Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 Receives Progress Report Grade of C for School Year 2007-08

Image of Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 from Geocities

The NY Times reported that:

The number of schools receiving A’s under New York’s much-contested grading system increased significantly this year from last in what Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said was a clear sign of success and evidence that his signature accountability program was spurring improvement at schools across the city.

Unfortunately, The New York City Department of Education progress report grade for Roosevelt Island's PS/IS 217 for the 2007-08 school year was a C. According to the report:

• This school's overall score for 2007-08 is 47.4
• This score places the School in the 25 percentile of all K-8 schools Citywide–i.e., 25 percent of those schools scored lower than this school
• This school did not meet its improvement target from last year

Here's more on PS/IS 217 including last year's grade of B and improved reading scores reported for most grades in 2008. Why the decline? Is this an indication of poor performance or a function of a flaw in the grading methodology used by the Department of Education?