The Arizona Department of Education just released the spring 2024 assessment results, and the data show little to no progress among students.
For English Language Arts, it's a 40% passing rate, which matches results from the previous year. For math, the passing rate was 33%, coming in one point higher than the previous year.
See our coverage from last year here.
Students in grades 3-8 are tested in what’s called the Arizona Academic Standards Assessments, or AASA, and then numbers also include 11th graders tested on the ACTs.
According to the data, for math, 33% of Arizona students passed; for English Language Arts, or ELA, the pass rate is 40%. This is not much of a change from last year. ELA results stayed the same, whereas in math, it went up one percentage point.
"I think we are still feeling the effects of the pandemic,” said Tina Chastely, an assistant professor of reading and literacy in the College of Education at Northern Arizona University.
Pass rates in math and ELA improved steadily from 2015 to 2020. From a 34% pass rate in ELA to 42%. Math assessment pass rates followed a similar trend.
No assessment data was released for the pandemic school year and when kids were tested again in 2021, ELA pass rates dropped four points to 38% and math fell nine points to 31%. Since 2021, assessment pass rates for both subjects have improved two points.
Districts are still working to bounce back from the pandemic. Higley Unified is at least one district that’s improving after the pandemic, though its scores are still lower than they were at pre-pandemic levels.
Marcus Berkshire, the district’s director of teaching and learning, says 55% of the students tested passed math and 61% passed English Language Arts (ELA).
"Last year, we had a very strong focus on intentionality. The idea was let's really be sure intentional about what materials we're using with kids to ensure that they are appropriately aligned to what we want kids to know and be able to do on a daily basis,” Berkshire said.
Historically, districts with a higher number of disadvantaged students have lower scores.
The Phoenix Elementary School District is one that had passing rates come in below the state average. The district had 19% of its students pass math and 27% pass ELA.
“We serve a very diverse community and with the diversity come with an incredible host of needs, both academically and socially that we're working to address,” said Seth Aleshire, the chief academic officer for the Phoenix Elementary School District.
Both Higley Unified and Phoenix Elementary saw at least one to three percentage point increases from the year prior.
Chaseley said it’s “normal” for scores to move slowly.
“Most researchers suggest that it takes three to five years to see any kind of sustained changes in the state assessment data from instructional interventions,” she said.
In the Phoenix Elementary School District, Aleshire said they’re working on creating a task force formed of students, staff and parents to help improve math education for middle schoolers.
“That task force is going to be coming out with recommendations for our superintendent and for our board,” Aleshire said.
In Higley Unified, Berkshire said they tried out a new assessment platform two years ago to help better prepare students and educators.
“The advantage to that is that it has a very robust bank of items that allow our teachers to really understand the construction of the state test and what we are looking for in terms of evidence of learning on that state test to help us understand is our instruction appropriately aligned to what kids are expected to be able to do,” Berkshire said.
Both school district academic leaders say it’s important to remember that the spring standardized test is only one assessment of many that students take throughout a school year.
“What we try and emphasize with all our schools. It’s like a portfolio. You don't want to judge any one child by one test. We don't want to judge any one school by how they do just on this one test. There are so many things our school do every single day for these kids,” Aleshire said.
