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Comptroller William Thompson called the letter grades given to city schools “arbitrary” and said he would probably eliminate them if he is elected mayor. Thompson made the remarks in an exclusive interview with GothamSchools today.

The controversial reports assign each school a letter grade using a complicated formula that takes into account student test scores and responses to surveys. Critics of the reports have said that they are not statistically reliable and unfairly stigmatize good schools. Today, Thompson called the reports “foolish.”

“Information about schools is important,” Thompson told me. “I think that we’ve seen how arbitrary these letter grades are and I probably would not keep letter grades.” (more…)