The Iowa Policy Project has launched a website, Grading the States, that critiques organizations that rate the economic health of states and generate rankings. “While useful state rankings do exist, the four most prominent ‘business climate’ rankings — cobbling together widely disparate, and often irrelevant, measures to construct an index number — are at best meaningless, and at worst a state ranking designed to make the case for policy positions advocated by the sponsoring organization,” according to Grading the States. Peter Fisher, research director for Iowa City-based Iowa Policy Project, will provide the analysis. Grading the States was created in collaboration with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The site will be managed by the Iowa Policy Project.