FOR THE RECORD

The Health and Hospitals Corporation's decision to enter into a $100-million agreement with a Caribbean-based medical school to provide clinical training for students in the public hospital system attracted front-page coverage in the New York Times Aug. 5 and a cautionary editorial from the paper two days later.

One union source, who spoke conditioned on anonymity, said the 10-year deal with St. George's University School of Medicine in Grenada was unlikely to affect the 11 public hospitals under HHC's banner, describing it as primarily a financial and logistical battle among medical schools.

The Times piece quoted some local medical school officials as expressing alarm that the deal would harm the quality of medical students working at HHC, contending that the curriculum at St. George's is less rigorous and many of its students are children of wealth whose grades weren't strong enough to gain admittance to U.S.-based schools.

But while questions about St. George's medical program back in 1985 led the State Education Commissioner to bar its students from working in New York hospitals, the quality of education there has substantially improved, and the Times piece noted its students are "routinely" accepted at city hospitals now. The main changes are that, under the contract with HHC, the number of students from St. George's who will be trained in the city system will quadruple, and as a result, there will be fewer slots open for students from local medical schools.

The deal with St. George's is unlikely to markedly affect the quality of the med students, our source said, and the contract will not only bring in added revenue for HHC but make the local schools less demanding in their future dealings.

***

Mayor Bloomberg, speaking at a press conference about school crime Aug. 5, went off message during his question-and-answer session and launched suddenly into a tangential tirade about Albany and an unnamed union that blocked his Teacher tenure reforms this spring.

"We cannot allow the same disgraceful thing that happened in the middle of a budget season last year, where in the middle of the night, without any hearings or notice, they did the bidding of a union and just inserted language in a bill that prevents our school system from judging Teachers on the basis of whether they can teach, on results," he told reporters. That language prohibited student test scores from being used to deny Teachers tenure.

"You have to do a good job to keep your job. So do I. Teachers should do the same thing," the Mayor said to the assembled journalists. "We have a tenure process; it's traditional in education. But it shouldn't go to you automatically; it should only go to you if you're doing a good job and have the potential to even improve."

"A law that limits our ability to measure that is an outrage," he added. "And the Legislature and the Governor all should be ashamed that they were part of it." Despite the fact that most of the Mayor's tenure reforms were blocked, tenure denials in schools have risen markedly the last two years due to increased attention from his administration.

***

Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch is again calling for the state to deny parole to two men who shot and killed a police officer in 1980.

On Aug. 14, 1980, off-duty Police Officer Harry Ryman tried to prevent three men from stealing a neighbor's car when three men shot him. Officer Ryman returned fire, striking one of the shooters, but later died. "Police Officer Ryman was, by all accounts, exactly what we want in our Police Officers," said Mr. Lynch.

Barrington Young, Paul Ford and Cornelius Bucknor were arrested at a hospital where they sought treatment. Mr. Young and Mr. Ford are eligible for parole this year, with victims' testimony given Aug. 8. Mr. Bucknor is eligible for parole next year.

"It will be 28 years ago [this Thursday]that these miscreants took the life of a beloved police officer, husband and father," Mr. Lynch said. "I've said it before and I firmly believe that there is no rehabilitating that kind of evil. These cold-blooded cop-killers should never be permitted to walk among civilized society again."

***

We mixed up two District Council 37 locals' titles last week in a story about Governor Paterson's veto of a bill requiring City Assessors to swear an oath regarding the accuracy of their property tax roll. The correct name of the local headed by David Moog is Assessors and Appraisers Local 1757.