Article: Keeping the ABCs in the classroom and off the report card; are letter grades really important? One upstate New York district not only thinks they aren't, but is eliminating letter grades in favor of a benchmarking system. (district profile).(Niagara Falls (N.Y.) City School District)

What is insane? In Niagara Falls, N.Y., residents are used to crazy behavior. Besides the disconcerting monthly suicides, there are the stunts. People have walked tightropes over Niagara Falls, gone over in barrels, big plastic balls, kayaks, even jet skis.

But to Niagara Superintendent of Schools Carmen A. Granto, insane is something else. It is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to differ. It is sending home the same report card, quarter after quarter, and expecting parents to get more out of it than they do.

So, Niagara is not doing the same old thing anymore. Like the falls itself, the district is working its way upriver, ...

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