After the Irony

After the sweet rush of irony abates, the news that the Department of Education released a test preparation guide filled with typos and errors seems just pathetic:

City education officials were forced to recall test preparation materials for math exams late Wednesday after discovering that they were rife with errors, including basic arithmetic mistakes.

The materials were intended for math students in grades 3 through 7, but the faulty information – at least 18 errors – was found before it reached classrooms. The testing guides were e-mailed late Wednesday to regional instructional specialists, math coaches and local instructional superintendents and recalled a few hours later.

Some answers in the guide were wrong. Other questions suffered from odd wording, the incorrect notation of exponents and sloppy diagrams. Besides the math mistakes, there were problems with grammar and spelling. For instance, the word “fourth” was misspelled on the cover of the fourth-grade manual.

The department’s fact checker reportedly was reprimanded and a letter placed in that person’s personnel file.

Not unjustified grandstanding to follow:

Several math coaches and teachers who had seen the test preparation manuals yesterday notified Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. Ms. Weingarten seemed outraged.

“Tweed has no problem with excessively criticizing teachers for failing to meet its picayune mandates,” Ms. Weingarten said, referring to the Department of Education by the name for its headquarters, the Tweed Courthouse. “But then it produces a test prep manual riddled with errors and misspellings. The hypocrisy is stunning. They could avoid embarrassing things like this if they were more collegial and shared these documents with us, instead of running things in a top-down management style that does not welcome or want input.”

Can’t resist checking in with the Post on this issue:

If thousands of city students flunk their math and reading exams this year, they’ll know whom to blame.

Whom to blame? Showoffs! I expect more from the Post.

Seriously, though, this is inexcusable:

An algebraic equation in the booklet for seventh-grade teachers uses variables, to ask, in essence, what 15+10 equals — but gives the correct answer as 24. In fact, 25 is not even among the four multiple-choice answers.