The ethic of “vote early, vote often” seems to have insinuated itself tenaciously into New York City schools. Just as corrupt politicians of yore (but not, alas, all that yore) would trawl the cemeteries for names to put on the voting rolls, so it now turns out that several New York City schools have been habitually inflating student attendance figures—a primary factor in determining how much state aid a school receives. Governor George Pataki said that a state investigation had uncovered “patterns of widespread, systemic abuse” in reporting attendance figures to the state, which in turn has cost the taxpayer millions. In one case, The New York Times reported, a student died in the summer but was kept on the school rolls for the entire academic year. He was even issued report cards. (Doubtless he got an “A” for deportment.) To put the scandal in perspective, the report noted that if city schools inflated ...

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