In 2004, the article goes on, “at least 500 third-graders who sat for the reading test had reviewed multiple choice items on practice exams that were used in the test.  At that time, the test was developed by the city and questions were recycled from old exams.”  In fairness to Mayor Bloomberg, I remember taking exams in the 1960’s where questions were taken from previous tests and we used to discuss that in advance.  What concerns me now is that the people of New York have been taken by the mayor and his team of educators.  He won the election claiming that he had improved the test scores, but if all he did that year was recycle test questions and teachers all over the city were teaching toward the test, it seems to me that many more students may have had access to the same questions during the school year.  The whole procedure from start to finish seems to indicate that we could invalidate the scores of the whole city.  Many students could easily have learned the answers on those multiple choice questions without even really knowing the content.  I see students who remember all of their wrong answers weeks later on GED practice tests.  I would suggest to all parents that they have their children tested on the skills that were on the test in 2004 to find out how much those children actually learned and retained.  That would be the best way to determine if Bloomberg has really been successful.  A much more informed mayor would never have recycled the test questions and then gone after the heads of teachers who used previous practice tests in classroom instruction.  We cannot turn back the clock to 2004, but I think we can invalidate his accomplishments.