You can bet that the talk of the sidewalk outside of PS 321 today will be the B grade the school received from the Department of Education.

I’m betting that those in the know will be explaining what the criteria was for the grading system. That, it seems to me, is the most important thing.

Elissa Gootman and Jennifer Medina reported in Tuesday’s New York Times that the DOE’s calculations were complex and that the most weight was given to how students at each school IMPROVED in a year’s time on standardized tests. Final school grades were based on a curve. Most of the schools earned A’s or B’s.

Those that received F’s and even some of the 99 schools that received D’s, could be closed or have their principals removed.

Still, for Park Slope parents, a B is not a good grade. And many will want to know why the school they know and love didn’t receive an A.

I am guessing that Principal Liz Phillips has already written a letter to the parents with a thorough explanation of the criteria for the ranking. She is always sensible and smart about these sorts of things. The official report card will be given to the parents at next week’s Parent/Teacher conferences.

Some of the best schools in the city got B’s. PS 321 along with PS 234, 6, 87, 41. All B’s. Their student’s test score didn’t change enough from one year to the next. As if that were the only way to judge a school or a student.

For shame.

Everyone knows there is so much more to learning and so much more to being a great school. Report cards are reductive things. As are a buracricies reliance on quantiative ways of assessing things. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

How high did you score? How much did you sell? How much do you make? How much? How much?

It’s the American way.