NO BIGOTRY, NCLB:

Student Scores Climb Strongly Across the City (DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, 6/02/05, NY Times)

New York City public school students achieved strong gains on the citywide reading and math tests this year. They were led by fifth graders, who posted extraordinary increases in the face of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's blunt threat to make them repeat the grade if they did poorly on either exam.

Mr. Bloomberg said the results proved that his decision to hold failing fifth graders back, ending the practice of social promotion, had been effective, raising achievement.

The mayor proclaimed the new scores, coming just two weeks after strong results on statewide reading tests for fourth graders, another testament to his stewardship of the school system - a three-year period that he hailed as "a new era of hope for our city's public schools."

The scores showed a steep drop in the number of fifth graders who scored too low to earn automatic promotion, to 5,636, or 8.9 percent of eligible pupils, from 14,695, or 22.4 percent, last year.

Officials said that struggling fifth graders had benefited from Saturday classes offered for the first time this school year. Pupils needing extra help and who did not attend the classes were almost twice as likely to fail to earn promotion as similar pupils who attended 21 or more Saturday sessions. [...]

"Our reforms are working," Mr. Bloomberg declared, as he announced the results yesterday at the Education Department headquarters. "We have made more headway in improving students' classroom performance than at any time in the city's recent history."