Give Gavin Newsom a shiny red apple! In an interview with this month's San Francisco Magazine (in blatant disregard of another interview with the Gavman in 7x7, which was optimistically labeled "exclusive"), the mayor told the reporter, "You know, five years in a row I have increased test scores. No. 1 urban school district in the state of California." As the wags at the Chron have pointed out, was Gavin sneaking into classrooms to go over the times-7 tables when no one was looking? And how exactly was he increasing test scores in those first three years when he was serving on the Board of Supes?

Folks at the SF Unified School District (which runs the schools and is independent of City Hall) are all agiggle over the statement, with the president of the teacher's union saying, "I'm glad that he wants to take credit for the work that the teachers and paraprofessionals (classroom aides) have done," and saying that they'll be sure to charge Newsom union dues next year. Superintendant Arlene Ackerman, who really was running the schools, said the comment seemed strange. And in any event, Eric Mar on the school board says that Newsom shouldn't be bragging about the schools in any event, given that Latino and African-American kids are falling behind. The school board also released a report about the trend of resegregation within the district too -- not good.

To be fair, everyone in the district did say that Newsom really has done a lot for the schools since taking office, and the test scores in SF are rising steadily -- in fact, the SF average score is now 745 (with 800 considered excellent), outscoring LA (649), Sacto (688), and San Diego (726). Still, though -- we totally want to be in Mr. Newsom's homeroom class!

Okay, the picture has nothing to do with schools, but look at Gavin with Mario! We found the picture on a blog.