Still Waiting To See The NY Papers/Media Criticize Bloomberg/Klein For The Test Score Fiasco

Mayor Bloomberg has hailed the state test scores as proof positive his education reform agenda has worked.

So have the New York editorial boards.

So has President Obama.

But it turns out those scores were inflated and phony.

Now that we know what the real proficiency levels of New York students are, how is it that schools, principals and teachers are being told they are at fault for this mess, but Bloomberg and Klein aren't?

Seriously, let's say a mayor who was perceived as friendly to the teachers union were in power when these scores were revised sharply downward.

Let's say that mayor suddenly had a Clinton moment with the word "proficiency," and said something like "Well, how proficient students are depends on what the meaning of profiency is."

Do you think the papers and the politicians would let that person avoid blame for the mess?

Or criticism for the self-serving jive excuses?

Uh, uh. Not on your life.

Especially not if that mayor had been using those bullshit scores to hail himself as the greatest thing since the printing press in education reform.

Yet somehow Mayor Moneybags has managed to avoid criticism and blame for the mess.

So has Klein.

It's as if they were just innocent bystanders in the grade inflation.

Even though they graded schools and teachers using the bullshit scores.

Even though they handed out merit pay and bonuses for those bullshit scores.

Even though they stand by those evaluations and those bonuses even now.

It's an amazing thing just which figures get a pass in the papers and the media.

If you're an anti-union/pro-deform politician or business leader, it seems you can do no wrong on the op-ed pages of the Daily News, the Post, and the Times or in the commentary on MSNBC or FOX NEWS.

But if you're a unionized teacher who wants to maintain job protections like tenure and seniority or worse, speaks out against the pro-testing education deform movement, you're vilified as "anti-children."

Or just the anti-Christ.

Hypocrites.

UPDATE: Juan Gonzalez does criticize Bloomberg and Klein in today's Daily News, but Gonzalez has long been critic of both the mayor and the chancellor, so while it is wonderful to see him take aim at them today, it isn't the type of criticism I am looking for.

I want to see the op-ed writers who wrote so glowingly about the Bloomberg/Klein reforms and test scores in the past come out and say, "Oh, we were wrong."

As the Dana Carvey/George Bush character on SNL used to say back in the day "Not gonna happen..."