Numbers are the bureaucrats’ way of fooling the public into thinking they’re doing a good job. The problem, of course, is that numbers can be manipulated and many times do not represent reality. Whether we’re talking about school test scores, crime statistics, or administrative successes, all these figures can be manipulated. But when the test scores of public schools are tweaked to deceive, it’s especially egregious because our children’s futures are at stake.

Mayor Bloomberg announced this week that test scores are up across the city and in some schools as much as double digits. The mayor considers the improved test scores as proof that public schools have improved under his administration’s takeover of the Board of Education.

I hate to burst his bubble, but numbers don’t always tell the true story. Two years ago I wrote a column, “Children Left Behind,” about the chicanery of test scoring. I had interviewed a recently retired educator who disclosed that when she was called to evaluate a school in Staten Island’s wealthy South Shore district with a very high ranking, she discovered that the “teachers were dumb as posts” and that the test scores were doctored by the principal. When she asked a colleague why, she was told to look around her at the million-dollar homes. Who would buy them unless they were in the best school district?

Another teacher I wrote about was a young sixth-grade math teacher, who was disheartened by the cheating done by fellow colleagues. This gifted, inspirational teacher is now giving up her career because she says, “It’s just not worth it anymore. I’m being criticized for my students’ lowered math scores because I’m not giving them the answers that their previous teachers gave them. I’m actually teaching them what they need to know, not what makes me or the school look good.”

A similar scandal erupted at Susan E. Wagner High School in Staten Island in 2005 after 17 teachers disclosed that the test scores of the June Regents exams had been tampered with. In a WCBS-TV report, sources said they had been threatened with retaliation for coming forward. In other words, whistle-blowers should either shut up or quit.

The fact is that some educators are self-serving and lack integrity. All state and national testing should be supervised by proctors unrelated to the schools to ensure the validity of the scores. Scoring should be handled by impartial state and local monitors, not local principals.

A few months ago I met educator Tom Carroll, president of the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability and founder and chairman of the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys and the Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls. In the recent state exam results, these inner-city schools were ranked no. 1 in the city of Albany for math in third and fourth grade and no. 1 in English in fourth grade. Asked the reason for their success, he said, “Much of the focus in the world of education is on what’s new and novel. In reality, though, much of what works is a throwback to the 1950s parochial schools; high expectations; lots of testing; strict discipline (which would make the nuns proud!); traditional (not fuzzy) math; phonics, and lots of hard work.”

Notice he did not say more money.

My 6-year-old grandson attends Immaculate Conception School in the Stapleton section of Staten Island. Not only can he read just about everything, he astounds me when I hear him talk about compound nouns, the metric system, and click beetles. He’s only in first grade and he’s not even the smartest kid in his class.

His teacher, Miss Helm, is a traditional educator who loves her job and does not believe in social promotion. Students don’t leave her class unless they’ve passed legitimately.

While sorting out my correspondence file, I came across a letter from Edward Cardinal Egan, the archbishop of New York, who wrote me in response to an early column praising Catholic schools. At the end of the letter he had scrawled, “Imagine what we could do with 14 billion dollars.” This was the budget at the time of the Department of Education. It’s now $20.9 billion, and Chancellor Klein went before the City Council in March to say that it might not be enough. Yet Johnny still can’t read in public schools, but 6-year-olds in inner-city parochial schools can. What’s wrong with this picture?

acolon@nysun.com