La. School Grading System Temporarily Stalls

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is divided on the development of a new letter-grading system for Louisiana's public schools.

State lawmakers are requiring BESE to devise a system that assigns letter grades from "A'' through "F'' to schools based on their performance in the state's accountability program.

A BESE panel delayed action Tuesday on Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek's recommendations for the grading system amid complaints and confusion about the grading scale. The full board is expected to discuss the matter again Thursday.

Pastorek suggested a system that would have had 6 percent of schools graded "A," 6 percent of schools given an "F'' and the other schools divided among the three letter grades in between.

One BESE member called Pastorek's proposal too tough, and another called it too lenient. Other members suggested it needed tweaks.