Submitted by Jeff, Sep 17, 2008 08:59

Ah yes..the grades. Any educator, any person with knowledge knows these grades have not the slightest degree of validity whatsoever. They are based on New York State's flawed testing program which is set up so that the results look good. While I know the high schools were not included, when the grades are released, many will be based on the June Algebra Regents exam in which if a student scored 30 credits out of 84, the student was deemed to have passed. And further, nobody, especially clowns like Klein and Bloomberg, consider the impact on a school's students and parents when they are told their school is an F; despite the fact the vast majority of students are meeting the standards because of a slight, negligible decrease in numbers of students meeting the standard. The fact is, we all know this but don't want to say it, what makes a good school is good students. To grade a school, to grade a teacher, to grade a Principal on the results on these flawed NYState exams without looking at the kind of students they have to deal with is the typical response of people who think education is like any business; that you can judge success by simply looking at statistics. And the press takes this garbage seriously. Give me a break.

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