Opinion

RIGHT ON, RANDI!

Randi Weingarten, mayoral-control booster extraordinaire?

So it seems.

The powerful teachers-union boss, who’d previously vowed to gut City Hall’s control over the schools, yesterday delivered a nearly full-throated endorsement of it.

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The seven-year-old educational experiment is up for legislative renewal, or rejection, by the end of the month — but until Weingarten used these pages in May to hint broadly at a willingness to compromise, it was assumed she’d kick it to the side of the road.

Yesterday, she did just the opposite.

“What we’ve seen in the last seven years is a cohesion and a stability and resources that we did not have beforehand — and a lot of that was because Mayor Bloomberg said, ‘I’m taking responsibility,’ ” Weingarten offered.

OK, that wasn’t precisely unconditional surrender.

And Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will certainly have a lot to say about the ultimate outcome.

But Weingarten has had an epiphany.

Why?

Weingarten’s remarks yesterday came at the announcement of the latest in a long string of big gains on statewide tests for city schoolkids: The state Education Department announced that a whopping 82 percent of city third- through eighth-graders this year had attained proficiency in math.

That’s up almost eight percentage points from last year — and nearly 25 points over just four years ago.

Astoundingly, city elementary-school pupils have pulled nearly even in math with their peers statewide, who posted somewhat smaller gains.

To be sure, the standard of measurement itself could use some work.

State Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch yesterday warned that “proficiency” on state tests too often falls below the level of knowledge needed for real-world success, vowing to consider raising the score students need to pass.

That only makes sense. We’ve long been critical of former state Education Commissioner Richard Mills for his role in watering down state tests.

Indeed, it takes a great deal of wishful thinking to suppose that fully 82 percent of city schoolkids are adequately prepared for the next level.

Still, the state tests are a valid benchmark of classroom performance, both within the city and relative to the rest of the state.

And the consistency of the gains speaks to nothing short of an educational revolution since Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein took control.

The fact that Weingarten confirms this in public simply underscores how sweeping, and undeniable, the progress has been.

The test results, she said, are a product of “[t]he cohesion and stability and resources that mayoral control brought, the investment in teachers that we did together . . . and the collaboration of working together to focus on our children.

“That’s why it’s a great day for New York today,” she said — adding:

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor.”

Indeed.