Bloomberg's key to success

Want better scores? Change the kids

Over the years, we''ve come to expect better results, higher graduation rates and measurable learning outcomes in smaller schools. There's tons of research bearing that out. But I must admit, I wasn't at all surprised to learn Wednesday, that N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg's small schools were scoring higher mainly by recruiting higher-scoring kids. (Gotham Schools). After all, creating a two-tier school system has been the Mayor's agenda from the start. A SmallTalk salute goes out to researchers Aaron Pallas at Columbia Teachers College and Jennifer Jennings (Eduwonkette), at NYU for exposing this bit of Bloomberg data trickeration.