That's what happens when you dumb down the tests...

From the Daily News:

New York students math scores stayed mostly flat on the most recent national tests, calling into question the big gains the same students have posted on state exams.

Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math exams show little change for fourth- and eighth-graders in New York.

The percentage of fourth-graders scoring proficient or higher fell from 43% in 2007 to 40% this year.

The state math exams have painted a very different picture of student achievement.

Between 2007 and 2009, the number of fourth-graders who passed state math tests jumped seven percentage points, from 80% to 87%.

The number of eighth-graders passing the national exams increased from 31% percent in 2007 to 34% in 2009.

On state tests, eighth-graders improved by a massive 21 percentage points during the same period of time, with the number passing climbing from 59% to 80%.

From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

The report showed that while the city has significantly narrowed the gap between it and the rest of the state, a division still exists. It also found that major gains still left some city schools lagging, most notably in the Bronx, which, despite a major increase in test scores, still ranks at the bottom of the state.

The business leaders in the room have generally supported the Bloomberg/Klein changes in city schools. As far as we know, no one asked, though, how many of them actually send their children to the schools that the mayor and his chancellor control.