Published: July 2, 2006 | New York Post

While Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein continute to show dogged se riousness in reforming education, the state bureaucracy is plainly lagging behind.

Take the ongoing testing situation: Grades for state English tests administered in January won't be released until August. Scores for the March math test won't be seen until October.

Thus, parents won't learn until the second month of the next school year whether their children passed this year's standardized math tests.

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) faults the lengthy turnaround lag on the expanded number of grades that are now tested under No Child Left Behind.

But this creates a huge problem for the city's education department, which depends in part on the standardized tests to determine whether students in Grades 3, 5 and 7 are promoted.

And that's unacceptable.

True, Albany claims that it warned the city about the timing problem, and worked to ensure that the test results were not the "sole basis" for decisions on promotions.

And Chancellor Klein says, "We have worked with the state and CTB/McGraw-Hill to determine which students in grades three, five and seven scored at the lowest levels on state exams. And we're working with schools to help teachers and principals determine, based on class work, attendance and other criteria, which students need extra help and which students are ready to progress to the next grade."

Still, this just prompts the basic question: Why can't the NYSED expeditiously correct and grade standardized tests?

Students have only two or three hours to finish most standardized tests. Yet it takes the state eight months - stretching into the following school year - to correct them?

That's disgraceful.

The New York Sun notes that New York is historically behind both other large states and its regional neighbors in getting tests turned around:

"California administers its tests in March and May, yet is able to return all results in May and June. Florida tests in June, and results are ready before the opening of school in late August. Texas tests children early in the school year, in October, and provides results by December. . . . New Jersey administers tests in March and April and delivers results in June, as does Pennsylvania. Connecticut tests in March and delivers results in July."

This is just the latest example of Education Commissioner Richard Mills' woeful recent record on standardized testing.

The very same January, seventh-grade English tests featured a scrambled multiple-choice section - with questions asking for answers A, B, C or D, but the only answers offered being E, F, G and H.

On other occasions, answers have been released ahead of time.

Even when the exams have no obvious errors, the difficulty of the tests varies so much year to year that it creates illusory gains and losses across the entire state.

Parents have every right to ask Richard Mills why it takes so long for his department to get its act together on testing.

No doubt it will take a while to get a straight answer.