During his three terms as mayor –12 years–Mayor Bloomberg developed a data-driven strategy for school reform that relied heavily on high-stakes testing to close schools and replace them with small schools or charter schools. He eliminated neighborhood high schools and even neighborhood middle schools. “Choice” and test-based accountability were the central themes of his reforms.

The school closings were an annual ritual. Thousands of parents and teachers protested the closings but were routinely ignored by the mayor’s Board of Education, whose majority served at his pleasure, knowing the mayor would fire them if they bucked his wishes.

He closed scores of schools and opened hundreds of new schools. Some of the schools he closed were “new” schools that he had opened.

By the end of his tenure, polls showed that no more than 22-26% of voters approved of his education policies.

Many, it seemed, wanted a good neighborhood school, not a cornucopia of choices.

Yet at a recent discussion of the Bloomberg reforms, a report was released hailing this era of “reform” that the voters rejected. What was strange was that the report praised the Bloomberg era for what it did not demonstrate.

“Perhaps the mayor’s greatest education legacy is the belief that good public schools for all are possible,” the researchers, from the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, write in an introduction. ”Yet the challenges, including resource challenges, remain huge.”

Not many teachers or public school parents are likely to endorse that statement.

Sadly, Bloomberg did not create a system of good public schools for all, nor did he encourage the belief “that good public schools for all are possible.” Instead, he promoted the idea that those who wanted a good school should leave the public school system for a privately managed charter school.

That heroic task is now on Bill de Blasio’s to-do list.