Although Mayor Bloomberg counts record leaps in student test scores among his top achievements, new national data suggest that better teaching or smarter students may have nothing to do with those gains. The city and state tests could simply be easier.

With the election just three weeks away and the Bloomberg campaign reminding New Yorkers almost daily of the mayor’s strides in education, some testing authorities and the Ferrer campaign jumped on the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores released yesterday as proof that the improvements accomplished by New York City schoolchildren represent grade inflation in the city and the state rather than actual progress in student learning.

“The fact is, NAEP scores are administered nationally, and show standardized, impartial results,” a spokeswoman for Fernando Ferrer, Christy Setzer, said. “And on these tests, New York students are actually doing worse.”

She added: “In Mike Bloomberg’s world, test scores are improving, New York City housing is affordable, and small businesses are doing just fine. Yet on national standardized tests, New York students are doing worse, one quarter of New Yorkers spend half their income just to pay rent, and last year alone, 10,000 small businesses closed.”

The NAEP-based attacks hurled at the Bloomberg administration yesterday weren’t just coming from his political foes. They also came from leading educational authorities, some of whom have questioned the Bloomberg administration’s record of achievement.

“I had suspicions that the gain on the test was not attributable to increased student learning. I thought there were other factors at play, at least one of which was the test itself,” the director of the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at New York University’s School of Education, Robert Tobias, said. “This adds further evidence that supports the suspicions I had about the results.”

The New York University educational historian, Diane Ravitch, took the fact that most NAEP scores were more or less flat while scores on the state test climbed as evidence that “New York State practices grade inflation.”

A Manhattan Institute scholar who specializes in education issues, Sol Stern, noted that the NAEP scores released yesterday represent statewide performance, not city performance, but he said, “I think it’s somewhat of a scandal.

“It’s an indication that the state has been dumbing down its tests, that the state’s claims of a 6% improvement in the percentage of kids achieving proficiency in reading is very questionable because the NAEP scores don’t show it at all,” he said. “And the NAEP scores are the gold standard, at least as far as the U.S. Congress is concerned.”

He said if New York City’s NAEP scores mirror the state NAEP scores, “It’s an indication that they’ve been blowing smoke about the great increases in improvement in test scores, and it’s obvious they’ve been doing it for political reasons.”

The chairwoman of the City Council’s Committee on Education, Eva Moskowitz, who endorsed the mayor earlier this week, said: “When I held hearings on last year’s test scores, I cautioned that improved test scores don’t necessarily mean improved teaching and learning. As I said then, educational reform is hard and takes time; we should be skeptical of quick fixes and dramatic gains.”

NAEP is known as the “nation’s report card,” and it is administered to large samples of students in each state as a means of comparing educational achievement nationally. While some of the critics contended yesterday that the city NAEP results, due out later this year, would likely mirror the state’s, since city pupils make up about 40% of the state student population, the city’s top testing official, Lori Mei, said she remains confident that city results will demonstrate improvements.

“I’m confident,” she said. “I believe we’re going to show some improvement.”

Ms. Mei, the executive director of the Department of Education’s Division of Assessment and Accountability, said the sample of students who took the statewide NAEP represents the population of New York State, not the population of New York City. That means the proportion of black and Hispanic students who took the exam was smaller than the proportion in the city’s population. Those student groups in the city, she said, have accomplished more significant gains.

“Although the New York City students participate in the state NAEP, you can’t disaggregate or break out the performance of students who participated in state NAEP and say something about the performance of all New York City students,” Ms. Mei said. “That’s not what these results say.”

A member of the state’s Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, said the overall trend demonstrated by the NAEP scores is not nearly as negative as the critics charge. In fact, she said, comparing scores over time shows significant positive progress. The scores show that over the past decade, the percentage of New York students meeting standards on the national test has increased substantially. New Yorkers do better than the national average on the test. In the last two years, however, since Mr. Bloomberg gained control of the city schools, progress for New York State on the national test has been largely flat.

“When New York City and New York State report the scores, they have never, ever, ever exaggerated. They’ve always said, ‘Listen guys. We’re progressing, but there’s still a lot of work to do,'” Ms. Tisch said. “The NAEP scores show that we’re progressing, but there’s still a lot of work to do. No one ever said that everything was fixed.”

Ms. Tisch said she believes strongly that although much remains to be accomplished, Mr. Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, have made significant progress.

“The kids are starting to receive a better education in the public school system and that is unquestionable, and I think the state tests prove that and the national tests prove that,” she said. “I feel really strongly about this.”