Congratulations are in order for Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, and the members of the United Federation of Teachers in respect of the Broad Prize. One of the most esteemed awards in public education, it recognizes New York as the nation’s most improved urban school district and will bring half a million dollars in prize money to be awarded to the city for college scholarships. The department of education credits the decision of the legislature in Albany to give the mayor control of the school system, as well as the Bloomberg administration’s Children First reforms that, the department says, “have redirected hundreds of millions of dollars from the bureaucracy into classrooms and given principals more authority to made decisions for their school while holding them accountable for raising student achievement.”

A review board that is part of selecting the winner of the Broad Prize found the city stood out on several fronts, the department of education said, including the fact that it “outperformed other districts in New York State serving students with similar income levels in reading and math at all grade levels”; that New York City is “closing achievement gaps for Hispanic and African-American students”; and that between 2003 and 2006 “participation rates for Hispanic and African-American students taking the SAT exam have gone up.” Not all of the indicators in New York City education are moving in the right direction, but those cited in the Broad Prize process are important and, by our lights, reflect a sense among users of the public school system that things have been improving in the Bloomberg years.

We’re not in a mood to rain on the mayor’s parade. He and Mr. Klein have started deserve the recognition they are receiving. We’d like to see him make the leap into the national campaign. In respect of the schools, however, the principle to remember is that New York City still awaits the acid test — namely, whether parents, if given the choice, would send their children to the public schools. We don’t know the answer to this question because there is no school choice in New York City save for the wealthiest families. Real parental choice can be provided only through the kind of ideas that Milton Friedman advanced half a century ago with the epiphany of vouchers. School districts in Washington D.C, Ohio, and Florida, among other places, are testing vouchers. It would be nice to see the mayor and chancellor use their prestige to give New Yorkers, too, a chance.