_ Update _: The scores for New York City schools and charter schools have been posted.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein celebrated the city's gainson English Language Arts test scores in Washington, D.C. yesterday even as the State's new Regents head, Merryl Tisch, characterized the same gainsas "moderate" -- a perfect object lesson in how the same set of numbers can be used to support different points of view.

The biggest news, according to the Department of Education's Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott at yesterday's press briefing, was an 11-point gain from 2007 to 2008 -- the largest single-year gain since annual state testing of third through eighth-graders began in 2006. Rises in middle school scoreswere attributed by the DOE to its middle-school initiatives -- in place for less than six months when the actual tests were taken. Officials also credited the abundance of data-driven analysis made available to schools, and the hard work of teachers, principals and the city's parents.

Neither official could dismiss the role of test prep -- which Bell-Ellwanger characterized as "test sophistication," a term Walcott praised and adopted -- in the rising test scores. "If they're familiar with the [state learning] standards, they do better on the test," said Bell-Ellwanger. "It's about skills-building." Walcott added. "Just because students know how to take the test -- there's nothing wrong with that. We all take tests in life. Now, more and more students, especially students of color, are becoming more sophisticated. We're preparing them for the rest of their lives." (Former DOE testing czar Robert Tobias, now an NYU professor, told the Daily News, "It's kind of like how you get to Carnegie Hall - practice, practice, practice.")

Statewide trends showed a similar rise in overall scores, as did scores in other big cities. Scores in Buffalo outpaced scores in New York, and scale scores -- the actual number that places a child at the bottom, middle, or top of the four proficiency levels -- showed more modest progress. As ever, girls outpaced boys on the standardized exams and younger students scored higher than middle-schoolers (even with the rise in middle school scores). The storied gap between the races, which had loomed at over 30 percent in years past, has lessened over time, to a 26 percent gap between black and white eighth-graders and 27 percent between Hispanic and white eighth-graders.

It's hard to know how to receive news that proficiency scores for students with special needs and those who are English Language Learners have "tripled" since 2002. On first hearing, that's great news -- but looking at the stats, only about a third of children in each subgroup earned scores that were proficient or better (level 3 or 4), news that's much less encouraging than it might first appear.

This afternoon the Chancellor is back in town, after joining the Mayor and strange bedfellows Newt Gingrich and Rev. Al Sharptonyesterday for a meeting with President Barack Obama, to announce ELA scores for New York City's charter schools. Stay tuned.