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ROBERT TOBIAS, who holds the none-too- relaxing job of overseeing
standardized testing in the city's 1,100 schools, will resign this month after
33 years in the system. Mr. Tobias, who analyzes the test scores of the city's
1.1 million schoolchildren and tries to explain fluctuations from year to year,
told Schools Chancellor HAROLD O. LEVY that he was leaving for personal reasons.
Mr. Levy has appointed LORI MEI, Mr. Tobias's deputy, acting testing director
while he conducts a search for a permanent replacement. It was Mr. Tobias who
essentially discovered the scoring error by a national testing company that
mistakenly sent thousands of city students to summer school in 1999.
Abby Goodnough
Too Many Teachers, for a Change
As the Board of Education is lamenting a shortage of qualified teachers, one
of New York City's hardest-to-staff districts, an area in East New York of poor
black and Hispanic families has found itself in the odd position of having hired
60 to 70 more teachers than it needs. "In my own mind, I think he may have
been a victim of his own success," ANTHONY SHORRIS, a deputy chancellor,
said of VICTOR R. RODRIGUEZ, the superintendent of District 19. As a so-called
breakthrough district, which awards bonuses to teachers and principals who raise
test scores, District 19 was encouraged to hire second-career and foreign
teachers, Mr. Shorris said, and many came. The excess teachers, Mr. Shorris said,
will be put into substitute pools or offered other jobs in the system; none will
be laid off.
Anemona Hartocollis