On the scale of dumb and dumber, it is hard to top this one: a football player, his team losing by 50 points, scores a TD and spikes the ball in the end zone in macho triumph.
Or this one: New York school officials crowing because tests scores of city students fell slightly less than elsewhere — even as average city scores still trail the nation’s by 173 points.
We’ll let football worry about itself. New Yorkers should be concerned with how Gotham’s school seniors fared on the recent SAT tests, and how City Hall spins failure as triumph.
Chancellor Dennis Walcott, in a press release Friday afternoon, said that “while a sharp increase in SAT participation led to a decline in scores nationwide, New York City students held steady in math, and dropped 1 point each in reading and writing.” He went on to say “city students also outpaced the rest of New York state.”
To be kind, the chancellor is cherry-picking factoids. Here are facts that matter: The average SAT score across the nation is 1,500, out of a possible total of 2,400 for the three test sections. In the five boroughs, the average score is 1,327. Outside the city, the state average is 1,509.
In the last five years, starting with 2007, the average city score has declined by just 1 point. With many more kids taking the SAT, which is required by most colleges, that is neither a great nor terrible trend.
But the totals mask the reality that New York public schools remain a tale of two cities: Whites and Asians are doing better, blacks and Hispanics are doing worse.
Since 2007, the average SAT score for black students in the city has fallen by 27 points, from 1242 to 1215, according to city statistics. For Hispanics, the average has declined by 17 points, from 1,245 to 1,228.
For Asians, the average score over the same period has climbed by 29 points, and for whites, it is 9 points higher.
Thus, the city has held steady over five years only because whites and Asians are improving. But achievement gains by those groups are not celebrated by City Hall, nor are black and Hispanic declines discussed.
There is another important comparison: For all four ethnic and racial groups, New York scores are lower than the groups’ national average, according to the College Board, which administers the tests.
The national black average is 1,272, or 57 points higher than the city’s black average of 1,215.
For Hispanic students, the national average is 1,355, or 127 points higher than the city average of 1,228. Among Asians, the national is 1,640 vs. 1,522 in the city. For whites, it is 1,579 against 1,529.
Mayor Bloomberg and his chancellors have pushed more students, especially black and Hispanic ones, to take the PSAT and the SAT. But that is happening nationally as well, with 44 percent of test-takers in 2011 coming from minority groups, a new record.
Finally, there is another number to keep in mind: This year, the College Board set a minimum score of 1,550 as a benchmark for seniors to be college- and career-ready. It says anyone achieving that score has a 65 percent chance of getting a B-minus average or better in the first year of college and of graduating.
It is not clear yet how many city students reached 1,550. But state education officials, using different criteria, estimated that only about 1 in 5 recent city grads were college-ready.
To be sure, the city has made gains under Bloomberg, at great cost, with spending now about $20,000 per student. But the low overall achievement numbers still paint a grim picture that City Hall refuses to face.
Its selective use of data and premature boasting do a disservice to families, students, teachers and taxpayers. After all, true success can come only by admitting and overcoming failure.
It all starts with honesty.
And now, Andy’s toughest trick …
Now that his poll ratings have hit the stratosphere, Gov. Cuomo has every politician’s favorite problem: how to spend a bundle of political capital.
Democrats, Republicans, independents, upstate, downstate, city, suburbs — Andy is Dandy almost everywhere with almost everybody. His job approval stands at 66 percent and disapproval at only 17 percent in the new Quinnipiac poll, meaning Cuomo is turning himself into a true powerhouse the likes of which the state hasn’t seen in decades.
He’s doing it the old-fashioned way — by giving the public what it wants. He cut spending and closed the budget gap without tax increases.
But there’s more to effective leadership than delivering budgets, and Cuomo is persuading New Yorkers he’s the real deal by taking charge of Albany. Sometimes vocally, but mostly quietly, he has called the bluff of legislators, unions and other spendthrifts who have driven the state to ruin.
He made it look easy, and it mostly was because he had the public wind at his back. He kept his temper out of sight and, as the poll shows, found consensus on nearly all the major issues across New York. That’s a lesson for pols everywhere about how to get things done.
For Cuomo’s next trick, voters say they want him to get an independent redistricting plan out of the Legislature, as he promised. He should.
And, if the economy continues to sink and joblessness rises, he’ll also be challenged by the usual suspects who want to slip back into business-as-usual.
Just say no, Gov. You and New York have a good thing goin’. Don’t screw it up.
Israel: Right way and O’s way
There are two ways to judge President Obama’s treatment of Israel. One is to see the promised veto of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations as proof of his commitment to the Jewish state.
The other way is the right way.
The right way holds that the mess at the UN is largely Obama’s doing. Facing ancient feuds, he made two mistakes that set the trap the Palestinians are springing on the world.
First, Obama criticized Israel for building settlements in disputed lands and urged Arabs to make a settlement freeze a pre-condition for negotiations. They agreed, and so there have been no negotiations.
Second, Obama spoke at the UN a year ago and said he wanted to come back this year and celebrate a Palestinian state.
Palestinians took him up literally on both offers. Waiting exactly a year and without negotiating, they want their state created by UN fiat.
That’s not how the world works, and it certainly won’t advance peace in the Mideast. Heckuva job, Mr. President.
Nothing ‘left’ to do but unmask
In his first column on the Times op-ed page, former editor Bill Keller rips off the fig leaf of fairness. By endorsing Barack Obama for re-election and echoing “it’s Bush’s fault,” Keller finally becomes an honest man.
Under him, the news sections of the Times tilted so far left that they often amounted to Democratic propaganda. Now we know for certain the tilt came from the top.