Speaking of well-deserved kudos in NYS, HUGE kudos to David Steiner, John King and Merryl Tisch for FINALLY raising the bar on standards for NY. I've said many times that the single most important thing we can do in this country vis-à-vis ed reform is to raise the bar because big organizations are like little children: they will live up to – or live down to – whatever expectations you set for them. Sure, the new standards (and resulting lower proficiency rates) are providing grist for the mill of enemies of reform, especially in NYC, but there is no question that NYC has made ENORMOUS strides under Bloomberg and Klein

Erasing years of academic progress, state education officials on Wednesday acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of children had been misled into believing they were proficient in English and math, when in fact they were not.

The bar for what it means to be "proficient" has now been set substantially higher. For instance, last year more than 77% of New York state students in grades three through eight reached proficiency in state English exams. Under the new standards, only 53% were considered proficient this year. The difference amounts to nearly 300,000 students across the state.

"We are facing the hard truth that the gains in the past were simply not as advertised," said Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the state Board of Regents, during a news conference announcing the new standards.

In New York City, the number of students scoring proficient in English fell to 42% this year from 69% in 2009. In math, 54% of city children scored proficient this year, down from 82%.

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