Panel backs end of school grades

Indiana

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Indiana Toll Road rates increase for some July 1

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INDIANAPOLIS – A Republican-controlled state Senate committee agreed Wednesday with the new Democratic state schools superintendent that Indiana’s A-F grading scale for individual schools should be scrapped.

The unanimous vote by the Senate Education Committee backed Superintendent Glenda Ritz on one of her top campaign issues last year.

The Senate bill would throw out the A-F grading system that was issued for the first time in 2011 and have the state Board of Education develop a new system for tracking school improvement.

No one defended the grading system during Wednesday’s hearing on the bill to repeal it.

The bill now goes to the full Senate for consideration.