Courtesy of Fred Smith
Left: Wayne Barrett and the author at the release party for Barrett's 2001 book RUDY! Right, the author and Barrett at City Limits' 40th anniversary gala.
“Wayne was an absolutist—moral, faithful, tea totaling, tenacious—a believer in redemption, with reportorial standards beyond reproach. No short cuts, no cheap rumors—only shocking facts; never going with a piece unless certain of its accuracy; smiling rather than taking umbrage when reporters chased his work without citing him.”
‘The parallels between Trump and Giuliani’s personalities are stark, the marriage of two men impervious to self-control, shame and disgrace. No amount of revisionism, contortion or myopic soul-searching by Frydman removes the stain.’
Nothing swirling around Rudolph Giuliani now is out of step with the person depicted 26 years ago in a 464-page vulnerability study he commissioned for his second run for mayor.
‘The outcome will further test how much traditional politics still holds sway.’
‘De Blasio wants to embrace Bloomberg’s bottomed-out, third-term school years as his starting point, because things could only improve after that.’
In hundreds of schools, testing companies are trying out questions for future state exams. According to Fred Smith, this ineffective way to gauge the quality of test questions, accomplished without parent engagement, is nothing but a public subsidy to well-heeled testing companies.
Hoping to head off parent opt-outs, education officials are hyping reforms like shorter tests and the removal of time limits. But those changes could create new problems without addressing the underlying flaws in the testing regime.
To prepare questions for future state exams, testing companies will soon administer so-called field tests to city students. But this op-ed asks: how are these no-pressure, no-prep exams a valid proving ground for questions that will count next year?
A handful of questions on last year’s state ELA test seem to have disappeared from official tallies of students’ performance. Does that mean kids were forced to wrestle with bum questions on test day?