Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, and Mr. Klein’s team at the Department of Education – including teachers and principals – deserve a congratulations this morning. For New York City was just named one of five finalists for the Broad Prize for Urban Education. This is no bogus prize. The selection jury includes not just the usual educrats but some innovative Republican politicians such as Governor Bush of Florida and the former governor of Michigan, John Engler. The review board for the prize includes scholars with real credibility, such as Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute.

The aim of the Broad Prize, which is given out by a foundation established by Eli Broad, is to honor the country’s urban school districts that are making what the foundation calls the greatest improvements in student achievement while reducing achievement gaps among ethnic groups and between high- and low-income students. The prize is the largest education award in the country given to a single school district.

Now we, as readers of Andrew Wolf’s columns in our own paper, are aware that not everyone is an admirer of Eli Broad’s approach to education, what is sometimes called the Broad design, which is basically the San Diego model that has ended so badly recently. A cynic could say that since Mr. Klein is a follower of the Broad philosophy, why wouldn’t the foundation give New York an award? When the dust clears, this argument goes, the same group that influenced education in New York City before the Bloomberg mayoralty will still be running the show when the students of today are standing in the unemployment lines, victims of the fuzzy math, balanced literacy, and content-free curriculum brought to them by their good friends at the Broad Foundation.

But we’re happy to see Mr. Klein’s progress recognized on the terms he’s chosen. When the Department of Education errs it comes in for plenty of criticism. Its achievements also deserve to be noticed. New York’s finalist status guarantees the city at least $125,000 from the Broad Foundation to fund college scholarships for graduating seniors. If the city wins the prize, it gets $500,000 in scholarship funds. The final results will be announced September 20 – less than two months before the mayoral election, when another jury will get a chance to issue its verdict on the job that the Bloomberg team has been doing with the city’s public schools.