Changes to Arizona’s A-F School Letter Grading System Announced – Feedback Wanted!

A-F Committee Recommendations

Since 2010, Arizona has used an A-F letter grade system to measure school performance. Recently, the Arizona State Board of Education formed a committee made up of education officials, advocates and policy experts to update the A-F school letter grading system. The goal of the A-F Accountability Ad Hoc committee is to recommend to the State Board of Education what measures should be used to determine a school’s letter grade (examples include proficiency rates, growth, graduation rates, etc.) and how much each will count in the new system. The Committee has been working to develop two A-F models – one for grades K-8 and another for grades 9-12.

These ratings have been the most publicized and tangible indicator of school quality for parents and the public. One of Expect More Arizona’s priorities is to ensure the A-F accountability system is a good measure of the contributions of teachers and schools, includes growth, and provides clear and actionable information to parents, teachers, community leaders, business leaders and the public.

To learn more about the draft accountability frameworks, click here.

Your Input is Needed

During the month of March, 17 townhall meetings will be held throughout the state to gather public input on the draft accountability frameworks that have been developed.

If you are an Arizona teacher, administrator, parent or someone who cares about education, this is an important opportunity to ensure the revised A-F school letter grading system will be a fair and accurate measure of how Arizona schools are performing.

Since AzMERIT student test scores still comprise the majority of the new school grades, a big focus for the committee will be on how it calculates proficiency and student growth (the increase in students’ test scores year over year).

Here are a few questions to consider when providing input on the draft frameworks:

• Are the draft A-F frameworks clear and understandable?
• How will proficiency be measured? Growth?
• How can the A-F accountability system best reflect the contributions of teachers and schools to support student success?
• What measures can be put in place to ensure that low letter grades don’t overwhelmingly correlate with high student poverty rates?
• How can the A-F accountability system effectively capture how well a school is doing in addressing the unique needs of special education students, English Language Learners and other subgroups?
• Given that a school’s letter grade is just one indicator of how schools are performing, what other information should be presented in School Report Cards so parents and community members have a more comprehensive understanding of how schools are doing?

A-F School Accountability Plan Public Meetings

It is free to attend any of these public meeting and registration is not required, but we’d appreciate it if you would let us know if you plan on attending.

If you are unable to make it to a meeting, you can also submit your feedback directly to the State Board of Education.

Please contact Geoff Esposito, our Director of Policy and Programs, at geoff@expectmorearizona.org if you have any questions or need more information.