May 2, 2004 | by Ron Isaac | Education News.org

The DOE talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. They found out that it’s much easier to break a fall when you’re tripping over words than when you’re stumbling over lies. The DOE is telling parents something very different from what it knows is reality.

That’s called lying. Where’s the evidence? Here’s what the entire third-grade staff of P.S. 7 in Queens has brought to light. The Department of Education forced some students to take the citywide standardized test while exempting some of the lowest performing kids in the grade and promoting them automatically. Students who are repeating the third grade because of their score on the 2004 citywide test skipped the 2005 exam and are being treated the same as if they had passed it.

The child who aced the citywide exam less than a year ago was forced to tackle it again, but the kids whose past results proved that they do not have basic reading and comprehension skills will be kicked up in grade. Millions of dollars were earmarked for helping them develop these skills, but not a dime was spent for that purpose because the kids were disqualified from taking the test.

Why were they disqualified? Could it be that the results would have made the DOE look bad? Is passing a single test the only reason that aid would be provided to students desperate for skills needed for success in life?

Another eyebrow-raising policy of the Department of Education is its requirement that third-graders must have been in an English-speaking school for five years to be eligible to take the test. That’s like demanding that a week have eight days.

Children whose parents didn’t check an almost invisible box on their child’s school admission papers are being given a free pass to the next grade, even if they attended four years in a public school.

This change in rules was executed like a magic trick. Parents were notified a few hours before.

Parents must never let the Department of Education out of their sight. There’s no telling what other magic tricks it has up its two-timing sleeve!