What Has Bloomberg Learned From This Rebuke?

The correct way to utilize a baseball analogy:

The candidacy of Cathleen P. Black, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s choice to be chancellor of the New York City schools, was in jeopardy on Tuesday as both a panel weighing her credentials and the state official who will determine her fate expressed deep doubts about her readiness for the job.

The official, David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner, said he would consider granting Ms. Black, a publishing executive, the waiver she needed to take office only if Mr. Bloomberg appointed an educator to help her run the system.

But even then, Dr. Steiner did not rule out rejecting her request for a waiver, saying he was skeptical about her ability to master the intricacies of the nation’s largest school system. Ms. Black lacks the education credentials required by state law to be schools chief.

Her cause was further undermined on Tuesday when only two of the eight members of an advisory panel Dr. Steiner appointed to evaluate Ms. Black’s background unconditionally endorsed her bid for a waiver.

. . .

Mr. Klein plans to step down on Dec. 31. Mr. Bloomberg has said that if Ms. Black is not approved, he is not certain any other qualified candidate would want the job.

“You know, we had a great pitcher for the first seven innings,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters on Tuesday before the panel voted. “We bring in the closer for the last couple of innings, and this was the right closer to bring in.”

This comes after bungling the same analogy last week:

“Joel Klein did a masterful job. That’s seven innings of pitching and now we need a closer to come in for three inn–,” before giving up on baseball. “And this city is so lucky to have Cathie Black willing to walk away from everything else and devote her life.”

His crew should start printing bumper stickers for a presidential run — “Bloomberg: He’ll Manage For All Ten Innings” — it’s like an updated version of “110 percent”!

“He Has Chosen Some Of The Best People In The Country To Work For Him, And He Has Mostly Let Them Do Their Jobs”

Progress, not politics:

When New York State made its standardized English and math tests tougher to pass this year, causing proficiency rates to plummet, it said it was relying on a new analysis showing that the tests had become too easy and that score inflation was rampant.

But evidence had been mounting for some time that the state’s tests, which have formed the basis of almost every school reform effort of the past decade, had serious flaws.

The fast rise and even faster fall of New York’s passing rates resulted from the effect of policies, decisions and missed red flags that stretched back more than 10 years and were laid out in correspondence and in interviews with city and state education officials, administrators and testing experts.

The process involved direct warnings from experts that went unheeded by the state, and a city administration that trumpeted gains in student performance despite its own reservations about how reliably the test gauged future student success.

. . .

“This mayor uses data and metrics to determine whether policies are failing or succeeding,” said Howard Wolfson, the deputy mayor for government affairs and communications. He also helped run Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election campaign in 2009, using the city’s historic rise in test scores to make the case for a third term. “We believe that testing is a key factor for determining the success of schools and teachers.”

“Under any standard you look at,” he added, “we have improved the schools.”

. . .

The 2009 numbers came out as the mayor was trying to accomplish two goals: to persuade the Legislature to give the mayor control of the schools for another seven years; and to convince city voters that he deserved a third term.

Mr. Bloomberg’s opponent, Comptroller William C. Thompson, had once been president of the Education Board.

“Mike Bloomberg changed that system,” said one of the mayor’s campaign advertisements. “Now, record graduation rates. Test scores up, violence down. So when you compare apples to apples, Thompson offers politics as usual. Mike Bloomberg offers progress.”

In his debates, Mr. Bloomberg hammered home the theme. “If anybody thinks that the schools were better when Bill ran them, they should vote for him,” he said in one face-off. “And if anybody thinks they’re better now, I’d be honored to have their vote.”

Indeed, according to exit polls, 57 percent of those who said education was their primary concern voted for Mr. Bloomberg, who won the election by a five-point margin.

Mr. Wolfson, the deputy mayor and 2009 campaign strategist, said the mayor had no regrets about focusing on the exams as a matter of policy, and during the election.

“What’s the converse?” he said. “The converse is that we don’t test and we have no way of judging success or failure. Either you believe in standards or tests, or you don’t — and life is not like that. There are tests all the time.”

Earlier: We Are All Philly Now.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Our Brains Perceive Words In All Upper Case More Slowly You Know . . .

. . . which is why you should never write a speech in all caps, for example. But somewhere in Manhattan Adam Gopnik sheds another tear at what they want to do to his street signs:

The city will change the lettering on every single street sign — at an estimated cost of about $27.5 million — because the feds don’t like the font.

Street names will change from all capital letters to a combination of upper and lower case on roads across the country thanks to the pricey federal regulation, officials said Wednesday.