Thursday, August 12, 2010 • The RIVERDALE REVIEW


14 Investigate inflated scores We’ve been writing a great deal about the scandal of inflated test


scores these past few weeks. We’ve had guest columns from some of the top experts on education, and we will continue running these over the next few weeks. We’ve poked fun at education officials and their political masters through our editorial cartoons. Some things need further explanation, and new strategies need to be developed as we look to the future. These scores do NOT mean our kids are less smart. They haven’t


changed. What HAS changed is the way the tests were graded. Because of the deceptive way in which the tests were marked, the results that were given to students and parents over the past few years has not been a true reflection of the abilities and academic improvement of the kids. There has been the suggestion that this scandal results from some


sort of innocent error. This isn’t true. It is clear to us that there was a deliberate effort to inflate the scores. And since children have nothing to gain here, we look at those who benefit: adults both in education, and, alas in politics. There is something called a “cut score” which is simply the number of questions a child needs to answer before moving up to the next level. For instance, on the sixth grade English language arts test, in 2006 a


child needed to answer 16 questions correctly in order to gain a “Level 2,” the minimum score needed in New York City to be promoted to the next grade. In 2007, the number of right answers needed was 12, in 2008, it was down to 11 and last year a student need answer only seven questions correctly to move onto the next grade. Moreover, maniacal test preparation, facilitated by an unchang-


ing question format made it easier to coach students to excel on the test without giving them the generally mastery of the subject that would insure that they could do well on any test. This is why despite the boasts of huge gains in academic performance by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, these gains were not transferable to other tests or to the real world. While Bloomberg and Klein were not responsible for creating


the bogus tests, the State Education Department was, they knew that the tests were tainted. As this was going on, an intrepid band of critics, under the informal intellectual leadership of educational historian Diane Ravitch, and including this newspaper, warned of the test inflation. Last year, the state Board of Regents member representing the Bronx, Dr. Betty Rosa, pushed hard in Albany to shelve the inflated test results in math. But this fell on deaf ears, lest the effort to reelect Mayor Bloomberg


last year be compromised by the truth. Despite city expenditures on the schools skyrocketing from $12 to $21 billion a year under the mayor, little academic progress, if any, was actually made. As our schools here in Riverdale demonstrate, the awful job that the mayor has done is compromising the stability and future of our community. In what turned out to be a much closer election than the pundits predicted, that knowledge of the mayor’s educational failure could have put former Comptroller Bill Thompson in City Hall. Of course, the state as a whole looks better as well, having ap-


peared to be meeting the Annual Yearly Progress goals set by the federal government. Fingers must point to former State Education Commissioner


Richard Mills who, according to some reports, did some of the reduction of the cut scores on his own. If this is true, Mills should be prosecuted. Moreover, we believe that the state and city could be held liable


in the courts for the damages done to individual children whose academic careers and futures are compromised by the bogus scores, having never gotten the remediation they needed so desperately, as adults from the mayor on down were telling them that all was well. It is the children who are the real losers. There must be an investigation, both by legislators and by pros-


ecutors into this matter. And parents must demand that the dicta- torial powers of the mayor over the schools be radically trimmed, and that the public regain real influence over what once could be called our “public schools.”


Angry over illegal immigration


To The Editor: I wish to express my anger


for illegal immigrants. I don’t approve of them in this country. They are taking employment away from industrious, honest, patriotic Americans. Americans who desire to work with bliss because we own this land.


These people do not know our


laws, our culture, our history. They know nothing about our Presi- dents who have built this country with their erudite hands. These are people who could


never comprehend affluence, prosperity and the pursuit of hap- piness. I approve of the action


taken by Arizona. It is truly, truly time to close American embassies globally. We can’t permit illegals in. We do not desire foreigners in our land. They don’t speak our language. They can’t work with joy. They are lazy. I salute America.


Ruth Pettier Volunteer ambulance service thanks Verizon Continued from Page 3


dios operate at lower power and were not strong enough to reach the nearest reception antenna, which is located on Ye- shiva University in Washington Heights,” said Jeffrey Moerdler, a volunteer who helped plan the project.


Now things have improved. “I often had to go to the


window of my apartment in the Whitehall for the dispatcher to hear me, but now he can hear me anywhere in my apartment,” he said.


The funds will also provide


for an antenna on the West Side of Manhattan and in Fresh Meadows in Queens. The upgrades also include


tuned and synchronized radio transmitters and receivers. The Riverdale Chapter of


Hatzalah thanked the Verizon Foundation for the largesse. Along with Rabbi Cohen, Dan- iel Hammerman, the chapter’s coordinator, and volunteers Yossi Cohen and Moerdler pre- sented the award to Catherine Gasteyer, Verizon’s director


ANDREW WOLF, Editor and Publisher JOEL PAL


Production Manager ROBERT NILVA


Note our New Address:


5752 Fieldston Road Bronx, New York 10471 (718) 543-5200 FAX: (718) 543-4206


Marketing Director


CECILIA McNALLY Office Manager


CANDICE GIOVE Associate Editor


STAFF: Robert Lebowitz, Laurel Noble, Richard Reay, Paulette Schneider, Lloyd Ultan, Daniel R. Wolf


of governmental and external affairs. The attenna and the other


upgrades will help Riverdale’s Haztalah—with its 30 emergency medical technicians, three para- medics and two ambulances— continue to promptly respond to calls for help. They receive over 700 calls each year. “It’s very satisfying to know


that with Verizon’s help, we have improved our ability to help people during emergencies and to save lives,” Moerdler said. “In some of these situations, every second counts.”


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The Riverdale Review (718) 543-4206 or email to bxny@aol.com


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