John Liu To Audit NYCDOE School Progress Reports

He's announced the audit even before the progress reports have been completed:

Mr. Liu, who took office in January, announced on Tuesday that he would audit the Department of Education’s controversial annual progress reports. That’s would, as in he has not done it yet.

The reports assess each school’s performance, and help the department decide everything from school closings to budgetary choices. But critics — including Mr. Liu, when he was a councilman — have questioned the accuracy and scope of the reports. So Mr. Liu said that his audit would investigate, among other areas, the “data collection, compilation and reporting processes,” “whether progress report data is comparable from year to year” and “whether overall measures of school progress are reported fairly.”

Mr. Liu mentioned the audit on Tuesday during a City Council education hearing. And in a statement, he said: “In an era where data has become the driving justification in such decisions, the real stakeholders — parents, teachers, students, community at-large — must be assured and confident about the accuracy of these high-stakes progress reports.”

A group that represents school parents praised Mr. Liu’s approach.

“The parents of the New York City Coalition for Educational Justice spoke and someone listened and took action,” said Carol Boyd, a parent leader of the group. “Comptroller Liu is to be applauded for recognizing the urgency and immediacy of our call to action that there be an independent review of the D.O.E.’s criteria for closing district public schools.”

Good - Liu is serving warning to Bloomberg and Klein that their dictatorial rule will have push back from somebody with some actual power to stop them.

Liu has already been a thorn in Bloomberg's side over the no-bid contract for CityTime, "the long-delayed and overbudget CityTime payroll system."

That system was originally supposed to cost $68 million but has now cost $722 million.

And it doesn't work.

Bloomberg, who in the past has defended the contract, was forced to admit that CityTime has "been a disaster."

Keep the audits up, Mr. Liu.

CityTime isn't the only "disaster" Bloomberg has presided over.