This is significant for forward-looking teachers, as one precedent for the August punishment days we now endure was the large number of teachers who came in early to set in their classrooms. By incorporating it into the contract for less than cost of living, we now perform this service for less than nothing.

Regrettably. my alternative notion of good teachers, reasonable class sizes and decent facilities has long been rejected as too idealistic and costly.

Thanks to Schoolgal

Saint Rudy and his people don't need to bother. Sure, Roosevelt and Lincoln had to stand for re-election, but Rudy felt he needed to defy term limits and stay on unelected. This was ostensibly to keep up the morale of FDNY and NYPD, to whom he'd been denying contracts for years (At that point, NYPD, originally an ardent supporter, had already begun demonstrating against Giuliani).

Then there was the lawsuit demanding the right to bring his mistress into the home he shared with his wife and two young children, and then there was Bernard Kerik (and we don't seem to have heard the last of him).

Now here's Fred Brown, a Giuliani delegate who lives in a Battery Park high-rise, but votes and holds office in the Bronx. Brown claims it's OK because he owns property in the Bronx. Never mind that it's not actually located in the district he votes in--he's a Rudy supporter, so it's OK.

There's been a lot of chatter in the comments section about the double-zero contract that we took (during one of the biggest economic booms in NYC history). The UFT was the first to vote on this contract. The UFT President wrote a letter to rank-and-file stating anyone who thought we could do better must be "smoking something," and that we'd better get used to double zeros and a 25-year maximum. Nonetheless, rank-and-file rejected this contract.

Immediately thereafter, DC37 voted it up, and many municipal unions followed. A modified version of the contract was presented to the UFT, raising maximum to 22 rather than 25 years, and a demoralized UFT voted for it. As someone who reached maximum salary last year, I can tell you that the UFT Prez was wrong, and that we certainly benefited from our initial rejection.

But later, it was discovered that DC37 leaders had falsified their union election, the one that passed double-zeros and set the precedent for other municipal unions. Several DC37 leaders were relocated up the river to do a stretch. The fact that the municipal contracts were all based on blatant fraud did not trouble Saint Rudy at all. The contracts all stood.

What's the moral here? Morality must be strictly adhered to by working people, while important folks like Saint Rudy can do whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want.

A Muslim student reports one of her teachers pronouncing that all Muslims are terrorists, plotting against Christians and Americans. I have to wonder how this teacher became acquainted with all Muslims. There are a lot of them, and I imagine it must be time-consuming to travel far and wide enough to get to know them all.

However, the Sun-Sentinel reports the teacher has apologized. It's good to know that you can spout outrageous offensive stereotypes and then simply say, "I'm sorry."

Last week security guards at an elementary school handcuffed a 5-year-old boy and took him to Elmhurst Hospital for psychological evaluation. Here in fun city, we don't mess around.

Get it together, kid, and stop behaving like a 5-year-old.

Hat tip: Inside Schools Blog

Back in his State of the City address, Mayor Moneybags warned that all city agencies would be facing budget cuts both this year and next year as a result of projected declining tax revenues for the city.

With the nation either in a recession already or facing the prospect of one later in the year, with the financial markets on Wall Street turning bearish (at least before Tuesday's emergency rate cut of 75 basis points), with the unemployment rate rising to 5% last month (just 18,000 new jobs were added to the economy in December), with manufacturing contracting in December and with much of the nation's housing market in a recession (2007 saw the first decline in home prices since the Great Depression and existing home sales are at a 25 year low while inventories are near an all-time high), Moneybags expects the national recession to hit New York City pretty hard even though the city's economy, employment numbers and housing market seem to be doing better than the nation at large right now.

Falling revenues or even projected falling revenues usually mean budget cuts for the city (usually starting at the city libraries and parks first), but with the mayor planning to run against "fiscally irresponsible Washington" when he launches his 2008 independent campaign to buy the White House the way he bought City Hall, this year means especially stringent belt tightening:

A day after Mayor Bloomberg cast himself as a fiscally responsible leader and decried Washington's "reckless" spending habits, he is calling for cuts to all city agencies.

The cuts in his $58.5 billion budget proposal would reduce the Department of Education's budget by about $180 million this year and $324 million next year, and the plan calls for the police department to cut its budget by $33.8 million this year and $95.6 million next year. The cuts and new sources of revenue would yield $1.42 billion in savings. Overall, the budget proposal would increase spending by nearly 4%.

With inflation currently running at 4.1% (and expected to go even higher when the Fed interest rate cuts filter through the economy later in the year), the mayor's budget proposal increase of 4% doesn't really amount to increase.

And it's subject to change, of course.

Just a few weeks ago, the mayor thought the city's budget would allow for a proposed extension to a 7% property tax cut.

Now he says the extension is contingent upon future revenue and may have to be cut from the budget.

So much of the mayor's proposal is probably going to be changed before everything is said and done, and given the trajectory of the American economy these days, city agencies are probably subject to more cuts than spending increases.

Not to mention that now that the mayor has settled on a "I'm a fiscally prudent, post-partisan businessman who can solve the nation's economic ills that the current crop of politicians in Washington have ignored," you can bet he's going to lean toward more cuts rather than less so he can show just how "fiscally responsible" he is.

Here's what the budget cuts mean for those of us in the Department of Education:

On a list of about 20 line-item cuts outlined yesterday, principals are asked to shave $99 million in direct spending, an average of about $70,000 each; the Department of Education is to scale back a vaunted new program to test students regularly, moving to four tests a year from five, and, starting this June, an incentive program developed by the teachers union loses its central funding.

Principals who wish to keep the program, known as Lead Teacher, will have to pay for it with their own budgets, school officials said.

I won't cry to see the Lead Teacher position go the way of the reading rugs in most schools, nor am I sad to see one less "No Stakes" standardized test per year. Frankly, if that's the kind of stuff they're going to cut out of the education budget, count me in.

But remember that these cuts are just a start. As soon as the city's economy worsens (and it will - check out NY Post business columnist John Crudele for an inkling why), more cuts will be coming.

Will the mayor continue to cut his "vaunted" battery of No Stakes standardized tests when he needs to make cuts?

Doubtful.

So, let me throw this out there: if and when the mayor needs to make more budget cuts to city agencies later in the year, what additional cuts will the schools have to make?

Some people learn more slowly than others, and as such need special attention. Sometimes we give kids time-and-a-half on tests so they can keep up with their peers. Sometimes kids thrive when given the attention they need.

Unfortunately, some people never learn at all, and keep making the same mistakes over and over. When the UFT paper loudly declared "Class Size Victory," the details made it very clear that Mayor Bloomberg had the option to reduce class size by a fraction of a kid, or not at all, and that there would be no consequences whatsoever for any failure to do so. When class sizes were "reduced" by a fraction of a student, UFT leadership was shocked and outraged.

When Mayor Bloomberg followed his merit pay deal with a million-dollar panel, ostensibly to identify and eliminate bad teachers, the UFT leadership was shocked and outraged. How could he do such a thing? Isn't Mayor Bloomberg the same guy who, after forging a contract agreement, unilaterally denied sabbatical leave to all teachers for just as long as he could get away with it? As I recall, the UFT had to go to court to enforce the contract they had just negotiated. They were shocked and outraged, of course.

So when Mayor Bloomberg's double-secret plan to evaluate teachers based on student scores came out, how did the UFT react? They were shocked and outraged, again. Only it turns out, they knew about it in advance. Edwize writer City Sue sits on the panel that administers the plan. Like all UFT employees, she admits no fault, ever:

President Weingarten had angrily refused to endorse the project last summer and had won a concession that results would not be used to evaluate any UFT member.

Naturally. And when President Weingarten found out otherwise, I've no doubt she was shocked and outraged.

City Sue figured there was little cause for concern:

Still, to skip to the bottom line before I fill in the details, remember we have a signed contract until October 2009. By then Klein and Company will be packing their bags.

I'm not altogether convinced that a new administration will be the end of the shock and outrage. Only someone willfully ignoring history could come to such a conclusion. We can’t count on a friend in City Hall. I’ve been teaching for 23 years, and we’ve almost never had one. While I remember a brief flash of sympathy from Mayor Dinkins, he quickly turned his back on us, rather than defending education as important.

It’s high time for the UFT to become more proactive, more assertive, and less dependent on who may or may not be the next mayor, governor, president, or whatever. Governor Spitzer, for example (and I voted for him as enthusiastically as anyone), has just drastically reduced funds that could’ve been used to reduce class sizes in NYC.

It's time for the UFT to push a pro-teacher, pro-education agenda, to take charge for a change. We can't just stand around waiting to see what Mayor Bloomberg (or whoever) does next. Among other things, kids are packed into Mayor Bloomberg's crumbling testing factories like so many sardines. They can't wait any longer and neither can we.

Next time the Unity/New Action patronage employees visit you're school, cut them off when they tell you how shocked and outraged they are. Ask them what on earth they're doing to justify those double salaries and pensions. They'll probably respond with shock and outrage.

Today, we need more.

A Gallup poll released yesterday finds that 84 percent of Americans "believe that there is a candidate currently running for the White House who would make a good president."

In past election cycles, the number of Americans who believed a candidate running would make a good president was much lower.

For instance, in 1992 when Bill Clinton beat George Bush, only 40% of respondents felt that way.

The survey also found that people overall are feeling positive about this year's presidential election:

The positive responses to whether candidates are talking about important issues was more than 70 percent, a number that is close to the percentages seen in polling conducted in October of both 1992 and 2000. Similarly, positive responses to whether any of the candidates have come up with good ideas for solving the country's problems (58 percent) are higher than results from January polls of previous election years and are close to the numbers of polls taken in October of previous election years.

So what does this mean for Mayor Bloomberg's independent, post-partisan bid to purchase the White House with $1 billion in campaign money?

It's not looking so good:

The results from today's poll suggest that no possible independent candidate would do as well in November as Ross Perot did in 1992.

Sorry Bloomberg shills and paid operatives - your man with the money is going to have to spend a lot more of it to buy the White House than even he imagined.

Which is not to say that he still isn't going to try.

He's already in full pander mode, bashing the current crop of presidential candidates over and over again for coming up short on every major issue.

For instance, in this early January speech, the foreign policy experience-less Bloomberg criticized candidates like John McCain and Hillary Clinton who sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee for not telling America how they will handle foreign policy post-Dubya:

"I have not heard anybody who's said what they'd really do when it comes to foreign policy, how they would rebuild the relationships America has around the world," Bloomberg said.

I guess Moneybags is too busy cranking out the standardized tests here in NYC to have noticed that both McCain and Clinton have explained just how they would do that. First, Clinton's plan:

New York Senator Hillary Clinton called for a broad reform of US foreign policy that would include better cooperation with other nations and bilateral talks with enemy nations.

Criticizing President George W. Bush's foreign policy from Iraq to Afghanistan and North Korea to Iran, the wife of former president Bill Clinton called for a more internationalist approach to foreign policy in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based foreign policy think tank.

"First, and most obviously, we must by word and deed renew internationalism for a new century," said Clinton, a likely Democratic Party presidential candidate for the 2008 election.

"We did not face World War II alone, we did not face the Cold War alone, and we cannot face the global terrorist threat or other profound challenges alone either," she said.

Clinton also defended the idea of bilateral talks with nations that Washington has been avoiding, such as Iran and Cuba.

"We must value diplomacy as well as a strong military," Clinton continued. "We should not hesitate to engage in the world's most difficult conflicts on a diplomatic front."

"Direct negotiations are not a sign of weakness; they're a sign of leadership," she said.

Clinton blasted what she said was the Bush administration's "simplistic division of the world into good and evil. They refuse to talk to anyone on the evil side, as some have called that idealistic. I call it dangerously unrealistic."

Now McCain's:

Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security challenge of our time. Iraq is this war's central front, according to our commander there, General David Petraeus, and according to our enemies, including al Qaeda's leadership.

The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq demonstrate that America should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of conflict did the United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy, backed by increased force levels, that gives us a realistic chance of success. We cannot get those years back, and now the only responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most likely to protect U.S. national interests.

...

Defeating the terrorists who already threaten America is vital, but just as important is preventing a new generation of them from joining the fight. As president, I will employ every economic, diplomatic, political, legal, and ideological tool at our disposal to aid moderate Muslims -- women's rights campaigners, labor leaders, lawyers, journalists, teachers, tolerant imams, and many others -- who are resisting the well-financed campaign of extremism that is tearing Muslim societies apart. My administration, with its partners, will help friendly Muslim states establish the building blocks of open and tolerant societies. And we will nurture a culture of hope and economic opportunity by establishing a free-trade area from Morocco to Afghanistan, open to all who do not sponsor terrorism.

You may not like either Clinton or McCain as people, you may not like them as candidates, but the one thing you cannot say is that they have not stated pretty explicitly how they would handle foreign policy in the post-Dubya era.

You also cannot say that 8 years on the Armed Services Committee for Clinton and 20+ years for McCain does not give them some experience with foreign policy (even if you don't happen to agree with how they plan to handle it in the post-Dubya era.)

But I guess if you have $20 billion dollars and you're a potential candidate for president, you can say it and get away with it.

Bloomberg has also criticized the presidential candidates for pandering to voters and not telling America the harsh truths it needs to hear to solve the political, social and economic problems facing it. Yet the NY Daily News finds this morning that Bloomberg himself is pandering to voters:

Mayor Bloomberg adopted the 2008 campaign tactic of bashing Beltway insiders Wednesday night as he issued a compassionate call to help Americans who received shady home loans - a dramatic shift from his earlier stance.

Appearing before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Bloomberg - who once bluntly blamed the buyers rather than the lenders in the subprime mortgage crisis - said no one should become homeless by defaulting on a loan.

"The most important and immediate economic relief we can offer is to help people who are in danger of losing their homes stay in their homes," Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg said preventing families from getting kicked out of their homes "is more important than giving everybody a check."

"We must make sure that people still have a place to live, regardless of how they got it," Bloomberg said to applause.

Only last August, Bloomberg faulted homebuyers "who really didn't have the wherewithal" or "lied about their incomes" to take out subprime mortgages.

But amid rumors of a possible third-party presidential bid, Bloomberg has suddenly adopted a less harsh tone, offering to help counsel those threatened with foreclosure.

So here is the Little Mayor criticizing the "Beltway Insiders" for saying anything to get elected while he himself says anything and changes positions (and political parties) willy-nilly to get elected.

Oh, and he's also backed by a bunch of "Beltway Insiders" like Sam Nunn, William Cohen, David Broder (the "Dean of Beltway Insiders"), et al., which kinda takes away the whole "I'm an outsider" thing.

So remind me again why it is Bloomberg thinks America needs him when 84% of the country think one of the current candidates will make a fine president, most Americans believe the candidates are addressing the important issues of the day and the criticism Bloomberg is leveling at the current crop of candidates is hypocritical and wrong?

Oh yeah, because he's a billionaire and in America billionaires always get listened to, even when they're full of themselves and a whole lot of horse#$%^.

Under the beneficent leadership of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, school principals are now required to have "visions" for their schools. The first time I heard our principal talk about vision, images of Carlos Castaneda eating mushrooms with the venerable Don Juan filled my mind, and I wondered how exactly our school would be affected.

But it turns out that "vision," in fun city, has everything to do with following the various dictates of Tweed without question, and applying what little variation is possible within those narrow limits.

"My vision is a 2% increase in test scores for every year of my tenure. When we reach 110% passing, I'll retire."

"My vision is to examine test results, and secretly use them to assess teachers rather than students."

Those are some great visions, and they bring comfort to our great leader, Mayor Mike. Certainly principals who've attended the Leadership Academy are well-schooled in which visions are appropriate. Notice that when their schools fail miserably, accumulate preposterously unacceptable safety records, or simply disappear altogether from this astral plane, their principals are always retained with vague words of appreciation:

"Ms. Wormwood did an extraordinary job under difficult circumstances, and is being reassigned to the central office."

They need to keep these principals, because they have "vision," which is necessary to achieve "reform." Principals who have not received this training are liable to abuse their visions:

"I want to reduce class size to 20 per class."

"This school was built to accommodate 800 kids, and we now have 3,000. Therefore, I want to reduce this school's population by 2,200."

"This building is crumbling before our very eyes. I want to repair it, even if it diverts money from valuable sports stadiums."

Such principals cannot be tolerated. They lack appropriate "vision," and as such, have no place in the "reform"-minded administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

New York City is in the business of testing, and tests are the Holy Grail of Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein. In fact, at Public Schools 40 and 116 (among many others, no doubt), they've added 10 annual tests designed to test new tests. That's right, we're not testing the kids, we're not testing the teachers (secretly or otherwise), we're simply testing new tests, and doing it ten times this year (on top of all the other tests these hapless kids are up for).

“We’re using tests to figure out how kids will test on tests,” said Jane Hirschmann, the founder and co-chairwoman of Time Out From Testing, an anti-testing group that sponsored the news conference.

Parents from these schools have decided to boycott the tests. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, displaying his trademark indifference to public school parents, suggested that the tests would provide useful information for teachers. Perhaps the mayor thought it would somehow help them raise test scores, a feat his "reforms" have been patently unable to accomplish.

It's encouraging to see parents in New York City standing up for their kids. With enough of this, perhaps we'll finally see this system move away from nonsensical "reforms," and closer to what everyone knows works---good teachers, reasonable class sizes, and decent facilities for kids.