Several years ago in this space we noted the inanity of a city Department of Education rating system that deemed a New York City high school with a 96 percent graduation rate, 97 percent attendance rate and 100 percent passing rate for English and math Regents exams merely “proficient”. (The highest rating of “well developed” went to schools that showed improvement in these areas; apparently no approbation could be accorded a school that demonstrated no need for improvement.) We questioned how much of the $14,119 (as of 2005) expended on each and every public school student in the state of New York went to pay the consultants who dreamed up this harebrained scheme. We did not get an answer.

Now the new federal School Improvement Grants program dangles some $66 million over the course of three years before the New York City school system. The Department of Education could be forgiven for salivating at the thought of that kind of money, and we could not in conscience fault the DoE for actively pursuing it. The grants program, however, requires that principals of struggling schools be dismissed from heading the schools at which they achieved these results, no matter how high their and their schools’ ratings might happen to be, in order for the city to collect up to $6 million in federal funds for each school.

Once again, this time at the federal level, we are confronted with a program that rewards mediocrity and then goes one better—punishing the principals of the schools with ratings showing improvement by putting them out in the street. The principals of at least two Queens high schools are in danger of losing their jobs under this program: William Bassell at Long Island City H.S. and Denise Vittor at Queens Vocational and Technical H.S.

Long Island City H.S. is a near neighbor and we follow its progress closely. School superintendent performance ratings for 2008 and 2009 noted that the school had exceeded its targets for both years. The school earned three Bs on its report cards. While we do not have statistics ready to hand, we can point to several years’ worth of press releases and announcements of accomplishments in a number of subjects and fields of endeavor that overwhelmingly indicate that wonderful things are happening at the school. Good schools have good principals and there is every reason to include Bassell in that category.

Similarly, statistics posted by Queens Vocational and Technical H.S. on the city Department of Education Web site indicate that in 2009 applicants for several of its programs such as plumbing, electrical and business careers exceeded seats available by at least 50 percent. Graduation rates rose from 58 percent in 2003 to 73 percent in 2009. Students want to enroll in this school and want to meet the standards necessary to earn a diploma from it. The school garnered two Bs on its latest report cards for obvious reasons. Vittor is plainly a good principal and leads a good school.

Judging by the numbers alone, Bassell and Vittor deserve the high ratings their schools have earned. Under the rules of the School Improvement Grants program, however, Bassell and Vittor must be dismissed from their positions, as must principals at nine other similarly ranked schools throughout the city, in order for the DoE to receive the federal dollars.

Academia differs from the business world in several respects, but this one astonishes us. In the world outside the classroom, merit is rewarded. Apparently in the world governed by educational bureaucracy, the reverse is true. Do badly and keep your job, do well and lose it. We seem to have fallen into looking-glass land.

The Department of Education is said to be “actively working” to find a middle ground between the equally unattractive prospects of losing federal dollars and losing good principals. We can only hope that common sense will prevail, whatever the compromise that is eventually reached.