I'm just going to go ahead and call it The Big Lie.

Because that's what is has always been.

The Big Lie.

For all 25 years I've spent in this corner of the world and for 25 before that, too.

The refrain has gone like this: How is New London ever going to get better as a city if the schools are lousy? Better schools are essential. Fundamental. Necessary. The only thing that'll make New London more attractive.

The Big Lie.

Because this just in: The schools aren't lousy anymore. They're improving daily both quantifiably and anecdotally. And still ... still ... still ... we endured the recent squabble over a proposed $1 million in budget cuts, some (or all) of which might have actually happened were it not for a legal technicality. All wrapped with inane social commentary that, once again, gives our kids that inspiring message, "what you do isn't good enough."

It is the worst form of societal hypocrisy.

So let's get this straight: The schools are told to get better for the greater good of the city. They do. And they're still subject to cuts that would only detract from the product for which city leaders and taxpayers have pined since, what, the Nixon Administration?

Pass the barf bag.

Readers often ask me why I write about New London kids so much. Answer: Because they need it. It's called, as New London attorney Susan Connolly says, "giving a voice to the voiceless." This is how I've perceived New London kids over the years: the voiceless.

I've written about them mostly through sports. This year, though, I've ventured off the sports page a few times. Some highlights:

• An innovative math program called "Teach To One" that's sending test scores through the ceiling, raining plaster on everyone below.

• A video games league New London kids inspired that marries something kids love with practical learning.

• Three New London kids — educated in the city — going to Coast Guard Academy next year.

• "Bridge-building" between the kids and the city's police officers through a basketball game and now a dodge ball game on Friday, fostering actual relationships between the kids and the police.

• Three New London grads — Derek Rock, Mike Morgan, D.J. Exum — using the educational skills and concepts of loyalty they learned here to help people at Sound Community Services, a mental health agency, on Montauk Ave.

• The inspiring Roman family that's already sent two kids to Yale and daughter, Spencer, who helped the Whaler girls to a state basketball championship.

• A "scarf bomb," in the winter, during which New London kids placed scarves throughout the city to keep anyone who needed one warm.

There are more.

Makes you wonder, though: Do they really, truly resonate? Aren't these people, the ones who play the role of overburdened taxpayer better than Olivier played King Lear, paying attention? Notez bien: Your administrators, teachers and kids are doing what you've asked for the last umpteen years: get better. So where is the societal quid pro quo?

And what, exactly, makes your tax money so precious that it can't — and shouldn't — be spent more on education than anything else? It's like there's resentment — a friend of mine called it creeping anti-intellectualism the other day — essentially saying this: Why pay teachers to make people smarter than we are? It's ignorance based from fear. The worst kind.

I'm not saying the school system gets carte blanche. But the benefit of the doubt would be nice. There's no denying — none, zero — things are getting better. So why all the carping? Shouldn't the entire 06320 be proud?

Unless, of course, pining for better schools has been just another hollow talking point for the last 25 years. Another means to be heard, when nobody's ever been interested in the truth above the roar.

In other words: The Big Lie.

Budget battles are hardly unique to New London. But after all the talking-out-of-your-tailpipes I've heard for the last 25 years, you might acknowledge the great things happening. And understand this is where your tax dollars belong.

With the kids.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.