Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky announce the city’s graduation rates.

For Mayor Bloomberg, putting a positive spin on the city’s latest high school graduation numbers required him to get creative with his number-crunching.

The city’s four-year graduation rate fell by half a point, to 60.4 percent, making Bloomberg’s final press conference about the data the first to contend with a sharp decline.

During a press conference at City Hall this afternoon, Bloomberg said the fact that the city’s graduation rate did not fall more because of the state’s tougher graduation requirements was reason for celebration. Last year was the first time that students had to pass five Regents exams with a grade or 65 or higher, as opposed to 55.

“Everybody predicted that our graduation rates would fall precipitously and that did not happen,” Bloomberg said. ”This is showing improvement, not decline.”

In a PowerPoint presentation, Bloomberg highlighted how far the city’s graduation rate would have climbed had the standards in place last year also been in place earlier in his term. City officials pointed out that if the state had not raised its graduation standards, the city’s rate would have climbed by 1.4 points instead of falling.

And Bloomberg said he could have raised graduation rates even more had his policy proposals never been stymied by the United Federation of Teachers, spurring a fresh round of mutual criticism.

“Just think as far as we’ve come, just think how much more progress we’d be able to make if these reforms that we had proposed hadn’t been opposed at every turn by union leadership,” Bloomberg said.

He noted that graduation rates are higher in new small schools than they had been in the large schools they replaced under a school closure policy that the union has sued repeatedly to stop.

Bloomberg, who has sparred with the union fiercely in recent years, made his comments at a politically heated moment of the mayoral race. The UFT is set to endorse a candidate on Wednesday for the first time since 2001.

“The last time the UFT’s endorsement got somebody elected, it was better than two decades ago,” Bloomberg said, referring to David Dinkins in 1989. “It’s almost the kiss of death.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in response, “Dozens of candidates in local and citywide elections have won with UFT backing in recent years, and many are seeking it this year, while running away from Bloomberg and his record. Right now most candidates would rather be the victim of zombie attack than get a Michael Bloomberg endorsement.”

Both Bill Thompson and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, seen as the top two contenders for the UFT endorsement, issued statements critical of the graduation rate gains under Bloomberg.

Mulgrew also took on Bloomberg’s characterization of the city’s graduation rates. “We’ve had a decade of no real curriculum, repeated reorganizations, relentless test prep and a lack of support for struggling schools,” he said. “The result is that black and Hispanic students are graduating at a far lower rate than whites and Asians, and a college readiness gap — 11.7 percent vs. 46.8 percent — that is completely unacceptable.”

Unlike most other large districts that posted graduation rate declines, New York City did show an increase in students’ college readiness, according to state standards. More students also graduated prepared for college according to the city’s own measurement of readiness, which reflects City University of New York remediation and entrance standards and third-party tests such as the SAT.

But while the graduation rate gap separating black and Hispanic students from white students narrowed slightly, white students still achieved the state’s college-readiness metric more than three and a half times as often as black and Hispanic students. And citywide, just 22 percent of students who entered high school in 2008 graduated ready for college last year.

Bloomberg did acknowledge that the largest decline in student subgroups was for English Language Leaners, which went from from 39.4 percent to 35.4 percent. Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the department would give more training and resources to schools with large ELL populations and make $2 million in new grants available for extended day programs, online courses, and additional instructional materials.

“More students are graduating ready for college and 21st-century careers, but we know that we have more work to do,” Walcott said.

Bloomberg closed the conference by saying the next administration has to continue the work he has done while in office.

“We would just become the laughingstock of the country if you were to roll back everything that has worked so well,” he said.

Chart

Like the other large school districts in the state, New York City saw its graduation rate decline last year. But it bucked the trend when it came to graduates’ preparedness for college, posting an increase where the other districts did not.

In recent years, acknowledging that a high school diploma does not guarantee college success, the state and city have each begun calculating high school graduates’ college readiness rates.

The state calculates an “Aspirational Performance Measure,” or APM, based on the percentage of students who graduated in four years with at least a 75 on their English Regents exam and at least an 80 on a math Regents exam. Those benchmarks are important in predicting students’ success in college, according to the state.

New York City’s APM rose slightly, from 20.7 percent for students who entered high school in 2007 to 21.9 percent for students who entered high school in 2008.

While the state cautions that the year-to-year figures are not directly comparable because the Regents exams that students had to take changed during that time, it is true that the city’s APM rose while other districts with similar or smaller graduation rate declines saw their APMs fall.

Yonkers was the outlier, going from having 13.8 percent of students hitting the state’s college-ready metrics in four years to 22.8 percent. Statewide, 35.3 percent of students who entered high school in 2008 were considered college-ready four years later.

New York City calculates a different metric, the College Readiness Index, which reflects admissions and remediation standards at the City University of New York as well as scores on third-party exams such as the SAT. The city said in a press release that 43.6 percent of graduates (and a smaller percentage of the original cohort) hit that standard.

On the state’s measure, New York City’s racial achievement gap narrowed slightly as black and Hispanic students achieved the APM at a higher rate, while white students achieved it slightly less often than in 2011. Still, white students achieved the college-readiness metric more than three and a half times than black and Hispanic students, or 39.1 percent of the time for white students compared to 11.1 percent of the time for black students and 12.2 percent of the time for Hispanic students. Asian students hit the APM at the highest rate of all, 52.8 percent.

State Education Commissioner John King presented new data about the state’s high school graduation rate to the Board of Regents today in Albany.

ALBANY — After listening to State Education Commissioner John King present the state’s latest graduation rate data today, members of the Board of Regents were divided on how to respond.

Some grumbled about the rates, pointing in particular to declines that the state’s five largest cities experienced. But others said they had expected far worse.

Though statewide graduation rates stayed steady at 74 percent, rates in the “Big Five” fell by 2.8 points on average, a dip that was largely weighted by a seven-point decline in Buffalo. In New York City, the four-year graduation rate dropped by half a point, to 60.4 percent.

Elsewhere in the state, districts considered “low-need” because many students come from relatively affluent families graduated students on time 94 percent of the time.

“Our affluent children do as well as anybody,” said Regent Kathleen Cashin, of Brooklyn. “Where we don’t do well is with the poor. This concerns me because of the fact that every single large city district has gone down.”

Cashin said the declines masked more significant problems in the big cities because they came “at a time of unfettered credit recovery,” when few regulations constrained how students in last year’s graduating class could earn make-up credits for classes they had failed. (In New York City at least, more regulations are now in place.)

But other Regents said they saw more reason for optimism in the new numbers because the declines were less than they had feared.

Students who entered high school in 2008 were the first required to earn a Regents diploma by passing five Regents exams with a 65 or higher. A less rigorous local diploma option disappeared, a change that critics said would leave thousands of students at risk of dropping out.

James Tallon, who represents schools along the state’s Southern Tier, said there had been a mentality that the graduation rate would plummet.

“To me, the conclusion that jumps out is that … when we got rid of the local diploma, the sky didn’t fall,” he said about the new numbers.

Wade Norwood, from Rochester, whose graduation rate fell 2.1 points from 45.5 to 43.4, said he thought the data showed mixed measures of success. He said it was clear that some but not all students earned the more challenging Regents diploma who might otherwise have graduated with the local diploma.

“We’ve raised the floor without crumbling the foundation, but we haven’t raised the ceiling,” Norwood said.

The standards for graduation will continue to get higher. Next year, the state will begin aligning Regents exams to the Common Core standards, after tying elementary and middle school reading and math tests to the standards this year. The phase-in will start with incoming ninth graders for the 2013-2014 school year, who will have to pass a Common Core-aligned algebra exam.

“We don’t expect any negative impact on graduation rates” in the upcoming years in response to the Common Core implementation, King said.

King’s announcement, to the Board of Regents during its monthly meeting, set the stage for a press conference that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott have called for this afternoon. The annual graduation rate announcement is typically a festive occasion for the mayor, who has staked his education legacy in large part on increased numbers of students finishing high school each year.

But last year, when the city’s graduation rate flattened (showing a 0.1 point decline) after several years of steady growth, Bloomberg acknowledged that tougher graduation requirements could put pressure on the city’s graduation rate.

Students who entered high school in 2008 were the first required to earn a Regents diploma by passing five Regents exams with a 65 or higher. The less rigorous local diploma option, which for years helped prop up the city’s overall graduation numbers, disappeared, a change that critics said would leave thousands of students at risk of dropping out.

Statewide, the dropout rate last year was 3.5 percent, up from 2.7 percent in the previous two years, according to a report issued by the State Education Department earlier this spring. The increase was highest among students with special needs, whose “safety net” graduation rate option also vanished last year.

The city also made it tougher for students to earn the course credits and test scores required to graduate. City principals were required to limit the controversial practice of credit recovery, which allows students to quickly earn class credit through online work.

The city also began prohibiting teachers from grading exams taken by students at their schools, a practice seen as conducive to inflated test scores. Amid a citywide decline in Regents exam scores last year, schools that participated in a pilot of “distributed scoring” last year saw scores fall more than schools that did not. Citywide, just-passing scores fell by half.

“If you raise standards, it is going to be tougher to get everybody up to the same level,” Bloomberg said last year. “But we’re in favor of raising standards.”

Bloomberg does have some opportunities for spin when he takes the podium at City Hall this afternoon. Despite the decline, the city’s graduation rate is still about 15 points higher than it was in 2005. And two other big cities’ graduation rates fell even more: Buffalo saw its four-year rate drop by 7 points, and Rochester dropped by 3.4 points.

But Syracuse and Yonkers, which round out the state’s “Big Five” districts, saw declines that were smaller than New York City’s, King said. And the state’s overall four-year graduation rate held steady at 74 percent, he said.

Jack Cahn (center), who was disqualified from Stuyvesant’s student body president election this week, talks with a former opponent, Keiran Carpen (left), and his running mate Remi Moon.

A series of seemingly minor campaign violations cost the winning candidate for student body president at elite Stuyvesant High School the election. But with a flair for drama that conjures up scenes from the movie “Election,” he isn’t giving up.

When votes were tallied earlier this week, Jack Cahn won in a relative landslide, 447 votes to 329. But Cahn, a junior, learned he was disqualified late Tuesday night when the school’s Board of Elections, a 19-member student body, released the results.

Now, Cahn and his supporters, led by a twin brother who is also editor of the student paper, are waging a campaign to have the decision over turned. They are petitioning online, posting updates to Facebook and appealing their case to administrators, despite already getting word that the ruling would be upheld.

The saga is decidedly low stakes. It’s Regents week and most students at the 3200-student school today were focused on their exams. Many seemed only vaguely aware of the controversy and two teachers said they hadn’t heard about it at all.

Some students also said that they didn’t consider the election to have much of an impact on their school lives, though everyone agreed that a chronic lack of toilet paper and paper towels in the restrooms, a major issue in the race, was a legitimate concern.

Like most positions in student government, the role of president at Stuyvesant is primarily one of advisory. But Cahn campaigned aggressively. He pledged to elevate student voice and demand changes to some school policies, even vowing to threaten to go to the press if promises weren’t kept.

“Right now, students at Stuy have very little power,” Cahn said. “We are feeling very disrespected.”

His campaigning also landed him in hot water with the Board of Elections, which enforces the school’s 8-page election regulations. Before the election, Cahn received ”strikes” for posting too many posters in one place and leaving personal belongings in the school’s student union office.

The third violation, which was reported on election day and triggered the disqualification, was for “slander” of Cahn’s opponent. A small faction of the board made the decision based on a private Facebook message that gently criticized his opponent’s record, which Cahn sent to other candidates seeking their endorsements.

Cahn said he believed he has been unfairly targeted by the Board of Elections because he posed a threat to the administration.

“There’s a general perception that the reason I’m being disqualified is that I’m the first candidate in probably four years that anyone has seen that actually stands a chance of strengthening student government,” Cahn said outside the school on Friday. He wore a suit because he was planning to meet with administrators again to discuss his appeal.

Cahn said that he had ambitious plans as president, which included setting up a way for students to evaluate teachers online. That proposal, he said, drew criticism from one teacher at the school who called him “anti-teacher” while campaigning.

In some ways, the controversy is the latest incident in a long history of activism at the prestigious school that has occasionally rankled the administration. Often, that activism has been channeled through the century old student newspaper, The Spectator. In 1998, a 16-year-old Micah Lasher was part of an editorial team that published articles criticizing the policy of filling teacher vacancies based on seniority. The administration eventually shut the paper down until Lasher launched a successfu campaign to get the paper restored. For Lasher, it was the first of what would become many disputes with education bureaucracy.

Cahn’s brother, David, started a petition on Change.org that has 250 signatures calling on the principal, Jie Zhang, to overturn the decision. And while David, editor of The Spectator, has recused himself from the paper’s coverage because of the conflict of interest, articles and op-eds published to its web site have been favorable to Jack.

The controversy has also been fodder for debate on Cahn’s Facebook page, where students involved in Stuyvesant elections, both past and present, have argued over how the election was handled. Some said the Board of Elections abused its authority by enforcing rules for petty violations.

“Even though these rules might be antiquated and might seem unfair, we can’t change the rules in the middle,” wrote a former board chairman who has since graduated. “It is as if the judge changed the rule in the middle of the soccer game.”

Zhang heard Cahn’s appeal and upheld the Board of Education’s decision on Wednesday.

“We recognize that the BOE, like all organizations, is imperfect, nevertheless it serves as a vital buffer between the school administration and the election process,” Zhang wrote.

In her email, Zhang, who did not respond to requests for comment, said she hoped that Cahn “will accept this decision with dignity, and will find other ways of serving the school.”

But Cahn said he would keep fighting and hoped that support from his opposition would help his case. Keiran Carpen, a sophomore who ran as vice president on the opposing ticket, said that he was prepared to concede the victory, a source of disagreement between him and the new president, Eddie Zilberbrand.

“As much as I want to win … I just don’t think it’s fair to win on these grounds,” Carpen said.

A chart prepared by the Department of Educations shows the proportion of children screened for gifted programs who were deemed eligible, applied, and were offered a seat in a program in the last three years. The department offered seats in gifted programs to fewer applicants this year than in the past.

A smaller proportion of applicants to city gifted programs this year will get good news in placement letters that the city mailed today, nearly a month after it was originally supposed to notify families.

After the city changed its policy so that eligible applicants are no longer guaranteed seats in gifted programs, just 68.5 percent of applicants were given one, according to data that the Department of Education released today.

Last year, 82.7 percent of applicants were given with seats, down from 87.2 percent in 2011. (Applicants were only guaranteed seats in the past if they ranked every gifted program in their district, which is why not every applicant ended up with an offer.)

The lower placement rate means that fewer children were offered spots in gifted programs this year than last year, even though the number of students meeting the city’s standards was significantly higher. The tally of eligible children rose sharply after Pearson, the company that administered the screening tests, revealed that it had made major errors in calculating the scores.

The errors delayed the admissions process by weeks and could cost Pearson its contract with the city. A legal challenge to the city’s methodology for calculating giftedness further delayed the admissions decisions.

Department officials said they had made fewer offers in part because less than 60 percent of families offered seats last year ended up taking them.

Officials also cautioned that gifted programs should not be viewed as the only way to get a high-quality education in the city.

“We try to make offers to as many families as possible, but our gifted and talented programs are just one part of the wide menu of school options we’ve created for parents,” said a Department of Education spokesman, Devon Puglia. “A great neighborhood school or program can deliver instruction that is just as good as any gifted and talented program.”

The most email newsletter of Democracy Prep Public Schools touted Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations secretary general, as the speaker for the charter network’s first high school graduation ceremony. He joins dozens of other prominent people who will appear at city schools’ graduations this month.

The secretary general of the United Nations joins luminaries in media, the arts, and public service as speakers at city graduation ceremonies this month.

Ban Ki-Moon will speak June 24 at Democracy Prep Charter High School, which is graduating its first class this year. Recruiting the graduation speaker was a feather in the cap for Seth Andrew, the charter network’s founding director, who is stepping down at the end of the month.

Among the many Ray Kelly, the city’s police commissioner, and Salvatore Cassano, the fire department commissioner, are each speaking at high schools with a focus on public safety. A Baltimore Ravens football player will speak at a Manhattan school that serves many transfer students. And in a coup that is likely to excite teachers, Jad Abumrad, host of NPR’s “Radiolab,” is speaking June 24 at Lyons Community School in Brooklyn. 

Chancellor Dennis Walcott will speak at 20 graduation ceremonies, four more than then 16 he appeared at last year. He will appear at elementary, middle, and high schools; selective schools and ones that accept students who have flunked out before; schools that prepare graduates for work as well as college; and two charter schools, including Democracy Prep. Walcott will also share the stage on June 24 at the Cinema School, which is also graduating its first class, with James Murdoch, a top deputy at NewsCorp to his father, Rupert Murdoch.

The city also released statistics about high schools’ top graduates:

For the Class of 2013, there are approximately 398 valedictorians. Of these students, 66% percent are female, 48% percent speak a language other than English at home and 74% percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

Those statistics are mostly identical to those posted in each of the most recent years. Some of them also mirror national trends: Estimates put the proportion of valedictorians who are women at over 70 percent. The proportion of valedictorians who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, however, is 9 percentage points higher than in previous years. Citywide, poverty has been on the rise among students and their families.

The city’s full press release about the graduation speakers is below.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS FOR NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ GRADUATION CEREMONIES REPRESENT THE ARTS, BUSINESS, AND GOVERNMENT

Artists, business leaders, authors, educators, actors, and government officials this month are coming to New York City’s public schools to congratulate and offer words of wisdom to the graduates of 2013.

Here is a list that highlights some of the graduation keynote speakers by date of the graduation and school:

June 20

Rob King, vice president of editorial, print, and digital media at ESPN – Business of Sports School.
Robin Roberts, ABC’s “Good Morning America” host – Young Women’s Leadership School, Harlem.
Lauren Velez, television actress – Leon M. Goldstein High School.

June 21

Wendy Williams, media personality and author – Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology.
Salvatore Cassano, FDNY commissioner – FDNY High School for Fire and Life Safety.
Charles Rangel, United States congressman – PS 79 The Horan School.
Christopher M. Livaccari, director of education and Chinese language initiatives at the Asia Society – East-West School of International Studies.
Dr. Ricardo Fernandez, president of Lehman College – High School of American Studies at Lehman College.
Jennifer Raab, president of Hunter College – Hunter Science High School.

June 24

Raymond Kelly, NYPD commissioner – High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety.
His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General of the United Nations – Democracy Prep.
Grace Meng, United States congresswoman – Francis Lewis High School.
Hakeem Jeffries, United States congressman – Transit Tech Career and Technical Education High School.
Mary Wittenberg, president and CEO of New York Road Runners – Gaynor McCown Expeditionary Learning School.
James Murdoch, deputy COO of Newscorp, and Katherine Oliver, commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs – The Cinema School.
Chris Canty, defensive end for the Baltimore Ravens – Murray Hill Academy.
Jad Abumrad, co-host of NPR program Radiolab – Lyons Community School.
Clem Richardson, New York Daily News columnist – Channel View School for Research.

June 25

Dr. Joseph Polisi, president of the Juilliard School – Frank Sinatra School of the Arts.
Vanessa Williams, actress, singer and dancer, and Will Chase, Tony Award-nominated actor – Bronx Theatre High School.
Cheryl Wills, NY 1 news anchor – Unity Center for Urban Technologies.
Daniel Reed, president of the NBA Development League – Manhattan Business Academy.
Dr. Pedro Noguera, urban sociologist at NYU – Academy for Language and Technology.

June 26

Ann Tisch, founder and president of the Young Women’s Leadership Network – Young Women’s Leadership School, Astoria.
Nancy Giles, CBS Sunday Morning contributor and actress, Jamaica High School.
Maher Nasser, Director, Outreach Division, United Nations Department of Public Information – CSI High School for International Studies.
An-My Lê, artist, 2012 MacArthur Grant winner – Bard High School Early College, Manhattan.

Keynote addresses by Department of Education officials:

Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott – Hospital School Program, June 13; D75 Program at JFK Jr. School in Queens, June 14; PS 3 Margaret Gioiosa in Staten Island, June 18; Urban Institute of Mathematics in the Bronx, June 19; P.S. 219 Kennedy-King in Brooklyn, June 19; GED Plus, June 20; OACE Nursing Program, June 20; J.H.S. 57 in Brooklyn, June 20; P.S. 196 in Queens, June 20; P.S. 86 in Queens, June 21; LYFE program, June 21; Tompkins Square Middle School in Manhattan, June 21; The Cinema School in Manhattan, June 24; Kingsborough Early College School in Brooklyn, June 24; Democracy Prep Charter High School, June 24; University Neighborhood High School in Manhattan, June 24; Queens High School for Information, Research and Technology, June 25; New Dorp High School in Staten Island, June 25; Bard High School Early College (Manhattan & Queens), June 26; Explore Charter School in Brooklyn, June 26.

Chief Academic Officer and Senior Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky – International High School at Lafayette in Brooklyn, June 21; High School for Excellence and Innovation in Manhattan, June 25.

Senior Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg – Uncommon Charter High School in Brooklyn, June 14; Sunset Park High School in Brooklyn, June 26.

Deputy Chancellor Corinne Rello-Anselmi – Hospital School Program, June 13; P.S. 108 Philip J. Abinanti in the Bronx, June 20.

General Counsel Courtenaye Jackson-Chase – Hellenic Classical Charter School in Brooklyn, June 25.

Deputy Chancellor Dr. Dorita P. Gibson – ReStart Academy Program, June 19; OACE Nursing Program, June 20; GED Plus, June 20; The BELL Academy in Queens, June 21; Kingsborough Early College Secondary School in Brooklyn, June 24.

For the Class of 2013, there are approximately 398 valedictorians. Of these students, 66% percent are female, 48% percent speak a language other than English at home and 74% percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.

New York City teachers fared slightly better than teachers in the rest of the state on metrics that will now factor into their annual ratings.

In the city, 8 percent of teachers received ratings of “highly effective” on their state growth scores for the 2011-2012 school year, compared to 6 percent in the rest of the state, according to data that the city released today. Another 76 percent of city teachers netted “effective” ratings, compared to 77 percent in the rest of the state.

In both the city and the rest of the state, 6 percent of teachers received “highly ineffective” ratings on their growth scores.

Growth scores calculate students’ improvement on state math and reading tests, adjusting for the students’ past performance, the performance of similar students, and the reliability of the exams. Starting next year, under the city’s new evaluation system, they will count for 20 percent of the ratings of teachers whose students take state math and reading exams in grades three through eight. (The state had planned to adopt a different formula and increase the weight to 25 percent but appears likely to drop the plan for now.)

The new numbers support city and union officials’ argument that new teacher evaluations that weigh student test scores, which will be produced next year for New York City teachers for the first time, are unlikely to result in large numbers of teachers receiving low ratings. Two consecutive “ineffective” ratings could trigger termination proceedings under the law.

The state released the teacher rating data to districts back in August, nearly a year ago, and teachers who received the scores got a chance to the view them in December. In the future, the public will get a window into the scores, but in accordance with a law passed last year, only aggregate data will be available and parents will have to ask their principal for access. The state is supposed to shield all information that could allow people to link ratings with individual teachers.

A chart in the audit released by Comptroller John Liu released today into selective schools’ high admissions practices shows that some admit students who do not meet their selection criteria.

The Department of Education will increase monitoring of city high schools’ admissions practices after an audit by Comptroller John Liu found opportunities for abuse, and possible evidence of it.

Every year, eighth-graders in New York City rank up to 12 high schools that they would like to attend. And the city’s more than 500 high schools rank the students who apply, in accordance with criteria that the schools themselves set. Then the city runs an algorithm and students are matched with a school.

The architect of that algorithm won a Nobel Prize last year for his work. But Liu’s office concluded that the department’s lack of oversight meant that selective schools are able to accept students who do not meet their admissions criteria while turning away others who do.

Examining admissions data from the most popular selective high school in each borough, Liu’s office found that 8 percent of more than 4,000 applicants were chosen despite not meeting the criteria that the schools themselves set. The audit also found that the schools used selection criteria that were different from what was published in the city’s annual high schools directory.

About a quarter of applicants are placed at schools that are permitted to screen their students. Schools look for a range of characteristics, including high test scores and grades, good attendance, a strong performance in auditions and interviews, and high-quality essays and work portfolios.

“Our audit confirmed what many frustrated parents and students have long suspected: The city’s high-school placement process is often unfair and deeply flawed,” Liu said. “Applying to high school is an important and stressful enough experience for students and parents, and it must not be left to a sloppy and random system like the one our audit found.”

Liu, a mayoral candidate who as comptroller has turned a particularly keen eye on the Department of Education, recommends that the city tighten oversight of schools’ admissions practices. ”In the absence of reasonable controls to monitor the ranking process performed at schools, there is a significant risk that the ranking process will not be carried out in a fair and consistent manner,” the audit finds.

In their formal response, department officials agreed to increase oversight of the admissions process, committing to audit a sample of schools’ student lists annually to make sure that the schools adhered to their selection criteria.

“NYC DOE will intervene when schools are not adhering to their published criteria,” wrote Marc Sternberg, senior deputy chancellor for strategy and innovation.

The department has already begun stepping into the admissions process at selective schools that do not rank enough applicants to fill their seats. Rather than letting the schools handpick applicants to round out their entering class, this year the department simply began assigning students. The policy change drew fire because the schools were being made to enroll students who did not meet the admissions standards and in some cases had not even completed the application process.

A department spokesman, Devon Puglia, said that while Liu’s audit highlighted some areas for improvement, it also ignored the ways in which the city’s high school admissions process succeeds.

“You would never know it reading this report, but transparency in high school admissions has never been greater,” Puglia said, noting that about three quarters of eighth-graders are typically matched with one of their top three high school choices.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew and NYGPS spokeswoman Zakiyah Ansari proposed new testing and accountability measures.

A common criticism during campaign season has been that standardized testing plays too large a role in city schools. Today, some who have made the claim most loudly backed up their rhetoric with policy proposals.

In a press conference on the steps of City Hall, the teachers union and New Yorkers for Great Public Schools, a coalition that formed to oppose the Bloomberg administration’s school policies, outlined steps that the next mayor should take to end high-stakes testing and improve the Department of Education’s school accountability system.

The city should stop using a single test to admit students to gifted programs and specialized high schools, where allowed under state law, said UFT President Michael Mulgrew and NYGPS spokeswoman Zakiyah Ansari. They also said the next mayor should lobby in Albany and Washington, D.C., for policies that would minimize the role of testing and overhaul the city’s school report card system to weigh factors such as teacher satisfaction and class sizes.

Today, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio stood alongside Mulgrew and voiced his support for the proposals, calling them a roadmap for “hearing the voices of parents” who are the “first stakeholders in this equation.” Other leading Democratic candidates — former comptroller Bill Thompson, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Comptroller John Liu — also sent in statements of support.

The proposals come just days before the union is scheduled to endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary. De Blasio is seen as a leading contender for the nod, along with former comptroller and school board president Bill Thompson.

Mulgrew pointed to the Bloomberg administration’s school progress reports, the A-F letter grades that have been given to schools since 2007, as a chief driver of the need for change. In elementary and middle schools, test scores fuel 85 percent of schools’ grades.

“We have the most focused test prep in the entire country because of the progress reports in New York City,” Mulgrew said.

Most Democratic mayoral candidates have said they would stop issuing the letter grades if they became mayor. But few have said how they would instead hold schools accountable and communicate information about them to the public.

Under the proposed accountability system, schools would be measured on “learning environment, student and teacher satisfaction, student outcomes, attendance and suspension rates, course offerings, class sizes, graduation and college readiness rates, and more,” rather than focusing on test scores.

The reports would allow the Department of Education to identify struggling schools, prioritize them, and create a “school improvement infrastructure,” which would involve getting input from teachers, students, and parents to improve the school, according to the proposal. The Bloomberg administration’s approach has been to close low-performing schools, a strategy that all of the Democratic candidates have said they would move away from.

In response to the proposed changes, DOE spokesperson Devon Puglia said schools, teachers and parents today have “more information about school quality and student performance than ever before.” But with new Common Core standards in place, the systems need to evolve, he added.

“That’s why we’ve strengthened our assessment and accountability measures, including many of the steps that New Yorkers for Great Public Schools suggests, such as expanding the use of performance-based assessment and broadening the range of information available to parents and used to prioritize support for struggling schools,” he said.

The progress has alarmed officials at the State Education Department, who assumed a bill to restrict data-sharing was dead. It has also raised concern among education groups whose members would be in charge of administrating the law.

Education Chair Catherine Nolan breathed new life into the issue last week when she nixed an old bill that had languished in the committee since March, despite picking up support from more than 60 lawmakers. She introduced her own, less extreme version, which sailed unanimously through the committee on Wednesday. With less than a week left in the legislative session, the bill’s chances of becoming law this year are slim, but the momentum means that it could be an issue next year.

Both versions aim to empower parents to decide how their child’s data should be shared with third-party vendors working with their school. The original bill would have required parental consent for student data to be shared, while Nolan’s bill would assume that data can be shared unless parents opt out of making their child’s information available to vendors.

The bills respond to growing concerns that a new database being used by the state, called inBloom, won’t adequately protect personally identifiable student information from being made public. The Gates Foundation developed the database to reduce the burden of data management on school districts and states. But districts can also decide to let private companies that it contracts have access to the database to help them develop their own education software, an arrangement that parents in New York and elsewhere have questioned.

“We think [the bill is] a reasonable compromise,” Nolan said. “We want to give parents options, but we also have to give school districts flexibility.”

But state and district education officials said the bill would do the opposite. They said the bill would cripple schools’ ability to function because data collected for many core services are managed by outside vendors.

“Everything from course scheduling to transportation to school lunches to high school transcripts for college applications would be impacted,” said State Education Commissioner John King. “The proposed bill would render virtually impossible — or extraordinarily more expensive — much of the day-to-day data management work of schools.”

Nolan’s bill would require that parents have access to an itemized list of services outsourced to private vendors at their school so they can choose which vendors can access their students’ data.

State officials said vendors could balk at working with districts in the future if they are required to build data management systems that must account for students whose parents have opted them out of certain data points.

Superintendents and the New York State School Boards Association are also opposed to the legislation.

“Districts have been providing data to third-party vendors for years without controversy,” said Bob Lowry, a spokesman for the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

Lowry said he worried that schools with students who opted out of sharing data for basic services required by law, such as busing and special education, would need to figure out how to deliver those services in-house, which he said could be a steep challenge.

“You might not be able to ensure that they get these special services,” Lowry said.

The city and state teachers unions did not respond to requests for comment.

Nolan said the law would not cause the sort of administrative headaches that critics are predicting. She said parents deserve the right to know about and control what kinds of student data vendors use.

“We really care about student privacy,” Nolan said. ”We think an opt-out is a reasonable thing that can be administered by state ed and school superintendents.”

Chances that the bill gets passed into law before the legislative session ends next week are extremely slim, since there no version of the bill in the Senate.

It’s unclear how the bill will proceed in the Assembly, despite its initial support. Speaker Sheldon Silver has previously indicated that he would not support legislative efforts to restrict data collection by third-party vendors.

A spokesman for Silver did not respond to requests for comment.

Ellen Driesen (pictured far left), a teacher at P.S. 69 and a UFT representative for District 20, marched with other UFT members to demand what they said would be a fair contract from the city.

A steady stream of blue flowed down the Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday afternoon as union teachers marched in solidarity with more than 100 other labor organizations that are without contracts for the first time in New York City’s history.

Public school teachers haven’t had a contract, or a raise, in more than four years since it expired in 2009. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew has said that either Mayor Bloomberg or his replacement will have to find the money to pay his members more than $3.2 billion in back wages.

“It’s time, it’s overdue,” said Rosalina Vazquez, a school librarian. “Not just for the UFT, but for all the unions. We’re here as one, united.”

The teachers ended at City Hall Park where they joined police, fire fighters, sanitation workers, nurses and other public employees who make up the city’s 300,000 workforce for a rally calling on Bloomberg to negotiate back pay in their contracts.

Bloomberg has refused to consider back pay in any contract negotiations, a condition that has stalled talks and led to the widely held assumption that his successor will inherit the issue.

The mayor has said the city can’t afford retroactive raises because it would cripple finances at a time when the local economy is still recovering from the recession. City estimates project that backpay would cost $7.8 billion in 2014, with the biggest payout going to teachers.

Union leaders point to annual budget surpluses, which exceeded $2 billion each of the last two years, as an example of fiscal stability for the city and a reason for Bloomberg to at least consider backpay in negotiations.

“I think it’s important that working conditions be fair and that there be a place for the middle class in New York City,” said Carolyn R., a teacher in Brooklyn who declined to give her last name. “I’ve lived here all my life and I really don’t feel like I belong here any more.”

Wednesday’s event was a rare show of solidarity for city labor, which has been fractured recently in its mayoral endorsements. District Council 37, the city’s largest union, endorsed John Liu; a coalition of police unions picked Bill Thompson; and the healthcare workers union is backing Bill de Blasio.

Members of the United Federation of Teachers marched on the Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday afternoon to rally for fair contracts. (Photo by: John Capuano)

The UFT is endorsing next week, but it is expected to back Thompson. As they marched to City Hall on Wednesday, several teachers said they’d go along with whoever the union’s pick is.

“We have to stay united,” said Rich Mantell, a math teacher at M.S. 68 in Brooklyn. “We have to make sure we support somebody who … ultimately will win.”

Michael O’Shea, a social studies teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School, said he can’t vote because he lives outside of the city. But he said his top picks would be Thompson or Anthony Weiner.

Ellen Driesen, a teacher at P.S. 69, said she was undecided, but added that she didn’t think that was such a bad thing.

“It’s really going to be a tough decision because there are wonderful people running,” Driesen said.

Our readers have told us that they want even more ways to get the latest New York City school news from GothamSchools. So starting today, we’ll be sending out an email every weekday with our Rise & Shine headlines, highlights of our reporting, and other bonus content including snapshots from city schools.

(E-mail us with pictures of events, classes, or field trips from your school, and you could wind up in the newsletter yourself.)

Check out the first newsletter we sent out this morning, then subscribe here if you didn’t already get it.

If you already subscribed to the automatically generated email summary of each day’s reporting that comes out every night, we’ve added you to the newsletter mailing list. But we’ll continue to offer that feature, which you can sign up for at the bottom of this page. Feel free to subscribe, or unsubscribe, to either.

Also, as some of you may have noticed, we’ve started a GothamSchools Tumblr page that features bits of news from around the city and from our reporters’ notebooks. Soon we’ll be integrating the short-form news into our website, but for now you can follow it here.

Both of the big changes are part of an even broader set of improvements we’re planning to the way our wonderful readers can interact with GothamSchools. After five years of operation (this week!) we’re in the early stages of preparation for a new website design, and we are also working on new initiatives that will bring our reporters in contact with our readers even more often. We’ll be calling on you for specific advice about how to improve GothamSchools in the coming months — but feel free to start offering your two cents now!