When New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein released the high school progress reports last November, he had a clear message for parents. "I'm confident that the changes we made to this year's progress reports will make them an even more useful tool for parents and other stakeholders – especially for families of eighth-graders who are deciding where to apply to high school," Klein said at that time.

But his expectation has not been completely fulfilled, at least in the Chinese community where parents pay little attention to the school's letter grade because of its weak stance on students' academic performance.

The Department of Education (DOE) launched the progress reports in late 2007 to measure the schools' performance and to hold the principals more accountable. The system mimics the students' report card, giving each school a letter grade from A to F, based on the school's environment, the students' performances on standardized tests, and the comparison of the students' performances in the current year with those that preceded it.

The three parts are scored separately through complex measurements and contribute to an overall score. But as its name indicates, the report weighs itself mainly on the progress category, which counted for more than 50 percent of the final score, with the other two categories sharing the remaining half.

The system hasn't lacked controversy during its two year history. That each year some highly reputable schools receive an F, while schools that are considered to be "failing" by the state's standard receive an A, has prompted principals and parents to question the fairness of the measurement system.

In the Chinese community, it is the report's emphasis on progress rather than pure performance that turns parents away.

When she helped her daughter fill out the application form for high schools recently, Lillian Zen, a 45-year-old administrative manager, had a clear mind. Her first tier was made of the specialized high schools, such as Stuyvesant High School, The Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Technical High School. The second tier consisted of Townsend Harris High School and Benjamin Cardozo High School in Queens.

"I don't have to look at the letter grade to know these are good schools. It's the long standing reputation that works," Zen said. "If you helped a couple of kids move from level one in the tests to level two, and you got an A because of that, well, you've done a good job, but I still don't want to send my child to you. I want her to be with level four students and get into an Ivy League college when she graduates."

Sufen Lau, a homemaker and mother of two, feels lost, more or less for the same reason. She moved to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn six years ago, and followed the instructions of the pamphlet that was circulated around the Chinese community, which ranked public schools by their average scores on the state tests. Her daughter, Sofia, was of a school age by then and P.S. 222, which was in her neighborhood, had received a high rank.

Now, 10-year-old Sophia is going into middle school, but Lau can no longer find the school rankings. "The ranking is very important. It tells you which schools get higher scores on the tests, and that's where you want your child to be," she said. She checked the DOE website and found the progress reports but was not impressed. "The letter grade doesn't mean much to me. I'd be more appreciative if it directly told me the average score the school got on the recent tests," she said.

Since the letter grade system was implemented, the DOE officials have been talking to educators and parents, making some changes according to their recommendations.

For example, the second progress reports, released at the end of last year, not only showed the overall letter grade for each school, but also the grade for each of the three categories, providing principals and parents with more information about a school's strengths and weaknesses. Also, a school that manages to keep its students' performance above a certain high mark received extra credit points, indicating how much room was left in order to make progress.

Meanwhile, even more emphasis has been placed on the progress category that previously comprised 55 percent of the overall score and now makes up 60 percent. The percentage of the pure performance category shrank from 30 percent to 25 percent.

"Our view is that the school's job is to help all students make academic progress," said Andy Jacob, a spokesperson for the DOE. "Just looking at the level where students enter a school doesn't really tell you anything about how well a school is educating the kids. But if you look at the progress the students make from one year to the next, that's a really good indication of whether a school is really helping kids learn."

That many Chinese parents have a different cultural background may explain their divergent views. "Chinese parents always follow the test scores," said Teresa Hsu, executive director of Asian American Communications, an education advocacy organization in Chinatown.

Ms. Hsu said that this tradition might result from the parents' own experiences living in China where college admission basically depended on one single test. "You can make progress over the years, but if you are still below the level of the minimum score necessary for college by the time you take that test, the progress means nothing."

Hsu said that real estate agencies and Chinese newspapers used to rank the schools based on their test scores, and the rank was like a bible for parents. But, after the progress report was launched, the ranking activities were toned down.

To be sure, not everyone in the community is against the progress reports. All the schools in Chinatown received As and Bs last year and the principals seemed to be happy about it.

"The schools in Chinatown all have many English Language Learner (ELL) students. They started at a low level but we have worked very hard to move them up. Nobody credited us before, and now we got a better grade for it," said Lily Woo, principal of P.S. 130, which for the past two years received an A.

Pauline Chu, president of the Chinese-American Parents' Association, also gives the grading system a thumbs-up, although not totally because of its emphasis on progress.

"To grade a school by the progress is part of the DOE's adoption of the management of the corporate world. For corporations, growth is the most important barometer for achievements. I don't think schools should be run that way," Ms. Chu said. "But I don't think schools should be ranked only by one test score either. Parents should look at the scores over several years, the environment of the school, the quality of the teachers and many other aspects. The progress reports at least provide some additional information besides just the scores."

This article was written as part of an education reporting fellowship granted by New York Community Media Alliance.