The decision of the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, to dismiss his most important deputy, Diana Lam, over her efforts to have her husband hired in the school system certainly demonstrates that both he and Mayor Bloomberg are prepared to enforce the ethical standards they have set for their administration. But the problem of nepotism, we confess, isn’t high on our list of matters in need of reform in New York City governance — or the operation of the schools.

The bigger questions in this case relate to the curriculum and policies with which

Mrs. Lam was associated. The chancellor tells us it would be erroneous to suggest that Mrs. Lam’s departure presents an opening to reconsider these questions. But for better or worse, Mrs. Lam was deeply involved with the so-called progressive educational ideology. These concepts, which include whole language (or “balanced literacy,” as it is now deceptively termed), constructivist or “fuzzy” math, and bilingual education, run counter to the philosophy many understood Mr. Bloomberg to be articulating when he ran for his post and sought control of the schools.

In defending Ms. Lam’s pedagogical preferences, the mayor and chancellor often found themselves in dilemmas and controversy. Despite the warnings of some of the most respected professionals in the education field, people such as historian Diane Ravitch, that the reading program Ms. Lam had chosen did not conform to the federal law requiring reading programs be validated by scientific research, they pressed on anyway. Just as Ms. Ravitch and others predicted, Mrs. Lam’s program was rejected. The city’s hopes for a uniform curriculum is now unfulfilled.

The defenses crafted by Ms. Lam and her staff that Mr. Klein depended on to justify the department’s position often ended up embarrassing the chancellor. How could one accept the use of the results of tests given under the previous administration to justify new programs not yet put in place? Or the implication that certain favored curricula were responsible for the success of a particular school, when in truth the gains were made when other, now rejected, strategies were employed?

While Mr. Klein dismissed Ms. Lam over the hiring question, her departure should make it much easier for him to move away from the most radical manifestations of her philosophy and restore respect for the views of educational traditionalists, who, we believe, have more promising ideas. And, for that matter, to defuse the tension with the teachers over pedagogical minutiae that have followed from Ms. Lam’s maladministration.

We would like to think that these consequences — intended or unintended — will put Mr. Klein in a stronger position in the coming months. He remains the best hope in a generation for the rescue of the schools in this city, an assignment that couldn’t be more important. He needs and deserves the broadest possible support as he goes into negotiations with the teachers union on a new contract.