The State Board of Education and the Michigan Department of Education are about to publish letter grades for each of the state's 4,015 public elementary, middle and high schools. These grades are part of "Education Yes!", Michigan's new school accreditation system. The familiar ABCD/F grades of their youth will provide parents and the public with a summary measure of a number of school quality indicators, including test scores, attendance rates and parent involvement levels. The grades handed out by the state will be based on an extensive set of data, more data than has ever been available to the general public. Results from the most recent State of the State Survey (SOSS) show a sharp downturn in public confidence in the quality of public schools both locally and statewide. Overall, respondents gave their local schools higher grades than they gave schools across the state, a pattern which held true in every geographic area in the state. Grades from those with children under 18 years of age were comparable to grades from those without school-age children, but other results were more delineated: people who live in small cities, suburbs or rural areas rated local schools higher than the state system as a whole; urban respondents rated the state system barely more favorably than their local schools; less than one in six African-Americans give their local schools a favorable grade, compared to three of five white respondents; those without high school diplomas were least likely to give favorable grades; high school graduates and those with technical or junior college degrees were most likely to grade schools favorably; those earning $70,000 or above were most likely to give positive grades; people varied in their opinions by political affiliation. The widespread decline in favorable grades for schools both locally and statewide revealed by the 2003 SOSS results indicates a significant swing in public perception because the 2001 results were higher than those recorded in 1998. It is noted that the observed swings in grades awarded by the public may reveal more about changes in public perception of schools than changes in the schools themselves. If the grades schools awarded by the state under "Education Yes!" largely coincide with parent and community perceptions of their schools, confirming popular impressions with data, the state runs the public relations risk of irrelevancy: by telling people something they think they already know, people may conclude that the state has little new information to offer that might help Michigan schools improve their performance. If state grades for schools differ significantly from public opinion, the grades awarded by the state must be robust enough to withstand challenges to their accuracy: if lacking validity, the state risks the charge that the accreditation system is fundamentally, perhaps fatally, flawed. However, if state grades for schools differ from public perception, and that they come across as both credible and as helpful to parents and communities in understanding what is really happening (or not happening) in their schools, state grades may help citizens make accurate and informed judgments about their schools and what can be done to make them better. The theme of No Child Left Behind and "Education Yes!" is accountability, and evidence-based decisions about school improvement. If school grades can prompt educators and the public alike to shift from relying on anecdotal impressions and memories about their own schools to looking at factual evidence and recent trends, both within schools and across the state, they will have served a valuable role in improving education in Michigan. (Contains 2 figures and 5 tables.)