A big part of a school’s score on the annual Progress Report, just released for high schools last week, is based on the progress its students make on state exams. Schools get extra points if their lowest-performing students make progress. Seems like a sound idea since it gives schools an incentive to work with the students who need it most. But as always, the devil is in the details.

The lowest-performing category is based on students’ 8th grade test scores. But what about a school like Sheepshead Bay High School where more than 450 students have no 8th grade scores? The answer is: no extra points for these recently arrived immigrants’ without test scores.

Some of those students may be high-achieving students who just need English language skills, but others arrive illiterate in their own language, having skipped several years of school due to family hardship, war or natural disasters. That makes academic progress even harder.

A struggling school like Sheepshead Bay, which got a D on its report card, has many students who have arrived recently from countries such as Haiti, Guinea and Pakistan, and the school doesn’t get extra credit for bringing those students up to grade level.

The Education Department points out that they do get extra points for raising the performance levels of special education and English language learners. But that still doesn’t put them on a level playing field with other schools who are getting extra credit for making progress with low-performing students who went to 8th grade in the city.