Congratulations are in order to Chan cellor Joel Klein after Gotham’s schools claimed the Broad Foundation’s Prize for Urban Education yesterday.

The prize is awarded each year to a large urban school district that demonstrates “the greatest overall performance and improvement in student achievement” while reducing “gaps among poor and minority students,” says a press release from the prize’s sponsor, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

This is the sixth year the foundation has given the award – and the third straight year that New York City has been one of the five finalists.

The judges are independent, professional evaluators of school performance, so this surely suggests a trend: Gotham’s schools are indeed getting better and better.

Several factors cited in deciding this year’s winner seem to back that up:

* Last year, city gains in both reading and math tests outpaced other districts in the state with similar income levels.

* Gains by black and Hispanic students have been larger than those of whites.

* More blacks and Hispanics have been taking the SATs.

Certainly, there’s plenty of room for further improvement – as Mayor Bloomberg himself acknowledged yesterday.

And, indeed, actual progress – in terms of how good a job the schools are doing over time, in apples-to-apples comparisons – is often hard to gauge: The tests themselves vary in difficulty from year to year and from state to state. And a school district’s demographics may change over time, as well.

But school officials say the Broad Prize judges adjusted for these factors as best as possible.

And clearly Klein’s reforms – in particular, his emphasis on accountability among teachers and principals – move the schools in the right direction.

Bottom line: The Broad Prize is grounds for hope.

Keep up the good work, Chancellor Klein.