Bloomberg Have Any DOE Emails Erased Yet?

The story first showed up on DNAinfo - the Bloomberg administration plans to erase many of their emails when they leave office, including those from the NYCDOE.

Diane Ravitch picked that story up with additional details from somebody she termed a "mole" at Tweed who said the data there is all suspect and should be independently investigated.

Norm Scott ran with the story yesterday, comparing Bloomberg's education reform ship to the sunken Costa Concordia, then noting that if Bloomberg has all the emails erased, he essentially erases all evidence of his administration's incompetence, corruption and malfeasance, Norm says:

All amazing points that the corrupt and corrosive education press like Education Nation will ignore. Not only ignore but laud the ship as it sinks.

And indeed, guess which member of the corrupt and corrosive press ignored the erasure story this morning?

If you guessed the NY Post, you guessed right:

Given the sorry state of so many city schools, Mayor Bloomberg’s “victory lap” celebrating some minor successes might seem a stretch. But at least Mike moved the ball forward — and that’s better than what Bill de Blasio is promising.

Mike and his aides are bragging that 22 schools here were ranked among the 25 best in the state. They’re proud that city students beat kids in other large cities in New York and almost matched statewide performance averages, despite an abundance of kids here who don’t speak English well and greater levels of poverty.

True, the bigger story is bleak: Less than a third of city kids passed the state math test, and barely a quarter passed English. And critics may be right that Bloomberg is “cherry-picking” by singling out these 22 schools. After all, 16 are “elite” schools with high admissions standards, and two are charters, which the city doesn’t run.

But as Bloomberg notes, when he took office, no city school made it into the top 25.

He’s worked hard to create more charters, close bad schools and open good ones. So, yes, there has been some progress.

That would not likely be the case under de Blasio. Remember, the Democratic mayoral hopeful boldly vows to keep failing schools open. He opposes charters, which have shown the greatest gains. And he offers nothing to suggest any schools would improve. (Given his close ties to the teachers union, it’s logical to expect him to put its interests over those of kids.)

GOP mayoral hopeful Joe Lhota, by contrast, supports key Bloomberg reforms, like charters, that drive gains in the schools.

No, Mike’s gains aren’t enough. But then, they might’ve been greater if it weren’t for the union and folks like de Blasio. In the end, the question for voters will be: Do you back progress — or its alternative?

Hey, Posties, dig into the "data" and you'll find that all they did to get 22 of the "top-ranked" 25 schools in the state is manipulate admissions policies.

I dunno about you guys, but I don't really think about exclusion as progress so much.

For the schools on that list that do not have selective admissions, take a look at the economic data of the families served.

As Mayor Bloomberg has rezoned the city and made it into a playground for the wealthy and the powerful, many more affluent people are living here and sending their kids to public schools (something that was not done so much back during the Giuliani days and before.)

Gee, do you think bringing affluent families who now send their kids to public schools changes the test scores at those schools?

You bet they do.

Bloomberg is, as Ravitch's mole told her, engaging in selective data use to burnish the Bloomberg reforms.

But even a rudimentary examination by an independent entity not connected to Bloomberg or some of other ed deform group like the Gates Foundation or the Broad Foundation or the USDOE will expose much of the data manipulation this administration has engaged in that borders on fraud (the same goes in other areas like crime statistics and emergency response times, btw.)

But if Bloomberg burns the Tweed computer system down on the way out the door, the myth of the Great Bloomberg Education Reform Movement will live on into eternity (or at least until U.S. civilization collapses.)

Don't think the Posties and the Newsies and the Timesmen don't know this.

As Norm says, they will turn a willful, blind eye to what amounts to a criminal act by the Bloomberg administration - destruction of evidence of fraudulent actions.