Here’s Something Else That Would Have Been Good To Know Before That Big Close Vote

Not only who the mayor entertains down at the office but also the NAEP scores that have finally been released:

New York City’s fourth and eighth graders did not perform significantly better on federal math exams this year than in 2007, according to test scores released on Tuesday.

The results on the federal tests differ sharply from the city’s performance on state-administered tests, where the city has registered large gains in the last couple of years. On state exams, 71 percent of the city’s eighth graders met state standards this year, but just 26 percent were considered proficient or better on the federal exams.

In 2007, the last time the federal tests were administered, 22 percent of eighth-grade students in the city were proficient.

In the fourth grade, 35 percent of the students were proficient this year, compared with 34 percent two years ago.

. . .

Most of the other 17 large school districts whose results were reported Tuesday also showed gains over the last six years. Boston and Washington had larger increases than New York in the fourth grade, and San Diego had the most improvement in the eighth grade.

The city did improve more than the rest of the state on the 2009 federal tests, and the city’s fourth graders are now at nearly the same level as the rest of New York State.

The results of the federal test, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and widely considered the gold standard in standardized testing, will be fodder for skeptics who believe that the mayor has not achieved the educational successes he claimed during his re-election campaign.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Don’t Know How You Do The Voodoo That You Do So Well It’s A Spell, Hell, Makes Me Wanna Stoop Stoop Stoop

Keep following the dyslexics down to the OTB, because it can really pay off:

For the past 10 years, Jesus Leonardo has been cleaning up at an OTB parlor in Midtown Manhattan, cashing in, by his own count, nearly half a million dollars’ worth of winning tickets from wagers on thoroughbred races across the country.

During his glorious run, Mr. Leonardo, 57, has not placed a single bet.

“It is literally found money,” he said on a recent night from his private winner’s circle. He spends more than 10 hours a day there, feeding thousands of discarded betting slips through a ticket scanner in a never-ending search for someone else’s lost treasure.

“This has become my job, my life,” he said. “This is how I feed my family.”

Leonardo, who favors track suits and wears his graying hair and bushy beard in long ponytails, is what’s known in horse racing parlance as a stooper — a person who hangs around racetracks and betting parlors picking up tickets thrown away by others. Most tickets are losers, but enough are winners to make it worth his while.

To his stable of OTB buddies, Mr. Leonardo is the Secretariat of stoopers.

. . .

Mr. Leonardo, who is married with two teenagers, is hardly living on the fringes. He said that stooping brings him $100 to $300 a day, and more than $45,000 a year. Last month, he cashed in a winning ticket from bets made on races at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., for $8,040. His largest purse came in 2006, when he received $9,500 from a Pick 4 wager (choosing the winners of four consecutive races) at Retama Park Race Track in Selma, Tex.

. . .

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Mr. Leonardo, who had been supporting his family and his dream of writing songs by working odd jobs, including painting homes and cleaning windows. “I started thinking, there’s probably winning tickets thrown in the garbage every day.”

Like The Sopranos Or Oz . . .

They smell a “rat” down in the subway tunnels:

Subway worker Juan de los Santos suffered a broken nose, broken teeth and a gash that needed eight stitches when he slammed into the tracks at the Wilson Ave. station on the L line early Wednesday, he told the Daily News.

. . .

De los Santos said word spread among track workers that he was a whistleblower.

“No matter where I go, always someone says, ‘This is the guy. This is the rat,’ ” de los Santos said. “All the time, I have felt threatened.”

The Great Bike Lane War Of 2009

Hasids vs. Hipsters:

Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.

The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.

. . .

A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month’s election.

Location Scout: Bedford Avenue in Southside Williamsburg.

Come See Beautiful Police Brutality!

NYCGo has nothing on this attraction:

An unlikely tourist attraction has joined the ranks of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and Ground Zero – the spot where Amadou Diallo was shot to death by cops.

Scores of tour buses stop by 1157 Wheeler Ave. every week, disgorging Europeans who excitedly take pictures against a mural dedicated to Diallo’s memory.

“Amadou Diallo is like the Disneyland of the Bronx,” said Wilson Varges, a tour guide for See Tourists. “It’s so popular no tour would be complete without stopping here.”

. . .

Since last year, the spot where he fell dead has been marked by an 18-foot mural dominated by his piercing brown eyes gazing out over the street.

The painting features four cops with guns drawn and wearing white hoods to the left of Diallo, under a skeleton-faced Statue of Liberty. The words “American Dream” tower overhead.

On a recent Saturday, tourists flashed the peace sign or smiled as they posed for pictures.

“It’s beautiful,” gushed Estaben Lacusa, 52, of Barcelona. “Those KKK cop hoods are quite a sight.”

“I had to see the place where the cops shot the unarmed Diallo 41 times,” said Rafeal Peces, 38, of Madrid.