“Assignment of School Grades Arbitrary and Capricious”

Without the inclusion of learning gains, said Rosanne Wood, retired principal of SAIL High School, “these grades say more about zip codes than about how much students learned after they walked in the door.”

While SAIL often earned an “A” under the accountability system, Wood, a longtime critic of the school grading system, still describes school grades as “arbitrary and capricious.”

“One day your school is a D, the next day it is a B,” she said. “The only thing that changed were some arbitrary lines in the sand, drawn by folks who have no idea whether the school is a good one or not.”