Defining Diplomas Down

Mayor de Blasio and state-ed czar MaryEllen Elia must think New Yorkers are all products of Gotham’s failing schools — and unable to see through their graduation-rate happy talk. “Our kids are graduating . . . at record rates,” boasted de Blasio, as the state on Wednesday released last year’s graduation rates. Elia called statewide figures “positive,” arguing they continue the state’s “upward trend.” Don’t buy a word of it. Sure, the four-year graduation rates

sound encouraging for both the city (74.3 percent) and state (82.1 percent). Gotham’s number is technically the highest ever.

But the city’s gain over last year, based on the official numbers, is a mere 1.2 percentage points. The state’s is just 0.7 points.

Anyway, it’s easy to goose the numbers if you’re not so concerned with graduates truly knowing what they should. At some schools, diplomas are handed out like teeball participation trophies.

Fact is, school brass know the grad rates are seen as a measure of their performance, so they go out of their way to jack them up, regardless of what kids actually learn.

The Post has reported extensively, for example, on the city’s sham credit-recovery courses that pave the way for kids to get a diploma without meeting all the standard requirements. The state Regents also made graduating easier by letting kids who fall behind substitute an arts test or a skills certificate for a fifth Regents exam.

Plus, the Regents passing score is 65, but kids who get as low as a 60 can appeal. Chalkbeat cited 1,932 appeals in 2017.

“Once standards have been lowered,” Boys and Girls HS principal Bernard Gassaway noted last year, “graduation numbers are no longer valid measures of students’ achievement.” Brooklyn College Education Professor David Bloomfield also warns that “widespread data manipulation can cast doubt” on the official numbers.

The proof, of course, is in the low college-readiness rates. Based on Hizzoner’s own data, a third of grads are unprepared.

Here’s what’s so alarming: If Elia and de Blasio are boasting about results like these, what hope is there for New York’s kids?