Hallelujah!

Queens is going to get 6 new high schools! Ain't that great? Being as 75% of high schools are overcrowded, that's really what kids need.

Oh, wait a minute. They're not actually new high schools. They're Academies for This or That, and they're just going to shove them into existing buildings somewhere, and that's that. There's not actually going to be any more space devoted to kids.

And as usual, there'll be a 5-year moratorium on accepting special ed. kids, or ESL students. Miraculously, test scores will be higher, and Mayor Bloomberg can declare yet another brilliant victory.

So, if you're a "reformer," here's your recipe for success--close schools, rename them, shuffle kids all over the city, and if those schools fail, close 'em again and shuffle 'em somewhere else. Control the population, and manipulate the test scores so there appears to be progress. Talk a lot about "accountability," and set up a system where whatever happens, it never sets foot in your office.

As long as you have someone else to blame when things go wrong, you'll never have to build enough schools to accommodate those 1.1 million pesky kids.

Update: Philissa from Inside Schools says Mayor Mike has reconsidered the policy of excluding special ed. and ESL students from the "academies." We'll see whether or not Tweed keeps its word. We'll also see whether or not appropriate services are provided for these kids, as that's not always the case in Mayor Mike's New York.