By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BROOKLYN — This year’s School Progress Reports (unofficially known as School Report Cards) are out, and once again parents and school administrators are shaking their heads at the results.

An astounding 98 percent of all city schools earned an A or B this year, up from 78 percent last year. Fully 84 percent of elementary and middle schools earned A’s, up from 38 percent last year, and 13 percent earned B’s. Roughly 2 percent earned C’s, and less than 1 percent earned F’s.

The Progress Reports are meant to help parents, teachers and administrators understand how well their schools are doing and compare them to other, similar schools.

Last year’s Progress Report scores were criticized because they appeared to be unrelated to actual achievement in the city’s schools. A number of schools considered academically desirable received C’s, D’s and even F’s, while some schools known to be persistently dangerous received A’s and B’s.

All of last year’s F schools got A’s or B’s this year. Only two schools received F’s: Washington Heights Academy and Harlem Link Charter School. Schools that receive F’s face “leadership changes or closure.�

Reports Depend Heavily on State Test Score Improvement

The progress reports are based on several factors but depend heavily on how much individual students’ test scores have improved since the prior year. Brooklyn Heights’ popular P.S. 8, rocked by a score of F last year, scored an A this year — improving in every category, but especially in the category of student progress on the state tests.

P.S. 8 Principal Seth Phillips gives little credence to either grade — last year’s F or this year’s A. “You fundamentally have to question any system that gives 98 percent of schools A’s and B’s,� he said. “Though I think we’re an excellent school, an A should be difficult to achieve. Parts of our school are an A school, parts are not.�

He told the Brooklyn Eagle that he believes the state tests “were absurdly easy and the results were not reflective of the work being done in most schools. Even the state acknowledges that scores were far too high this year.�

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said Wednesday that the City will “once again increase the minimum score required for schools to earn an A, B, C or D.�

He tacitly acknowledged the disconnect. “I’m thrilled that so many schools earned an A by meeting the ambitious standards we set last year, but we still have a lot more work to do,� he said. “These results mean 84 percent of our schools made great progress this year, not that 84 percent of our schools are perfect. We won’t be satisfied until we have 1,500 great schools.�

Besides P.S. 8, other schools throughout Brooklyn showed dramatic grade inflation: P.S. 38 in District 15 improved from D to A; and Brooklyn School for Global Studies in District 15 improved from C to A, as did P.S. 261 in District 15. P.S. 29 in District 15 went from a C to an A; P.S. 12 in District 17 moved from a D to an A; and I.S. 340 in District 17 improved from an F to a B.

P.S. 260 in District 19 shot up from an F to a B; The Frederick Douglass Academy in District 19 went from an F to an A. P.S. 150 in District 23 went from an F to an A.

The near-perfection of this year’s grades put fear into a District 15 principal: “What happens next year when the scores go down?� she asked.

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