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The accelerating 2009 mayoral campaign is distracting from real information inside an audit of city graduation rates released by the city comptroller’s office today. In fact, the audit is neither as damning as Bill Thompson Jr., the comptroller and mayoral hopeful, is claiming — nor as unequivocally rosy as the Bloomberg administration says.

Thompson said the audit suggests that principals and teachers responded to pressure to raise graduation rates by falsifying student records. “The New York City Department of Education has become the Enron of American education, showing the gains and hiding the losses,” he said at a press conference today.

But the audit found no evidence of tampering. Thompson’s declaration about fudging numbers came in remarks to reporters, not the official audit. “Is it just about sloppy bookkeeping or sloppy record-keeping? I don’t think so,” he said. He added, “This is a case where you can read between the lines.”

The audit also concludes that only 2 out of 206 randomly selected graduates, or 1%, did not deserve their diplomas. That’s quite different than the 10% figure being widely reported. Auditors initially challenged 19 graduates, or 10%, but threw out the concerns about 17 of them after school officials provided documents showing they earned their diplomas. And 11 of the 19 had overall grade averages of 80% or better, according to the audit. (more…)

While lawmakers in Albany battle over how much to limit the mayor’s control of the public schools, a City Council member from Brooklyn is zeroing in on another part of the city school system he wants revised: the parents’ “bill of rights” — which apparently exists! Bill De Blasio, who is running for public advocate this year, is using the bill of rights to illustrate his argument for a “bottom-up” rather than “top-down” approach to improving public schools.

The current version of the list, created by the Department of Education and published on the department’s Web site, includes five rights that parents have (the right to file a complaint, the right to “be actively involved”) plus seven responsibilities (they must send their children to school “ready to learn,” they must keep track of their children’s performance, they must treat educators with respect).

The version drafted this week by Bill de Blasio, a City Council member from Brooklyn, outlines 10 rights that would give parents much wider latitude to participate in policy-making (plus the crowd-pleaser right to a “reasonable approach to cellular phones.”)

De Blasio has been telling supporters that he would improve the city schools by using the public advocate’s office as a kind of organizing arm of government that would empower parents to get more involved in improving their schools — and to supply them with the information required to do that.

De Blasio explained his position at a recent fundraiser in Harlem tied to education issues that I attended, where supporters brought toys to donate along with cash for the campaign and De Blasio’s two children, both public school students, made an appearance.

Here’s the full bill of rights, below the jump: (more…)