The New York City school district is unlike any in the nation in two distinct ways: there is no real school board here (I often tell people we have a “fake school board–they laugh…), as the mayor has complete control of the schools; and the sheer number and frequency of reforms instituted by the city since 2003 would be hard to imagine anywhere else. That being said, bits and pieces of what is being tested in New York are either being done elsewhere, or have been done elsewhere, no matter what the NYCDOE might proclaim as being the first to have done it all.

The NYCDOE, known to most New Yorkers as “Tweed,” named for Boss Tweed, has in fact come up with something that no other school district has thought of, or would be allowed to do, if governed by a school board: it has created the “Truth Squad.”

Eduwonkette has a good blog entry and a link to some articles about it.

Big Brother (that’s as in George Orwell, not the CBS series) IS watching, and it’s not just FISA.