The Florida board of education approved rule changes last week making it tougher for schools there to get top grades.
After complaints that the proposal for revising Florida’s A-to-F school grading system was unfair and would result in unnecessary failures, Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson made revisions.
Mr. Robinson, for example, agreed to drop a plan for giving an automatic F to a school if less than a fourth of its students read at grade level. Instead, such schools will drop a letter grade. The board also agreed to delay that change until next year.
The grading system will include all disabled students and English-learners, except those who have been in the United States for less than a year. That will satisfy requirements of a federal waiver to the No Child Left Behind Act.
